Um, three of the last three in a row. Oh, sorry. Three in a row. We got three second places in a row. So, that that's pretty that's pretty fantastic. Um, >> 31 30 of the last 41 years you have finished in first or second place. >> Oh, that's crazy. >> 30 of the last 41 years. >> That's That's impressive. And obviously like as being like you know the head coach of this program I've just been standing on the shoulders of uh downers groups out speech since I've gotten here and it's been a fantastic honor to do that. Um getting to work with um a staff of alumni um former program heads and competitors has been a true honor that get to work and shape the next generation of BGS speech. Um so our second place uh team this year um we had uh Jack Mey who represented our team in special occasion speaking.
The other option would be keep the same type of schedule and shift it to a different day. I would say any other day of the week other than Friday would be preferable to Monday. Um so, I put in the packet. I think we attached a uh calendar for Thursdays. Um when I was looking at this, I just asked Dr. Kachatury, if you had a day that you could pick, what would you pick? And she said Thursday. But she was open to any day of the week. When the board meetings happen is when she's going to be here, just like the rest of the team. Um Thursdays for us would give certainly more time. We could still do board packets on Friday. It gives more time for the board to be able to review. It gives a little bit more time for us to be able to answer questions.
Um so, you see two red lines, the demographic study. We have a few more items to provide to them, which we have. They followed up today with questions, very basic ones. We'll get that. And then on the core team management or team engagement, I should say, um we have to identify a district level team of administrators, which we are doing, and we'll get that back to them. But it's mostly going to include our folks in curriculum. It's going to obviously it's going to be Dana. It's going to be Dr. McRindle, um Dan with facilities, and then as we need individual building input, we will be calling people in as needed. For example, principals will be coming in when we're talking about things at CTE, and the respective principals would be um but I do anticipate as we move towards it, more and more input will be sought not only the board table, but also from our staff, um and community as well.
>> Yeah I mean they're they follow the um the meeting dates actually follow the actual board calendar. So if there was something but I think you guys already took into consideration that um fall meeting that you go to right on the Yeah that changed October 2nd. Okay so as long as that's not October 12th because if it's October 12th then we're going to change it to 6th. I think it's before that. The 5th and 6th I think. So then yeah because I know one one year that there was a problem and we'd already advertised our budget so it was like no we got to have that meeting. So >> [clears throat] >> Okay item C7 educator development initiatives. Yes this is just I would like to bring a document it's a MOU to the board in May from Indiana Wesleyan University. And so it's no secret that there's a staff shortage for teachers across the nation and in Indiana.
Those are funded by property taxes and local taxes. The debt service fund specifically goes to pay for bond debt. And then, schools can have referendums. The Central Office does not have a referendum, but that is a funding stream. Senate Bill 1, we're going to keep talking about this, too. Um, so Senate Bill 1 is estimated to save Indiana home- homeowners 1.3 billion over 3 years. While this is designed to help Indiana residents, this bill reduces funding for public entities, such as local governments, public schools, libraries, etc. You can see over the 3 years, um, and then with 2029, with our LIT funding also, um, in question there, our total potential financial impact due to Senate Bill 1 is just over $1 million in funding cuts. Um, primarily affecting our operations budget. So, let's talk about We're going to do just a quarter one review now that we've made it, um, through the first quarter of 2026.
And I don't know the answer. I'm not saying I'm for this. I'm not saying I'm against it. I'm saying I would really love to maybe some more information that's been shared with the admin. I would love to hear a little bit more to make sure that before I vote on something of this magnitude that affects every teacher and every person in this corporation, I just would feel a little bit more comfortable if we have a little bit more time to digest this. That's just my request. I want to make sure I understand what what we're doing here. So, that's my one request. Sure. Yeah, it doesn't shift any additional work to teachers at all. Yeah, we talked about that, I thought. Yeah, the additional work that will shift will go from we subcontract our state reporting and our administration services. We will take that in-house with with our district administrative assistant to take that piece over.
Second thing is also athletic related. Student leaders from Central High School's Slack group, which is their student leadership athletic council, and Harrison High School's Halt, which is the Harrison Athletics Leadership Team, recently attended an athletic leadership conference at Ascension St. Vincent. And just hearing about it from a group of young men from Central that were just really excited about the day they spent there. There was leadership development and team building. Aaron Barrett, OT Steps, Luke Zeller, Max Dedman presented to the students and had them doing some workshopping. What I appreciate about these student leadership groups is it's just their service back to their schools. In addition to being good ambassadors for their schools, they are tutoring and mentoring younger students in their high schools. They're connecting with feeder schools. They're volunteering out in our community. And they'll wrap up this year at both schools doing a a version of Shark Tank where they're pitching ideas to their school leadership teams for how they could improve their respective high schools.
And one of the things that we're really proud of this year is that we're working on student success plans for all of our ML students. And these success plans this year have been implemented for our level one language learners. Um so, the levels of language proficiency go from level one to level five. Uh level one being a newcomer, someone who's just learning the language. And so, we have this year implemented student success plans for all level one students and our goal is to have one for every student uh going forward for every ML student. And these success plans tell the teacher things that they need to know in order to address those kids' needs like how many years they've been in the country, what their hobbies are, what their strengths are, if their family needs a translator, um how many years they've been here. There's just really wonderful information that gives the teacher so much data to work from and to figure out how they're going to plan um s- instruction that's successful for them.
The community itself looks forward to seeing the district take action. Too often, our young people graduate only knowing Asian-American history as a story of victimhood, a narrative that has only become more entrenched in the wake of CO 19 and Operation Midway Blitz. However, the student demands presented to you today is an opportunity. By listening to them and taking action, you can directly challenge the antiquated narratives and uplift marginalized voices. Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> And my understanding, Wendy, is that there's already a meeting set up with Brad Smith. >> Yep. um both of Brad Smith and Kim Musaf. So both our communication arts director and our social service. >> Okay, great. Thank you very much. >> All right. Ambassador Awards. >> All right. Well, we have a very exciting evening of ambassador awards and usually at this point I am turning it over to Sarah Bowen.
Finally, the technology team continues to attend training and make improvements to our video surveillance system. So cyber attacks and data breaches continue to be a threat to school districts all around the country with over 11,000 devices connected to our network at any time from phones, intercom speakers, cameras, laptops, iPads, and more. Protecting our systems behind an enterprise firewall while using network monitoring tools is essential. Our firewall and network equipment are updated on a regular basis. We often do those on weekends or evenings and the district runs penetration tests to identify any potential threats. This year we also made some important changes to our wireless network um to help prioritize and isolate our network traffic. Two-factor authentication is a critical step to protecting district data. Also, the Google Education admin tools continue to update settings to prevent fishing emails, sometimes even before they're delivered. Our staff is doing a good job of questioning suspicious emails and reporting them as spam.
Uh we had Mustafa Mahajer who was our representative in radio speaking. Um Abby Hein was a state qualifier in pros reading. Uh, and then Charlotte Clinton was our fifth place in the state competitor in poetry reading. Uh, Carly Blue was a state qualifier in dramatic interpretation and fifth place in declamation speaking. Uh, we had Sophie Cooper Carrero who was a fourth place in state in humorous duet acting. Jillian Meyers was a state qualifier in oratory speaking, but also fourth place in extemporaneous speaking at state. Zoya Sadiki was fourth place in both impromptu speaking and informative speaking in the states. Natalie Gay was third place in the state in humorous interpretation. And then we had Nate Clinton who was fourth place in state with Sophia in humorist acting, but he was also our state champion in original comedy. Now, fun fact, my sophomore year, I was also our state entry in original comedy.
But so would Tuesday and Wednesday as well. So, Monday is just a really hard day. But again, if board schedules being what they are, Monday's the day is is fine. I just want to make sure that's clear. Um another option that the board can consider, and maybe this is too much, but it is just something to think about that a number of other districts have started to do, is actually holding your COW meeting and your board meeting on the same night. So, it'd be one night per month. When it's structured that way, that way what typically happens is the um board meeting for that day would be the board meeting for that month. So, if it were today and we had both meetings, the board meeting on April 20th would be the board meeting for April. The COW meeting on April 20th would be the COW meeting for May.
So, we're in the initial stages of the launch here, um and so as we get a little bit more in detail over the next uh 6 months to a year, you'll probably see some surveying going on, and um and maybe some focus groups, um depending on where the board wants to go. But this is the initial step, and just thought I would bring that to show you that your requests have have been answered.
So a lot of schools higher education are putting together some agreements to help us help communities uh pave the pathway for transition to teaching. And so Indiana Wesleyan met with our administrator several months ago to talk about this. >> [snorts] >> And so here's what the MOU would do. It would provide discounted rates for anybody that we think. So if we have a paraprofessional who we want to send back to school or they would want to go back to school they would have uh we would have our person Melissa who I know from IWU they would have some discounted rates. Now what is open and we do not have to declare is some schools pay for. Some schools uh offer it and reimburse and some schools just wait to see if there's a real shortage or not. We don't have to commit to any of that as a board it can be case by case.
Our education fund spending, we are at 25.29%. We're pretty much right on track. We'd like to see it right around that 25%. Um our debt service fund spending, we've had 0% spending in there, but payments are not due until June or December, so we haven't had the opportunity to make payments. Our operations fund spending is running high at this point at 38.03. It's high due to some encumbrances brought forward from the prior year's budget. So, to maximize our 2025 budget funds, we encumbered as many projects into that year as possible. So, we still have like our buses on there. Um we had a radio project on there and some other things that we haven't yet paid for, but they're on they're in the books. They're encumbered um into this year's budget. So, if we look at our actual spending for 2026, we are at 25.26%.
As far as services provided to the district, both SIS's provide the exact same services. It is simply you're going from a much larger company to a smaller company. You're you're going to an international company to a to a state level company. I think a lot less overhead when you look at those too. You know, I don't think from a when you when you look at in your guys' packet, you know, there are districts that are seven times our size that use that use Harmony. I mean, there are districts that are smaller than us that use Harmony. So, I think that piece it is is critical to remember. Um I I would not recommend you delay. If you delay, we will not switch this year. And so, we are at the the crunch time of I mean, we've been doing this since gosh, probably I don't know, December looking at it, having conversations.
So, just another example of cool things that are going on in our building that are learning opportunities for young people. And then finally, I'll end with Forvis Forvis Mazars recently completed our audit of financial statements and federal awards. There were no significant deficiencies, no material weaknesses, and no findings to report. That really speaks to strong systems in the financial stewardship across our district. So, I want to congratulate Dr. Underwood and his entire team for that. >> Good job, Carl. Yes. Yeah, I've got some I just want to prepare to I respond to a Courier & Press article about nepotism I'd to read. It's short. I would like to briefly clarify comments attributed to me in a recent Courier Press article regarding nepotism. In a district the size of the EVSC with approximately 3,400 employees, it is not unusual for family members to work within the same organization.
It also goes back and looks at um past data in terms of testing. What's their level as a reader, as a writer, as a speaker, as a listener. Um and that plan will follow that child through the grades. And our plan is that they'll be reviewed by a team of teachers, everyone who comes into contact with that teacher to measure the progress and to kind of determine where that student needs to go and what the goals will be and how we're going to get there. So, that's those are our goals for the next year. >> Who writes the plan? So, the plan is written by in in middle school it's written by um me. I'm the ML teacher, so I go through and I make these plans and then I share them with the team teachers. Um they're content area teachers and their UA teachers, so that everyone has that information.
>> Sarah >> usually at this point we're >> connections. >> Oh great. Do we want to invite in all of our parents? Yeah. >> Yeah. Please. And Sarah, Mark could grab some more seats. >> Mark's grabbing a couple more chairs. All right. Well, one of our most favorite uh nights of the year uh at our board of board of education meetings are the ambassador awards that we present every year for student success story. So, thank you to Sarah and your team for being here. And at this point, I'll turn it over to you to set the stage and give us the opportunity to hear our Thank you. >> Stories of amazing success, but then also recognize them. >> Sure. Yeah. Thank you. And thank you all for giving us this platform. Again, this is our favorite evening. Um, as you said, Eric, because this gives us an opportunity to celebrate students for whom high school has been wonderful, you know, milestones and celebrations, but also some challenges along the way.
But we do have to remain diligent and make sure we are never clicking on a link and then providing any passwords. And if you do, it's okay. Just let us know as soon as you can. Over the last few years, we've also seen smishing attacks. I think I'm saying that right. When staff members receive text messages made to look like it is coming from a staff member such as Dr. Amade and then looking to grab personal and financial data. >> I'm not texting the staff and uh the union president would ask us to not use our personal devices as well. And that's the tricky part about those text messages. They were going in many people's personal phones. The technology department is preparing for our new full day kindergarten spaces. This includes all the safety and security systems that I just talked about as well as student devices and LCD projectors.