I don't know what's the downfall of being informed. >> Well, I meet with people all the time. I mean, I've had >> four this week. >> Maybe it is with >> and I I was thinking it was that the staff person wanted to meet with you as a board, they would submit that in writing. >> I thought so, too. That way that that it was if the superintendent >> for whatever reason decided to not fulfill that request, they had it in writing that that they made the request. it then it says who will help bring the matter forward to the board. >> Yeah. >> So maybe that's where I was saying it was that >> right. Yeah. And I was confused too. So I wanted to make sure I was super clear on what you guys were wanting there. >> Well, I mean we definitely want to add in it needs to the request needs to be in writing.
What am I doing over here? Um, and I I think it's important that people know that Aubrey and I we speak and that we are on the same page and that, you know, there's only two principles in this corporation. I want everybody to know that we like each other. We get along, we interact with one another. uh you know if there's an issue in my building I'll call her up or I'll go over and talk to her and let her know hey I'm going to tell you everything I can tell you and that way we we're on the same page. So again for me it's the students and it's the training. >> I'm going to jump over to Deputy Tman. So when we're fortunate you're at Clinton Prairie, Deputy Newman is over here at Clinton Central but also um Frankfurt City. I appreciate Chief Shoemaker being here.
And I going to be honest, I don't blame him. All right, both have taunt it and it's time to get Oh, and it's time to get started. >> And a land mine planted right there. >> Yep. And Yoshi went into his egg and immediately destroyed it. Whoa. >> There's a forward there and lands another landmine. Oh, before Yoshi landed a hit on the landmine. Said this land is mine. >> Yep. >> Oh, fishing. >> Oh, it's magic. does a does a pot and another forwarder and another forer and another well actually that was a back air does forer does a down smash he's only at 6% that's a really good percentage to be at oh and launches Yoshi and manages to punish with that gets another stock >> nice is on his aame today >> he certainly is and I can't say >> and I can't say I blame him for being on his aame cuz like I've said before like this is a pretty serious match does a neutral air.
Um whether it's it's you know, the the 504s, whether it's you know looking at, you know, Mike potentially having to do some of the grant funding that that Jen would do. Um the you know the Metro West Adolescent Health Survey, we used Jen would run that at the high school and the middle school level. Well, that has to be done now either by it used to be done through the administrators. So, some of it will just fall back on. I just want to touch base there. So, I just got to hold on this until you kind of got to the 13.2 thing that's in there, but just since you're talking about SEL now, I just you know, I've I've raised it in our prior conversations, and and I want to be sure that the rest of the committee members including you have sort of the benefit of um some of the stuff you shared with me cuz I had a a one-on-one conversation with Jim about this position and my concern.
Uh and when you get to middle school and high school, uh you just can't fit three students to a seat. Uh and therefore it's uh two per seat, which is the standard for middle school uh and uh uh high school students. Uh we looked at operational expenditures. Uh we look at uh the transportation expenditures. We look at uh the transportation expenditures as a percentage of the district budget. Uh and this is a a desi uh benchmark that typically uh they use uh to uh determine whether a school district uh is spending more for transportation than they should be could be. Uh and often times if there's a question uh they'll call us and they'll ask us to go out to the district and investigate. Uh in your case uh over the past four years your transportation uh has increased a modest uh 5.88%. Uh and that's a that's a modest number uh compared to your district budget which has averaged about a 6.26% increase over the same amount of time.
Uh typically uh you you you would like to that to be at about the 70% range. Uh you want some excess capacity on your buses so that when a driver is out and and a bus has to do a a a double route, you want some capacity to be able to do that. Uh the last thing you want is to have kids sitting at the school for an hour for a a bus to finish a route and turn around and come back. So, you want to be able to spread that load over several buses and have that capacity. That's why we don't recommend that you go to anywhere close to 100% uh scheduling in capacity. Uh you have some relatively long routes already that you're running. The longest route you're running in the morning is 76 minutes. Uh, you're running 66-minute routes in the afternoon.
Uh can I just say one thing? I just want to say that um we invite parents to all of our board meetings not just to the meetings that we're going to be doing on site. Um I think that celebrating the school is to be there is to celebrate that school and and that's um the intention of it and to um allow a more comfortable space for people to come and participate in that. Um and if it means that we have to go to them cuz they don't tend to come to us as we look around um and we had a spotlight our school tonight and we didn't have that that that big of a turnout. Um and I would love to see more people celebrating their schools and and and being more a part of that. So that that's my intention. It's not to inconvenience anybody.
I think that helps parents. Um, maybe the only other thing I could think that might help with the awareness building and anxiety reducing because I think at the end of the day it does come down to safety is what parents are most worried about. My kid went off to middle school. First thing we did with my older one, slap a smartwatch on her. I didn't want her to have a phone, but I wanted to know that I could find her if I needed to. Um, I'm wondering if maybe we can just reiterate the safety protocols when things like that happen that all parents get a rooc call or that there's a text if we have a situation where we're evacuating or sheltering in place and that not to come but this is what's happening and through email parent square what however but let them know what those are so they know that they can count on that system and I know we do like drills and like tests of those notifications systems and so maybe even before the D-Day um that that happens so they know they can trust that that might be another way to help calm some of the calls that you're going to get from parents but thank you I think the rollout plan is >> probably more robust than I've seen in a while so I appreciate it I know there's been a lot of thought to it because you know the resistance is there >> oh I just wanted to add um Dr.
Does anyone have any questions? No question. I was glad that there was already a resolution about the cafeteria issue. So, thank you for that. Yeah, I I don't have a question, just a comment that once again, our students are so expressing themselves in understanding what's going on uh with them and with their schooling process. And uh thank you to the administrators that coordinate those input sessions. One thing I was kind of surprised um by was the comments regarding the the drills. And um just some of the confusion and maybe the anxiety that those bring. So, I feel like that's a fairly there's a fairly easy solution to that. So, I'm just hoping we could implement some some extra drills into the the um schedule so that they can feel more comfortable with those. Seems pretty easy like an easy solution. It's it's I'm going to say the drills but more importantly or to add to it is the importance of Mhm.
Do we want to reward that? Because it is confusing. Staff may request a meeting with the superintendent. But is that meeting? >> I mean, we can write the whole rewrite the whole paragraph to meet with the superintendent and then meet with the the board. >> Yeah. To me, it's implied it's with the board because it's staff communication to the board who will bring the matter forward to the board. >> Yeah, I was a little confused on that. So if I if April wanted if April had a concern, she would request a meeting with the superintendent and then I would bring her concern to the board. That's the way I wrote that read that sentence. But if April said, I would like to meet with the school board. >> That's what it's >> that I thought that's what you guys were kind of asking. >> Then that's not >> and I don't read that policy.
Uh, when does law enforcement when are they involved? When are they not involved? What are things that I guess same thing? What are things that concern you or what are things that you look for specifically? They said the relationship relationship with teachers, how we communicate, how we talk. You got a set of rules in your rule book. You're following that. And basically at that point, if you need an officer, I just stand back at the sense because if I put myself in situation you're asking for nine times out of 10 that's because something child a lot does that make sense so just depends the staff will be doing what the major question once that is complete. This is what we got. All right. Once I determined the crime is there to the student then I can walk away. Give them a little bit of time to have meaningful consultation.
Oh, does a down smash. Attempting to read the role. He knew that Yoshi would roll in, but he didn't. He didn't didn't place his attack right. Unfortunately, >> he knew that was coming. >> He knew he knew. That's one thing that uh these players are really good at. They can pick up on people's habits and punish them for doing it. >> You know, he knew that the Yoshi was going to roll in, so he's like, "Okay, when you roll in, I'm going to hit you now and do even more damage." >> It's a really hard skill to learn, but really good if you can. All right. Does a back air, launches Yoshi off to the left side, >> let plants another landmine, and Yep. Never let them know your next move. You just never want to let them know their your next move. Mhm. Ooh, and Oh, and Jaden placed down another landmine.
Um certainly it's for our commitment to the work, right? I mean, as a committee, as a administrative team, we really prioritized um the social-emotional learning and and the creation of this position 7 years ago or so. Really reflected that. And I said, one of the concerns I had um is that without that director-level position, we lose sort of that that person who's responsible for making sure that that continues to be prioritized within this district. Um and so I expressed that concern to Jim. And and I told him that I would sort of tee up this question because I really think it's important um that he share sort of his response cuz it was one that made me feel a lot better about this decision. So I just, you know, Jim, if you would be willing to um you know, for the benefit of the committee as well as the community, to just talk a little bit about elaborating on what you were saying in terms of how you're going to address it at the middle school, but just how you see that role and where we are now.
Uh so it's uh it it seems to to fit well. Uh we looked at the uh special ed actual transportation expenditures versus your contracted regular transportation expenditures with regard to uh the line item growths at each side. Uh and you can see that the uh uh your special ed has been reducing slightly. uh your uh contracted has been up and down uh and your pupil transportation uh which is your contracted has gone up uh in the last several years uh and seems to be dropping slightly uh whereas your contracted regular transportation uh is looking to continue to increase slightly. Uh one of the things we found in looking at uh expenditures in particular uh is that the uh district typically uh uh appropriates money from its transportation uh uh reserve account uh to uh as needed to to balance your transportation expenditures at the end of the year.
Uh, to do anything any different with those routes uh, in terms of the number of buses or the uh, reconfiguring routes uh, would probably extend those routes even longer uh, and that's not not a good practice. Typically the benchmark is uh, 60 minutes. Uh, you want to be under 60 minutes uh, with your routes. Uh, the PM routes are are much the same. Uh, capacity is a little better uh, 64%. Uh, your deadhead time and your average route time is 40 minutes. Uh, again 68 minutes is your longest route in the afternoon. Uh, and uh, your average number of stops by the way is uh, 13.7 in the afternoon or 1.2 stops uh, per mile traveled which is not a lot of stops. Uh, and especially for a relatively rural area it's it's to be expected. Um, uh, conclusion with regard to the regular transportation routes uh, you know, typically for a district uh, uh, of this size and with these demographics a student capacity ratio of 61 is and a half 61.6 is considered relatively efficient.
It's not to um to to make anybody you know go out of their way. It's for us to engage and to allow an opportunity for those communities to to also be a part of that uh celebration and engagement and other districts do it and they do it successfully. So if if other districts can do it I I know that we can we can try to make it work. It's not going to be perfect the first time. It's going to take some times to tweak and you know it's going to be maybe we have to change that and maybe this one and maybe the locations have to be selected where they're more convenient. But um we're not going to know unless we try. So you know that's my thoughts. I know the microphone is is key to any recording and audio so public will not be able to hear so I don't it would be important to know when those come in and um test them out and uh in the different environments that we're in.
McCur and I have started our LCAP student focus groups and we had one middle school that we've done so far. We still have to meet with the the other two but uh the this came up this came up with the students. So it was really interesting to hear you know what they had to say and they certainly shared that initially yeah they didn't like it you know they love their phone and they they love all the things they do with it. Um, but I I think the awareness campaign and educating them as to why this law came to be is really important because we took some time to explain to them, you know, this isn't just Baressa. This is a change that's happening statewide and and they knew that because some of them had been talking with their cousins and their cousins schools have already, you know, made transitions or or they shared, "My cousin has a pouch that they need to put their phone in." And I said, "Right." I said, "And there's reasons for that." had and we talked about, you know, um the impact that cell phones have have had on on students and we're trying to prevent, you know, overusage and all of those things.
and how seriously it should be taken. The more you practice them, the better you'll get at them. You took the words out of my mouth. Thank you for that. Yes. So, I'm just going to say I agree. Any other comments, questions? Okay. Um from the community? Yeah. All right. Carl again. I'm just wondering yeah, the students were impressive and I'm assuming that was a random sample of students drawn anonymously, not selected. Not necessarily random. They see them out in the the the campus and they ask them to join. Okay. And the other question is are um is the use of handheld digital devices ubiquitous throughout all the grades? In other words, is are there any restrictions? I'm just surprised why elementary school kids would have anything to do with artificial intelligence at school. Are they I That is all happening at home. It's not happening at school.
Yeah, I read that policy like April would tell me something and then I would bring it to the board >> and not I the superintendent. >> Yeah, maybe it is staff may request a meeting through the superintendent >> not with the superend. >> It could just be request a meeting with the board through the superintendent >> in writing. So, do you just want to strike out who will help bring the matter forward to the school board through the appropriate process? Like strike that sentence out >> and then just put um when an issue arises requiring board attention, staff may request a meeting with the board in writing or staff may submit a meeting request to the superintendent. Yeah, >> I think it should go through you and I think the request is that it's in writing. >> I like staff may request a meeting >> in writing >> with the board in in writing through the superintendent >> or maybe present it >> and then scratch out who will help bring the matter scribe that part of that sentence out.
Mommy and daddy sit down and talk. Did you do this? I tell them to knock the door. I go back in. tell you what's going on, what you want to do. He's going to give you the phone. He's going to do ABC and search for that. We work together because we don't want to be in there put the record on kids if that makes sense. Let me be clear about that. We try to make sure that that's one of the things that we even do what you all need to understand my opinion is the parents. It's parenting. Everything that you're hearing right now on it for one reason specifically talked about a couple things with the app. I want to tell you about https no escaproom.org go to Indiana Department of Homeland Security. That's where that website is. That website is for everybody. It's going to challenge.