Slyker? Yes. Kilgore? Yes. Garrels? Yes. Gonzalez-Thomas? Yes. Arlandu? Yes. All right, we'll move on to section 8, reports. We'll start with 8.1, FOIA request. Tom, will you lead the discussion? Yep. Uh board, the report has been presented to you. So, a little bit of a heavier um a month of requests that came through the district, but uh we were able to respond all to all of them in a timely manner as required by law.
They're traveling to Atlanta. That was the field trip you just approved to participate in the national the national competition and and at this time Jonathan is there anything you'd like to just say or add or It's just as a competition you know with SkillsUSA it's all about preparing students for real world jobs and applications and this event it's a tall order when I'm a previous controls engineer and the task that these students were asked to do in a matter of 8 hours I'm like I don't know if I could get this done in 24 hours. Wow. So, but by working together and preparing the students they were able to come together and basically they had to design and assemble a cell with design documentation program everything from scratch to configure an industrial [clears throat] robot with an industrial computer to do a real world sorting application using vision.
>> That would that would be that would be most likely. But as Mike said, anything that's that's not reoccurring um and that is needed uh and critical can't do without and we run short in other places then yes. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. Sure. >> Any other questions? Anybody? No. Okay. Can I have someone make the motion for us, please? >> I'll make a motion that the finance committee recommend the board of education to approve the transfer of funds from prior years excess not to exceed 2% of the district's non-lapsing account. >> Motion made by Kate. Do I hear a second? Second by Sean. Thank you, Sean. Seconded by Sean. All in favor? I >> I >> Okay, motion passes. So, that will get moved to the full board for the next meeting. Try to get that in there. Okay. Awesome. >> Do you want a motion also for the finance report, the March finance report?
So there's a um a concept that is one of my favorite things cuz like the one of the best words ever that's called exogenous variables, right? So these are the variables in the situation that aren't evident and so sometimes if we just look at the surface we think we're seeing a pattern but the pattern may actually be being affected by other things and so digging in deeper into it it really helps us figure out like if we're going to make a change is the change going to have the intended effect and what can we learn from one model we can bring to another rather than just assuming one model's actually superior to the other. So So I think you know it's that old saying like two things can be true at the same time. Your encouragement like absolutely we need to be looking at that but at the same time I think we also need to be digging in deeper as the team's doing to try to figure out like is there a way to transfer some of the success into the other models.
Any questions? No? Then we'll move on to 8.2, the treasurer reports. Tony? Anything to add? Anything out of the ordinary this month? Nothing out of the ordinary this month. Any questions for Dr. Glaze? No? Then we'll move on to committee updates. Tom, will you lead us? Uh we've got the report there in the board book for you. Uh board members, that if you were a part of a committee that met, if you want to go ahead and share anything beyond that, uh feel free. BRAC met. We got to try some food. Oh. Oh, everyone It's an exciting So, we're warm. Further exploring the um national school lunch program versus what we have right now. So, um I would say overall, the So, we were offered each and then got to choose which one we liked better. So, it was very interesting. There were I think two of the three dishes.
So, you know, it was a really tall order. It was a great event. We're looking forward to next year. >> [cough] >> Um [clears throat] it's even greater for the students. The the top prize they took home about $800 worth of prizes along with a full scholarship Well, not a full scholarship but three full semesters at Ivy Tech in Fort That's that's awesome. worth roughly 8 to 10,000 dollars. Wow. That's amazing. >> [clears throat] >> And being our first year out I mean that was just a feather in our cap for getting there. I sat here watching the the young men from McKinney-Harrison thinking you know, John you you're working hard to get kids in the program and get them turned on to this but this is how it's going to happen. You look at what these young men were doing tonight when they get to the high school they're going to come looking for you.
>> Yes. Yes. Do you want to make that motion, Kate? >> Sure. Um, I'll make a motion that the finance committee recommend the March 2026 finance report to the full board for approval. Thank you. Motion made by Kate. Do I hear a second? >> Seconded by Sherry. All in favor? >> I. >> Okay. Motion passes. Thank you for that, Kate. That should probably be a standing motion on all of our agendas, I would think. So, we should just probably add >> Yeah. >> Yep. Perfect. Okay. Do we have anything else for tonight? Anything anybody wants to add? Questions, concerns about anything else? No. >> Okay. >> Do I do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So, moved. >> Motion made by Kate. Do I hear a second? >> Seconded by Cindy. All in favor? I >> sorry we are ajourned.
And I would add to what Mr. Mann just shared. Speaking of bright spots last week I think it was our consultant Heidi Koski was in town and it was a bright spot to be in the professional development being facilitated by Heidi with teachers who um are confident are excited and feel empowered to apply what they're learning and it was magic. I was texting Teya during it and I was like this is magic because the way she was modeling for the teachers a language acquisition exercise with a verb tense study it was just really powerful and the teachers were very very engaged. So again regardless of time Yep. having the pedagogy where a teacher can go back into their classroom and transfer it I think that is a bright spot. The commitment our teachers have demonstrated um to be able to attend the professional development be fully engaged in the professional development and um also willing to have others come into your classroom to be able to see you in practice and give you in real time feedback.
I honestly could hardly tell the difference. Uh one of them was a pasta dish that had regular and wheat, so it was kind of it was more obvious, but um yeah, so we're just continuing to talk about that as an option. Consider in the future. Thank you for that. Anyone else have any updates they'd like to share? All right. Then we will move on to uh the FY27 staffing board reports. Steve, will you lead that discussion? Yeah, absolutely. Um so you all have a document. It's not uh very large, but it kind of gives a little bit of an overview and I be honest with you, I pretty much uh the template that we used last year and kind of made adjustments to that. Um you know, that that first paragraph just kind of talks a little bit about our process. Where we uh meet with our various leadership groups.
This is what they're going to want [laughter] to do. And so, I'm really proud of our alignment that starts in elementary school and now we've got that continuum that's just going to get bigger and better. And I do thank you for your continued work on on this program. As a district I think we're doing a great job of what we call building the funnel and we want to build it as early as possible starting at the middle school level all the way up through high school aligning it clearly through the local industry. Yeah, great. Thank you. Good luck. Let us know. Thank you. Thanks Lori for sharing. >> Yeah, yeah. Okay, um item G, donation. We just have once again just so many different donations. Mrs. Brant from Country Meadow indicates donations from Trine University, Garrett State Bank, from Volt Craft, Nucor, um you know, in the amount of well over almost $4,000 $3,500 in different needs at Country Meadow.
That's that's always um nerve-wracking as a teacher so they're pretty great group of teachers. And and >> But I yeah our investment in our teachers I think is going to pay off. And to wax a little political and I apologize but this is something that's like on the horizon here. There I know in the legislature they're trying to pass a bill to put on the ballot an initiative to require 60% of school district funds to be in the classroom but the way they define in the [snorts] classroom is very narrow. If that does get to the ballot and it does get passed by voters a lot of our neighboring districts we've really dug into like what the impact will be and this actually is related to our topic right now. It will completely strip us of our ability to be able to do these types of things.
Uh we look at Tony's projected enrollments. Look a little bit at the needs of the schools and then we kind of make our decisions from there. Um when it comes down to recommendations, I just want to make sure that I'm clear about a couple of things. Number one, um really if you look at like the change in the FTE and this is why I only included the 1.0 FTE to seventh grade. That's really the only kind of additional staff member we added. I think at one of our elementary schools, Hoover Wood, there's a plus 0.5. That's probably going from a half of or a it's a it's an a it's a full section of kindergarten is really what that change is. And so I didn't list on here um the postings that you probably saw last week and that are on our website with some of the new kindergarten positions because it didn't impact really our overall FTE.
We also have donations for DeKalb Middle School. Mrs. Wisehart reports that Northeastern Group Realty donating books to Mr. Williams and Mr. what used to be Mr. Elsroth's classroom now Miss Toll's. Um but they've done this for several years. They haven't They haven't picked a book yet but we'll soon be doing that. But so, thank you to Kelly York and Stacy Daily and Steven Hostetter for that. And then of course it seems like every every month we just have a laundry list of of donations for the high school benefiting everything from our unified program to our band program and just a lengthy long list supporting our girls tennis program. So, just a a huge thank you to all of our our individuals our businesses and other entities that support us each and every month for what we're doing for kids. Thanks Steve. Mhm. Um this brings us to item H, report of the superintendent.
So when when you hear Dr. Dodds Karen talking about the impact this has on teachers and how it truly supports them and their effectiveness in the classroom it's not only good for kids it's good for teachers as professionals and so the fact that that other groups want to control what we're doing which may not be in that best interest for whatever political purposes is highly problematic cuz the last thing we want to do is lose this progress and this ability to provide this type of support to our teachers cuz cuz instructional support is lumped into a broader classroom category but it's not considered the narrow definition of nor is student support. So when we bring an OT into the classroom that doesn't count towards that even though the child needs that OT. So [snorts] um so and this is absolutely related to this conversation because as this board works so hard and as this leadership team and our principals and our directors and our teachers and our staff are all rowing in the same direction with our students and our families to improve outcomes one of the key strategies to be able to do that is to be able to deliver the types of professional development that our teachers need to ensure their success.
And so if you look at the uh school level adjustments based on enrollments, you can see that at the bulk of our buildings, um we were actually able able to reduce staff except for uh Retolo and then at at Hoover Wood. Um the majority of those reductions um were based upon enrollment. I guess probably all of them were based on enrollment. Um and uh the other thing that I want to remind our board on is that we're always closely monitoring this. Brad and I uh we basically update the numbers um every 2 weeks. Brad usually makes a secret couple of secret phone calls to our secretaries at our schools cuz they know a little bit more intelligence on who's coming in, who's coming out, and who may be coming and may not. And so, we're always monitoring our classes to see. You'll note at the bottom we added and and we started putting this in here as a contingency for unanticipated enrollments.
I get to start tonight. In your package you received a memorandum requesting your consideration to approve continued services and a quote provided by Mazi Mazi Education. Nathan Williamson, um I know you're familiar with our service from Mazi Education and um we're going to again want you to consider continuing that service. So, this is a renewal quote for that continued service with not only the federal grants, but we also would like to um tap into his expertise as we work on transitioning, if we decide to, or even not transitioning special education on the business money side of it. He's very well versed in that and has been a an asset to the business department on knowing some of the ins and outs that are not very typical when it comes to funding and financing in special ed. So, we would like to add that on as part of [clears throat] the agreement.
We're not a district who says the kids aren't performing let's blame the teachers. We're a district that says things aren't going the direction we need them to go what supports do we need to put in place so that way all of the adults in the system have the resources they need to provide all the resources that the children in the system need in order to be successful with their outcomes. So I have a quick question. Um so are the students in there whether it's you know the two hour or one hour model are they are they placed by their grade level or by their like proficiency level? Yeah. Um so through ADE guidance it's either grade level bands or proficiency level but we do ours as closely to grade bands as possible. So the grade bands are kinder first two three four five six eight.
And our original number was actually five. And then we realized we had to add a section of kindergarten over at AGS. And being honest, when I put this board report together, the number was at four. Brad and I looked at the kindergarten numbers today because our principals have been telling us they've been kind of growing a little bit. And again, this is very typical. But you'll be seeing a posting or postings going up probably as early as tomorrow or Thursday because we are going to have to add um probably three sections of kindergarten at various buildings. So, you'll see So, that that contingency number, Tony, I'm sorry, is going to go down from four to one. I will say if you look at the total number here, with the contingency number going down, it's not going to be that minus 9.5, that minus 5.5 if we use all of our contingency numbers, that's where we'll be at.
The agreement that I shared with you, the proposed agreement, has both of those considered in it. Um if approved, the pricing will remain the same for the federal grant service that we're already engaging with, $3,000 a month, and then an additional amount of $665 a month to take on the special ed funding. Um again, I quoted Mr. Williamson. He says um the proposal is for maintaining current services and adding mentoring responsibilities for the business [clears throat] staff working with special ed funding, um which has really helped our staff kind of free up some of their time and allowed them to spend more time on other things, too. It's it's definitely a win-win for us, and so I'm asking for your consideration to approve moving forward and renewing the existing and adding on the special education. Thank you, Lori. This time I'll ask the board for a motion.
Okay. Thank you. Mhm. Any other questions or comments on this board report? All right hearing none. Thank you so much for all the hard work. I move the governing board adopt progress monitoring report for goal three report three. May I have a second? Second. All those in favor? I. I. Any nays?