I will say this, um since I've been here and I I think I've probably shared this to with you all as a board before, but Tony usually comes to Brad and I with his projection as in his enrollments based upon the numbers, and then we have our conversation and we look at the needs of the students, and I don't know that I can say that we've stayed within the parameters that Tony has given us because um the needs of our students have continued to go up. I and post-COVID, we've pretty much done nothing but lost students since 2020. And we've added staff um to support our students. And so, this is probably the first time that I can say in my 12 or 13 years of doing this that we're actually seeing a reduction. And I I I believe it's the right time. Um, we're all aware of the uh pressures uh financially that are facing our district.
I'll make a motion. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppose? Motion passes. Thank you. Thanks, Lori. Item H2. Yeah. And I have one policy for us to take a look at this evening. In your packets, as as usual, I say as usual, where this is our second time, but but I included the the current policy in place, the I call it the strike through policy. Um we recently went through an audit, and there were discoveries, and um working with ISBA, the state and the feds um changed their food service and and I don't know, the FDA, it changes so frequently that that they did provide us with the latest greatest policy recommendations. So, what we decided to do, and I worked with Aubrey Rutherford with this because she was on the firing line with the auditor saying, "Why don't you have this?
Hearing none motion passes. Thank you so much for the work. Thank you. That brings us to item five which is public comments. Miss Juarez do we have any public comments? Thank you. That brings us to item six approval of consent. I move the governing board approve consent agenda items A through D and F through M. May I have a second? Second. All those in favor? I. I. Any nays?
Um, with uh uh uh you know, getting money from our state, from the feds, uh from local our local uh property taxes. And um if we're able to be very um strategic about our staffing, um that is going to save us from uh that rubber band effect that you're seeing in a lot of districts where they're laying off 20, 30, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40 people uh staff members to make up for a massive budget shortfall. And so, you know, I something I've always appreciated about Tom is Tom has said something along the lines of, and forgive me if I say this wrong, he's he's like, we can do everything, but we you know, but we we have to be very specific we have to make sure that what we do is working. And so, we have to be very um it's it's very important we look closely at our staffing because that's where our biggest expense is.
Why don't you have this? Why don't you have this?" So, it now aligns with what is currently in place with the federal government and the state government for the requirements. So, we decided to strike through the old policy. Uh a lot of the language was antiquated and had just been added and added and added over the years. And so, the policy that I'm asking you to consider is new as and it is aligned to not only the the state and federal guidelines, but also the um Indiana Department of Education. And so, tonight would be just the introduction that of the policy for you. Um upon upon I guess we don't vote tonight, do we? Just upon, you know, the the end of this meeting, we'll post this policy, as we did the last time, on the website for public input, if anybody wants to take a look at it.
Hearing none motion passes and that leaves us with with agenda item six E up for discussion and I will turn it over to Miss Marquez for this discussion item. All right. Um I with my one-on-one with Jay yesterday I got a lot of my questions answered but then I had some more pop up um in since then. Um so [snorts] I I know this this this expenditure is funded through bond money and that there's a specific like a a time frame in which that needs to be spent. Um when by by when does this need to be this these funds need to be approved and spent? I I would have to defer to Miss Shapiro on that cuz I haven't been tracking that that closely. I believe the rule is that a certain percentage of a bond sale is supposed to be expended within three years because they the bonds are sold as tax-exempt bonds and the tax exemption is on the basis of the use of those funds within a certain time period but I'll um defer to you.
Um, I do want you to say I know you heard some things about interventionists. Um, as you probably know, um across our school system when it comes to special ed students, EL students, and providing supports for them, we always base that on the numbers, right? Um, you know, case loads can go up, we add more staff. Case loads go down, we reduce staff. Um, what we've seen happen at our elementary schools, just to speak to the interventionist question, um just so we're we're clear is that um we're look in the past, we've been afforded the ability to not really have to worry about the numbers because we've had the budget to do this. Um, now we have to be a little bit more uh uh pay a little closer attention. And so, um I I I will say that we we made the decisions with interventionists um based on numbers and data.
Um next steps, we would we would hold the first reading of this policy during our May 19th meeting coming up next month. We would again allow time for public comment either through the website or here in person, and then we would anticipate uh receiving final approval for that policy in the May board meeting. Thanks, Lori. Okay. Item H3. It's time for the summer feed program once again. Um we are looking to offer it for 6 weeks. That's uh Waterloo Elementary, McKinney Harrison Elementary, James Watson, uh the Asbury Park and Corona. So, our five main sites will remain intact. Um we're looking to run it for the 6 weeks from June 1st through July 14th. I'll take the week off of June June 29th uh for the July 4th holiday. The pickup times for that would be on Tuesday evenings from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Tonight, I am asking for the board's approval to once again offer the summer feed program, but also asking permission and your approval to sign contracts with the parks that is required by the state to show that wherever we have our pickup sites, they have ample areas for families to pull up and pick up food and thing like things like that.
Yes. Okay, fair enough. I got something right. Okay. When I consider it >> So within three years is this the one that of the bond sale from the sale for what you sold it for. Okay. So what So these funds would be from our first bond sale which I believe we did November Yeah. 2020 November this last November. >> November of 25 correct. Okay. Type on my notes. Uh Can we use those funds for anything else? Uh you You have some leeway. It's a 10% leeway overrun for the um bond sale dollars. So we had a $31 million sale. So 10% of those could be used in the different voter approved categories. Um that that's the extent of it. so. However, if I understand correctly, because of the cost model with inflation and whatnot with the Biltmore project, it was my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, that we're on track to use the entirety of that 10% >> for the more, yes.
Um we feel that's the best way to go moving forward. And um, you know, we we have plans in place to support these students, but I just want you to know that um, this wasn't just a a a a a cut of all, it was looking um, at our whole staffing plan and saying where can we make the best decisions and we're we're doing our best to make those um, to stay within our means. And so, you know, we have uh, as we do every year, like I said, we monitor uh, class uh, uh, levels across all of our um, elementary schools. That's primarily where we see them go up and down and fluctuate and are a little less predictable than middle school and high school. We'll continue to monitor those and um, after our postings this week, we'll probably have one contingency position back and if we have to use that position, we will do that.
So, I have contracts for the board to sign pending your approval of both of those items tonight. Okay. I'll ask the board for a motion for the summer feed program. I'll make a motion. I'll second. I have a motion and a second.
So, hypothetically [snorts] speaking, if we wanted to use funds like this whatever 2.5 million for iPads, switch it over to Chromebooks, would that be allowed? Allowed? Well, I mean, if no, if proper steps being taken to It's part of the life cycle capital planning, so committees have been meeting for multiple years. I took on the committee when I came on board 3 years ago, and so the capital planning committee works with the individual operational departments for life cycle rotations, and this is part of the approved life cycle that we brought through the capital plan from the committee to the board in the I'm not sure which I'd have to go back and look. >> Okay. For specifically iPads. >> your question correctly, you're trying to get across like if we're spending two something million on technology, whether it's part of the capital plan to improve or to rotate the life cycle.
And if we have to add more positions, which you know, we're we're hoping not to do, but we have to do what we have to do to support our students, then we'll we'll if if that happens, we will come back to you um, to get your approval uh, to add any positions if that's necessary. The last uh, point I want to say and there's a little sentence at the bottom, we did have a reduction in our BESPA staff of 8.5 positions and that's because we had the uh, dismissal um, last month of the uh, kindergarten enrichment um, instructors. Um, having said that, beyond that reduction in BESPA, across our other BESPA positions, we're not seeing any reductions. Um, and I would also like to say in our BEA positions, um, while we do have reductions, um, all of those have been done through retirement or honorable dismissal.
Any discussion? I do think this has been very successful in the past, so >> fantastic. >> this summer will be even The numbers have grown each and every year. We're meeting the needs of our kids. Mhm. So, yes. How many years have we done this? It's been since I've been in this seat, so we've done summer feed so nearly every year that I can that I can recall, so. Do you think like 30 years we've been doing this? Yeah. I mean, I don't know for sure, but we'd have to ask Aubrey just how long it's been in place. >> have expanded, though. We we changed locations, and that's all determined based on census data. Um but yeah, we've we've tried to expand it as much as possible. I remember it didn't we weren't doing it um like in Corona one year, and I know that was a suggestion that was really focused on, and we were able to Aubrey was able to make that work, and that's been one of the better sites.
As long as it's being spent on technology, regardless of what the product is, that would be a permissible use of these funds under Yeah. Yeah, okay. Okay, that's >> Absolutely the question you were asking. It would it it would require like a massive shift because all of our systems are currently designed for iPad, so there would probably be other costs because most of the software that we have in place is really designed for that platform. Some of the things are transferable between platforms, but there would probably be other costs we would incur in the migration including a significant amount of staff cost to do a changeover, and it would also require a significant amount of professional development because I've worked in districts that use, you know, some other platforms like Chromebooks. Going from an iPad to a Chromebook is not from a student perspective, it's relatively innocuous.
Um, and we had one vol- voluntary um, transfer. And so, overall, um, I considering some of the stories that we've seen happen across other school districts, I feel like we're positioned very well. Um, we're being fiscally responsible, but I also believe strongly that we're providing the right supports in place to support our students in their learning, which is our primary mission. And I would also contend that some of the things that we're doing pretty well around here with a line curriculum and things like that, providing hopefully quality training for our staff, we're seeing very good results from our students at some of our our our the different things that we monitor.
I mean, that that enrollment has really picked up over the past few years. The other big change was when they went to non-congregate, where they allowed, which means they allow families to just come in and pick up a week's worth of meals one time. It used to be just a congregate situation where they would come, they would have to eat the food right on site. So, you know, still a great program, but not very convenient for families, you know, or for us to set up each and every day. So, when they allowed when the state allowed that non-congregate, where we could just pack on one day, and then they can pick up the week's worth of food the next [clears throat] day, that's when numbers really started to explode. So, it's a fantastic service for our community. Okay. Any other discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I.
From a staff perspective, how you support it in the classroom is very different because some of the tool sets for monitoring student use would be completely different software platforms. Uh does that include state testing? Um I believe I believe if we got adequately capable Chromebooks, they would be able to support state testing just like the iPads. And Russell, you are free to jump up here and correct anything I say that's wrong. Um but so I believe that would be that would be potentially possible to do. And some districts do use Chromebooks for that. Yeah. Um It wouldn't be an even switch, though. I mean, there would be a lot of work to do it, but yes, for the technology piece, there is a technology furniture, fixtures, equipment, and technology line, and within that line, we can purchase hardware for the technology. Okay. Um So, sticking kind of with with the state testing, I know we use the iPads for our state testing.
So, overall from my vantage point, I'm pretty happy with how the staffing plan shaped up and I'm happy to talk to you about or answer any questions you might have based upon what I shared.
I. Oppose? Motion passes. Okay. Item H4, request to auction outdated tech equipment. Just looking once again to get board approval on an auction. You can see the items that we have, a bunch of office furniture, student furniture. Looking to get rid of some sheds, um remove them, try to auction them if anybody could get them off site. I don't know, they might be good for firewood. Some of them are ready to be torn down. We're not going to get rid of them, obviously, until we have new storage in place, which is part of our bond. Um also, along with this request, I have a different type of request from Matt in that we get pallets, obviously, delivered when we get supplies delivered to all of our schools. And in the past, we've tried to attempted to auction some of these pallets and had no no success whatsoever.