You had to find another F and you had to find an A. And when you found FFA, you went to Miss Mson and you got you got a prize and I have kids walking around with tons of ducks in their in their hands. Um it was an absolute blast. Um they had a teacher appreciation snack cart and even uh gave away um spider plants uh to teachers. Uh these moments may seem small on the surface, but they reflect something much bigger. The the students who are thinking of others and intentionally finding ways to give back. Um during monthly chapter meetings, our FFA students have organized meaningful projects including making and donating cake kits to the Stark County Community Center uh so families can enjoy Thanksgiving together. Uh they've supported the Stark County Farm Bureau harvest meals, helped provide meals for uh meals to farmers hauling grain to into the co-op in Hamlet, and participated in district and chapter kickoff events with neighboring schools.
After any discussion, the chair will call for a roll call vote. During the meeting, commission members will keep their video on and microphone muted muted unless speaking. Applicants and representatives, please keep video off and microphone muted until your agenda item is discussed. Public, please keep your microphone muted until recognized. If you are calling in by phone number, you can use the star six feature to mute and unmute. If you need to share your screen, you may request permission to do so through the chair. When the discussion is open to the public, if you wish to ask a question or make a comment, you may request to speak by using this raise hand feature on Zoom. If you're calling in by phone number, you can use the star9 feature to raise and lower your hand. When acknowledged to speak, please state your name and address prior to speaking.
If you are interested in speaking, step up to the mic, state your name, and keep your comments to three minutes. Thank you. >> Total speaker wants. Okay. All right. Apparently, we are going to move on. So we are going looking for approval of the minutes of the regular session of February 9th, 2026. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Mr. Nunees, second by Mr. Beckwith. All in favor? >> I.
Um, and I did not hear other feedback from other uh any other members of the board. So, I can put it on the screen if we want to take another look at it. I don't know if you guys have any additional questions. Well, it sounds like if I I'm just going off the top of my head, but it sounds like the communities that the districts that do have it have higher percentages of um maybe Hispanic families in their districts >> at least demographically different. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean I would I don't know. I I certainly, you know, um Meridan um the Wallingford doesn't have the policy and they have um the Spanish community. Wallingford, I know I work there, I live there. Um Waterberry does not have the policy. >> So, it's kind of variable, I guess. Could you remind me could you remind me then I what prompted putting this on to the agenda?
>> Hi, my name is Ellie Hammond and I'm a junior. >> And hi, I'm Emma Herman. I'm also a junior. >> Uh and we are some executive members of uh the SW Next Club here at DGS. >> Yes. Um so, SW Next stands for Society of Women Engineers and Next as in next generation. So we are a club uh focused on promoting like women in STEM careers, STEM interests. Um and also we are inclusive to everyone. I mean yes it's women in the name but we are welcome like we we have everyone. We have guys everyone is welcome. Please stop laughing at me. Sorry. when you want me to advance, you can just tell me. >> We um in Sweden, we often do um we explore different careers every uh we meet every other Tuesday. Uh so we meet twice a month and so what we do is we do like themed days.
That we thrive when our physical, social, and psychological needs are met. That our community and school district are stronger when we partner with one another. That we flourish because of the diversity and variability in our community. And that our democracy and democratic institution are strengthened by civic-minded citizens. Thank you, Dr. Phillips. It's our tradition to begin meetings with celebrations of achievements and accomplishments. Uh Dr. Phillips. Thank you. It is uh my pleasure and honor to call on Mr. David Miller, athletic director of Columbus East High School, who uh looks like we'll start with >> [clears throat] >> uh our most recent from Saturday's uh state boys swimming medalist, Mr. Josh Pinney. Thank you, Dr. Phillips and uh school board for recognizing um our two athletic programs tonight. Um really my job as athletic director tonight is I get to brag on our coaches a little bit.
And as you said, uh Whitney Lloyd and Tom Glick represented the board on the committee, uh myself and Dr. Bozeman, Dr. Stallbaum from administration, and then also Mandy Keel from uh CEA uh was part of developing the survey. Uh but, I will tell you that uh School Perceptions really they are experts at what they do, um had done thousands of surveys for strategic planning, but also for referenda for districts uh in Indiana and other states. And so, I'm just going to hand it over to them tonight to run through the results, and Scott Gerard is here representing School Perception. Uh he'll uh he'll run through these results, and then we can work on questions and discussion afterwards. Scott, thanks for joining us. Thank you so much for having me, and uh board, thank you for your time tonight. Uh I am going to share my screen here.
Any questions? >> Yeah, I think this is a really great opportunity for our kids. Um Cody is here tonight in case the board has any questions. Um I believe last year this was an opportunity for the team to to earn some funding. Um but I think always even more importantly for kids to to get to experience a new opportunity and a different opportunity um is always impactful. I would like to add that um after speaking with Mr. Bulls and Sarah that we're going to give this opportunity not only to football kids but any athlete that can participate. Um we're going to use funds to help cover their athletic fees for future years for next year. So that there's going to be another incentive that if a program isn't able to go a sports team, but a kid still wants to go on these dates, we're going to help pay for their athletic fees for >> high school.
Uh, the chapter has also sent 11 students to the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis. And if you've never experienced the National FFA Convention, I would recommend it. It is phenomenal. 75,000 FFA students from across the country. Is it international or just country? >> It's across the United States and then uh the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico. It's it's it's an incredible opportunity um for them to socialize and and get to learn um agriculture on a national scale. Uh be beyond the events uh our students are learning and competing. This year Knox FFA members attended leadership workshops such as fire conference and the Indiana FFA leadership development workshop. In competition, our students participated in an entomology career development event in place 9th, which is a testament to their preparation and commitment. Uh, the chapter is planning a FFA plant sale in early May, a chapter banquet in April, and participation in multiple upcoming competitions including livestock judging, leadership development events, demonstrations, and uh, animal science and horiculture and landscape.
Public comment is limited to three minutes per speaker. Comments must be limited to the Wetlands Protection Act, Ashlin Wetlands Protection bylaw, or Ashlin Stormwater Management bylaw. Questions and comments not related to the commission's jurisdiction will not be accepted. During the meeting, the host, Becca Solomon, our conservation commission agent, will monitor the participants for raised hands and will be recording the names and addresses of commenters. Signing of documents will occur during the week after the conclusion of the meeting. For the public, if you have if you come to the podium, we have a sign-in sheet where you can put your name and address. And this is an offcycle meeting where we're handling only 40B projects. So, it's 7:04. Start at 7:05. I'll announce the first hearing. It's now 7:05 and I will introduce the first scheduled hearing. We have notice of intent 10 to 60 Main Street, map 14, parcel 128, SLV Ashland LLC, care of Lucas Environmental LLC, DP file number 95-1018.
>> Any opposed? It passes unanimously. And uh we will move on to old business which is the fiscal year 27 proposed budget for Oh, approve the minutes. Sorry. >> Sorry. >> That's good. Approval. >> No, we just did that. Isn't that >> Didn't we just do that? >> What's that? >> We just approved. >> We just did that. >> Oh, sorry. >> What was I thinking? Sorry. >> You just voted it. >> I know. >> I'm seconding something else. >> Really quick, though. Yeah, >> I didn't. >> Sorry, Beth. >> That's okay. I'm always ready to uh believe that I did something wrong. >> A Mia Copa is always >> at at my fingertips. Um, so anyway, old business uh fiscal year 27 proposed budget which was presented uh last meeting by Mr. Kylie and uh now entertaining new discussion, but I think we have some new information.
I do remember hearing that it has been something that has come up in the past. It's been tabled. Um you know why now if not the obvious answer that how top of mind this is in the news every day for everybody? Well, I think that's it, Matt. That um you know, uh the incidents in Minnesota, I think just made it fresh, uh for people and there was a request to the chair to put it on the uh the agenda >> from the chair or to the chair. >> To the chair. Mark. >> So, somebody asked Mark to reconsider this on our policy agenda. >> Yeah. I don't think it's fair to just take a look at it only because I know you you're drinking water by the way. The green bottle when you lifted it up the the background uh blurred out to for the >> record somebody could get the wrong impression and emotional you know the social media world we live in that wow those are I gotta join the policy committee.
So, we do stuff like um next our next meeting um there's 10 of us on leadership and so next meeting we're planning to do a marine biology type theme and we're going to do a bunch of activities surrounding that and we also create just like a safe space to explore anything you could want to do in the future. >> Yeah, we've had um architecture days where we >> we built Legos, we had like a shake table so like you could see which one was the most sturdy and we had a guest speaker come in. We did uh if you want to go to the next slide, we have a picture of that. Um so we've had some guest speakers. We've had um an architect by the name of Joyce Hanlin. Uh she came in and talked and she has been work she's worked on things like the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library and things like that.
Um and I'm going to talk about Coach Trueblood and his staff and and Coach Cooper and his staff together tonight. And and one thing among many many things that they do very well is they do a great job of having our student athletes doing their best, performing their best at tournament time. Um and that's tough to do. Seasons are long, offseasons are long, pre-seasons are long. Um keeping kids hungry every single day getting that 1% better every single day is is is not easy. And and they've done a great job of getting our student athletes performing at their best come tournament time. And that was evident this year. Um if you look at the wrestling program, uh dominant performance in sectional and regional, uh competed very well in semi-state against a a very tough semi-state. Um and then obviously having six um guys qualify for state.
All right. Is the presentation showing up for you all? Yes, it is. All right, wonderful. Uh so, we'll get started. So, here we are uh to deliver your community survey report on March 2nd. This is a little preview of the different types of information you're going to see throughout the uh slides tonight. So, we've got background information that's largely going to look familiar. Um it's it's mostly taken from your survey as a reminder of the content that was in your survey. We'll have survey and respondent information about who took your survey. We'll have results and analysis, of course, and then time at the end for wrap-up and questions. Uh so, as Chad was saying, uh we are School Perceptions, and we've been doing this work since 2002. Uh in that time, we've conducted more than 3 million staff, parent, student, and community surveys, including helping more than 1,300 school districts navigate strategic planning and referendum planning processes.
Correct. >> Correct. High school. But there are other sport programs that will be taking that have the opportunity to take their own programs as well. So, even though it's in here for football, if uh I know the baseball team is planning on wanting to take a group of their kids and some coaches will be going with them. So, we raised over $14,000 just last year alone for the program. We expect to do that for more the rest of us. >> So, does that work the more students you have, more money? Is that >> correct? Yep. For every student you bring, it's $150. Um, so they give back a lot of money to it and we brought on the Tuesday alone, I think we had almost 100 kids, 100 people that were down with us last year. >> 150 per day. >> 150 per per minute.
Students will also attend the Indiana State FFA convention in June and be active at the Star County Fair in June. I think what I most appre appreciate the most um is that alongside leadership and competition, service remains a priority. Plans are already in place for community trash pickup efforts and reading to our preschool students. Uh simple acts that reinforce responsibility, kindness, and connection. In short, our FFA chapter exemplifies what we want in our students, leadership, service, learning, and pride. Pride in their school and community. I want to thank Mrs. Mass for leadership and dedication, and I want to commend our FFA students for an incredible work that they are doing on behalf of KHS. So, we are very proud of you and thank you. Want >> to say anything? Can you guys introduce yourself first? >> I'm Taylor Stacey. I'm Taylor Brockett from Harper Ableton.
So at this point, I'm going to turn over the discussion to our vice chair, Mr. Carl Hackinson and he will um cover the introduction and the topics that the uh conservation commission wish to cover uh for this particular hearing. >> Thank you, Greg. Um again, this is um our first hearing for 10 to 60 Main Street, also known uh amongst the the uh towns people as the mill buildings. Um, tonight's going to be a preliminary hearing to set the guidelines for meetings going forward. Um, the applicants are uh present, but they're present on Zoom. So, I'm going to read a little bit of of uh a description of the background of the project so that uh the people that are watching, people that are present, and the people that are participating will have a background of of uh where we've been, what this actually is, the type of uh permit that it is, uh and and what the jurisdiction of the conservation commission is, uh because it is limited to a certain degree.
>> I think we do. >> Yes. Yes, we do. And and Mr. Paratt's going to um share something that that we provided to you late this afternoon. So, the um town administrator uh sent an email um this afternoon to us and we wanted to provide this information. So, he asked that um we please share that this is the maximum um this reflects the maximum that they can they can budget. You'll see we had a similar slide to this um in the presentation and in the budget packet. Uh but what we've added is the bottom three lines which are a town budget projection um the reflection of the school choice plan as it relates to town funding and the and unfunded amount. So he asked that um we share that this already takes into account several reductions on the general government side to um allow them to the ability to approve this increase.
>> It's good times. Um, okay. Yeah. I mean, this this one still for me concerns me about its existence. You know, I I did between the last policy committee meeting and this one start researching like, you know, when and why are boards sued just for the existence of a policy, right? Like it's it's one thing if something happens in the district that somebody disagrees with, you know, that on any topic and for me this is like, you know, uh a charged issue for everyone. It's very topical. It's very political. And that's not to say I come to this with an idea one way or the other, but it sounds like, if I recall from the last meeting, you said to us, "We do all of this stuff anyway. like this this is how we operate. This is how we would operate. Um there are numerous examples out there of boards of ed being sued for policies just because they exist with with nothing actually happening to ex like precipitate the event just that somebody doesn't like the policy and like I said the the legal references here I am in no position to be able to say that I understand all of these.