Negative. So, right. >> Exactly. So, that >> that would be nice to have a conversation with town hall about that perspective, but is >> as far as like um worth, ethic, and value, I I I feel like that is great. And it I think the shift lies in that how you perceive the questioning, right? It's no one's saying you're doing a bad job. We're it's information, right? And the website would be would be um a good place to make it easier to get information, put more on the website, which means the public would not have to ask as much, >> right? Yeah. I mean, I've had this conversation with staff about you can make your jobs easier if we're just put the information on the website so people don't have to ask. And I also want to talk about this notion of curiosity because I mean I was an extraordinarily curious child as a lot of child are and I managed to take mine with me which I think's good and I think the whole notion of education is about cultivating curiosity but then I feel like when I'm curious it is not not wellreceived.
Yeah, nice routine play there um which of course you know, sometimes you you think it's so easy. You know, um fielders would take their eye off it or not not you know, completely execute the play, but that was just done very well. This brings up Audrey McDonald's who is playing first base today. Uh McDonald is the eighth hitter. Uh she took that first pitch. I I believe it was high, George. I didn't see it. Yeah, so we get one and one is the count. I This has been a little bit challenging here for us today as we are standing up in right field uh so trying to go back and forth. The view uh is a little bit My view is a little bit off. The first baseman is right at my line of sight here. Yeah, depending upon where the first baseman decides to play dictates how well we see pitch uh result, but we'll figure it out.
And then being more in line with what colleges are doing as well. You know, it impacts it impacts graduation, it impacts eligibility, it impacts GPA, it has a lot of different impacts that um I don't think it's lowering the standards at all. you look at the actual grading scale on there. I don't see it lowering the standards by any means at all. I think it's just being more um current and up to date with what is a common practice. >> This is a grading scale that also is in play for the elementary school. Darla has had conversations with her staff at the recent inservice. Go ahead. >> Yeah, we actually talked about it a couple times because this came up earlier in the year at a CCC meeting and we talked about it initially and back to it and we don't have to build our in our building but I have told the staff like I felt like the other two buildings are really um you know looking to move this direction and you know whatever they wanted to do but like if we stay where are we going to stand on is it worth like I'm not changing it like you need to support whatever we're doing.
So, >> anybody else have any questions? >> Do you have any children or grandchildren or anything? >> No, I don't have any children in the school district or any school district. So, um, maybe that's good, maybe that's bad. I don't know. It it gives me a maybe a little more objective opportunity to look at the issues and and maybe take take a step back and not be so emotionally connected. But still, I understand the importance of the school district and the decisions that are made here and at each individual schools are tremendously important and it's it's a function that I'd be proud to be part of. So, >> are you originally from that area or did you move into that? >> No, my wife was uh grew up south of Dorance, our farm. Um, but we moved back here in 2012. >> Okay. >> So, we've been here 10, 15 years.
Do you have any questions for me? >> I think you're doing an excellent job. >> Thank you. I think your numbers that's pretty impressive. I feel like when you were showing how much they've grown that's pretty great. >> Thank you. I appreciate it. >> Very good. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Oh yes. Marca. >> Okay. So 500 kids in the whole school district that has IEPs. Am I right? >> We're just under that. Yeah. We should probably >> territory all the way through the high school. >> Yes ma'am. >> I don't know how you do that. I really don't. >> There's a lot of them. There's a lot. I mean, you know, to to be able to meet all the needs of each child individually, I mean, that's >> that's a handful. >> It is. But it's it's good teamwork. >> Yes. >> You know, it come, you know, from the pair professionals to the teachers, the admin, everyone working together.
What lesson do you want to teach these kids? A hopeful one that even at a young age you can enact change? Or a far more brutal one that the adults are supposed to care for you simply do not. You can decide which lesson plan to enact there. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next is Callie Overs. >> My name is Callie Overs, and I was a student body or the student body vice president at Dysart High School. March 8th, I emailed the governing board and Dysart High School's principals. I asked for a public statement for students' legal rights regarding ICE agents and how the school will uphold them. I still have not received a reply back to this day. I also emailed again requesting the removal of Mayor Starter from the position of our school's uh district safety coordinator. Since he's been in the position, Dysart High School has only had one lockdown drill a year.
Let's all just forget about co right. Uh Kelly, you've spent your career looking after everyone else. We hope your retirement is finally a time to look after yourself. Thank you for the care, the kindness, and the years of dedicated service you have given to Big Hollow. And we will miss you. the uh for the record, the pandemic should have counted for about five years of service for you because she had a lot going on then. Thank you, Kelly. And next we have uh annually there's a Lake County Educator of the Year awards and the school district nominates one teacher for each category and um um we want to honor those teachers. They were selected by their peers. Um, I'm gonna go ahead and call them up. Do we have anything to give them? Okay. All right. Sorry, we don't have anything to give you because you received your award last week, but we want to honor you tonight in front of the board and from our community.
And so, I think it's it's a a while it's uh become a wonderful day of joy, but it's also a reminder of the importance of that strength in our lives. Um um I'm excited to uh say that we're on the final stretch. Kind of hard to believe. What an incredibly busy year this has been. And this is really a truly a rewarding time of the year as we have an opportunity to think about all the ways in which we've celebrated as we think about last week, teacher appreciation week, and then all the other opportunities we've had to celebrate our staff and really celebrate our students for their tremendous accomplishments. And we've seen that this year. Um this coming weekend and this week we have a number of exciting things. Oswego High School and Oswego East High School students will be participating in their alumni walk, which is really wonderful tradition we have in our district where students will make their rounds through throughout the district and the halls of their elementary schools.
Whereas Tanme has distinguished herself among the top competitors across the state and her success reflects her dedication to pursuing a future career in healthcare. Whereas Tanme has accomplished the high highest level of achievement at the state level. Whereas Tanme has demonstrated work excellence sorry demonstrated excellent work ethic, determination and commitment. Whereas Ten has earned the respect of the entire community school community for her high standards and expectations. Whereas the highest level of distinction given by the Avon Community School Corporation is accommodation from the board of school trustees. Let it therefore let it be resolved. Tan meet Carrer is hereby commended for her success and achievements. >> Board members, I will entertain a motion. >> I move that the board of school trustees approve the commendation for ten meat car as presented. >> Second motion by Kim, seconded by Jennifer.
So, the policy that you have should have uh documentation and notes from both of those entities. Driver and uh for Julia, um say your last name again. Kozicki. Kozicki. I appreciate it's a challenge. Um I I'd like to make sure that we've got clear distinctions about the different kinds of funds. Um would it be fair to say that the funds that are not ECA funds are tax dollars either from local, state, or federal governments? Overwhelming majority of it is, yes. >> Okay. Extracurricular should be from someone buying a ticket. So, my my policy doesn't discern a difference between any of that. They're looking at all the money that the school corporation touches regardless where it comes from. All the money that's spent and making sure everything balances. At the school building level, uh and this may vary. Let's say I've got a checkbook for uh Saturday morning basketball.
Like, am I reaching the right crowd? Reaching all the crowds. So, we kind of brought in, what do our parents use? What do we use? And that's why you see all these starting to take off because each generation seems to use a different app. um improvements. Many improvements like we've just said have been talked about in meetings like Clayton just said has been she listens to us and that's why we have all this is so she can use our voices and again we have kids from middle school and high school so she can see what's going on because again she can't be anywhere at every time so it's really important that we have these meetings so she knows what's happening and we can recommend stuff to her like parents were that was a huge thing that we did this year was uh people were for parents at least were not getting vital information they thought that they needed and um now parent square has been uh used a bunch and now you get emails through parent square so again just the communication stuff especially in the winter when we have TR delays and e-learnings it's really picked up and it's been really great since the first meeting uh marketing the deli official accounts uh everything's on all the social medias everything that we just started using we started posting all the stuff uh throughout uh multiple different websites including Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook and YouTube and sometimes X Twitter.
So, I don't know. For years, we were the only one around that didn't charge. >> Yeah. Yeah. And then we charged for what? Yeah. I like that. I need a motion to approve that recommendation. I'll make I make to approve it. I have a motion. Do I have a second? I'll second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? >> [clears throat] >> All in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed the same. Okay, that carries. Next up this evening, um you have for consideration the proposed summer camps for 2026. Um I think they actually start the week after school ends uh with girls basketball and tennis. Uh you know, so um Jeremy is Mr. Marshall who actually put these together uh working with the coaches and stuff. So, we just bring them to the board so that you're aware of when they're coming in and who's going to be here and when.
Now if you remember we spent some time as we installed our virtual program here um with Mrs. Brimberry not being able to be here tonight due to being ill. I wanted to to give you some numbers. We have a platform called Apex. You heard that. We also and that's really reserved for um our uh Viking success kids but it's also reserved for sometimes special services if that's best fit of a credit recovery there that might be done in with the to it might be done there depends on what's best for the child. We also have uh an adoption that's called courseware and that's apex but the new modern version of it. a little bit more up to-date and we're that will be in instituted next school year. It's Apex but more modern. Um I would also tell you we have ed options if you remember and that's for the kids that have singleton classes.
We get uh quite a few students coming to us from Indiana Gateway Digital. They have um I guess I can look on here 5,300 students. So pretty good size school. Cooko um has one also a standalone with 199. And then ours right now is 219 students and I expect uh nearly all of those students to come back except for the ones who who graduate. So, um, Indiana law basically says, uh, now that we can have a standalone virtual school, and if you get on the IDE accredititation page, there's an entire page of them. I was really surprised, uh, that people have been kind of going this route in the past year, there's 60 currently accredited programs. When I looked some of them up, like Leaports, I was trying to find some small ones, and it didn't come up. So, I'm not sure if they're in the process of getting their school number or what.
It it it actually reminds me of a ZBA meeting, you know, this weird muffling of everybody's voices. Um I It's like they're trying to keep us from saying something. And I'd like to know what is it and why be involved in town government? If you want to muffle people's voices, I think you need to think about is this really the right fit for me? because it's it's it's the people's night. Town meeting is the people's night and if the people are wearing basically a a muzzle. Uh I I don't see how they can be all that effective. >> Well, and I think that that that's a good point. We talked about efficiency and democracy is not efficient. It it just isn't. And yet that's what we believe in that in the United States certainly in our town and certainly >> people when they are involved can probably start seeing how that's really really important right citizens being participating and so right if you want to try to manage the public to such a way that you think it's efficient it's really becomes uh I mean a turnoff anyway if not undemocratic >> you know It's like, are we a bunch of cattle that need to be managed?
>> Yeah. If they're not, where are they? Mhm. Um And the economic development revenue fund is also supposed to have a a required report. Um and I've tried for a long time to get it, and it's required, and again, you know, it's it's crazy. Um did There's another another requirement. The uh the the capital improvement Oh, so I mean, on the checks and balances, so I look at I really did take to heart when we had this, you know, nice chart from Medway. Residents are are at the top. I always have taken to heart about the legislative through town meeting. But the other checks and balances that the public should have is expectation of following the rules of the town. So, it tags along with Wait, we are supposed to be getting these things. We don't. Who is Who is asking for them and holding accountable?
it they they aren't bringing kids to the school that they do get public services like police and fire but they're not 20 living there 24 hours a day if they do use them right so they're just common sense and data shows that commercial uses less we we are at a deficit of commercial compared to other towns and I think that's um maybe the lack of planning that got us into that maybe we'll do another podcast on planning but but to overcome the residential imbalance would be difficult, but it doesn't mean we should give up on that, >> right? >> No. And we took the restaurant tax money. This is a little bit of a pee buying uh because it used it originally went to the library, the senior center um and open space fields and economic development, but that [clears throat] was for them on April 126.
So I feel like and that's actually one our other topics questioning contradictory messages that we're not there yet but it's like you say education is important and then people exhibit those things and then they're basically told shut up and sit down. So I think we need to work on that and uh we haven't been doing that. Um, see these these topics are all starting. No, they're all like related to each other. So, let's move on to the next one and we'll just keep going. So, this one's like super duper exciting. It's called understanding bond ratings because you hear a lot of towns, especially our town, we got a AAA bond rating. It means everything's great. Finances are awesome. Uh, it's the world's just incredible because of this rating. So, um I there is a group called I've called uh Strong Town. It's called Strong Towns >> and uh I found this really amazing article and we've both read it and it's called bond ratings are for investors not taxpayers.
>> teamwork A little teamwork never hurt anybody here, George. So, we get a we get a one and two count here to McDonald with two outs and nobody on for Bella Domestico who wheels and deals and that one's going to be low and in for ball two. You know, all year long Bella has limited walks. She's limited the to give them free pass to opponents and that has certainly been a benefit benefit to the Clockers defensively. Yeah, that's the key to any good pitcher is limiting walks. You know, you don't want to give them give your opponent a free uh ride to first base and and you know potentially cause some damage. So, you know, most top pitchers will have very few walks in the game. And with that being said, we've now got a three and two count here. I believe the count is now full to McDonald with two outs, nobody on in the top of the second.
We talked about that. I mean I think Kathy Fre can tell you the history of where this scale came from. That's kind of what happened at our in service. So I think it's this way for quite a long time. Um but the we also I didn't know we were bringing this tonight because I thought it was coming in hand. So we also will be traditional scale. The other thing, I've been talking about this and questioning it for a number of years because colleges have also switched and they don't look as heavily on ACT as they once did. They're looking more and more at GPA and therefore our kids are at a disadvantage when compared to other kids because that that F is at a higher percentage and so it could impact even that um for them. So I'm excited that it's actually being seen as make that decision but I think going to impact so much more than just I think it does impact athletes but it can impact financial um implications for scholarships and also even insurance.