BCSC School Board Meeting - July 19th, 2021

001I call to order the Brownsville Community School Corporation Board of School Trustees regular meeting of July 19th, 2021. Please join me in saying the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please join me in a moment of reflection. Thank you. Consent items, Dr. Snapp. Ms. Sherlton, members of the board, request approval of the minutes of the June 14th meeting, business meeting, executive session, and also claims along with the superintendent's report at this time, please. So moved. Seconded. Motion to second. Any questions or comments? Hearing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion passes. We will... Now, moving to the comments from patrons section of

002our board meeting. Just a reminder to everyone that as they come up, please state your name and your address. You are allowed two minutes to speak. We get to the two-minute mark, we will let you know that your time is up, and we ask that you please conclude your comments at that time. We've got a number of people signed up to speak, so we'll try to keep it as close as we can to the two-minute mark. So first we have Rhonda James. My name is Rhonda James, and I live in Danville, but my kids go to Brownsburg schools. Since so many parents are leery of just what kind of information is being shared with children at school, directly from some of the teachers and administration, this would be a good time to reconsider using CNN

00310 as a source of accurate daily news. It should be well known that CNN's ratings are falling very quickly. They are being found out more and more each day to be exactly what they pride themselves in being, fear mongers and liars. They admittedly follow the mantra that if it bleeds, it leads, and show the false statistics on screen about COVID deaths to keep feeding the fear, which they feel equates to ratings, and again, they admit to this. There's a company named Project Veritas that is easily found online that has caught them red-handed, admitting right from their own mouths that, in fact, they do these things. Surely there are better resources to share information with the student body in our schools. These CNN 10 videos on YouTube, starring this Carl Azuz, who was trying to be

004funny and cool to entertain the kids, all the while spouting information that is mostly slanted toward the liberal point of view. Not all the information is that way, but too much of it is. There was a lot of talk about COVID, for instance, and the inaccurate statistics on the number of cases, the variant mask-wearing information, and COVID deaths. Are they going to come back and admit all the false information that was used as a fear-mongering tool to keep the masks and social distancing in place? The answer is no. They get by with it more and they will never come back and tell about the false information from the CDC, FDA, or the WHO because it might actually create some real information to cause some real critical and logical thinking instead of being spoon-fed by what

005a lot of people see as an authority source because it is the news. So this false information is left with our children and they never hear the real truths and continue believing that since it's coming from the news, it must be correct. They have not yet learned the valuable lesson to question everything, no matter the source. And in the same line of thinking, the children are not questioning the adjusted language used by the curriculums and the new books appearing in the classrooms, supplied by grants and books and the libraries. The CNN 10 info trickles in, just like all the rest, assumed to be official and correct by the children, just because it originates in the school, since they are taught to respect authority. Please conclude. Thank you very much. Alvin Liu. Hello. My name is

006Alvin Liu. My great-grandfather... Can you state your address and where you're from, please? Carmel. 1393 Carmel. Do you have kids in Brownsburg? No. Okay. Thank you. My name is Alvin Liu, and my great-grandfather escaped communism in China because he knew that there was no future for his children. America has given my family everything. He would be horrified to know that a mere 70 years later, his great-grandson had to run from California because of much of the same ideology. You see, I moved my family, my young family, from California to Indiana in April of 2020. Now, there are a lot of reasons to leave California, but for us, chief among them, is that if we were to raise my daughter there... The schools and the environment would have taught her that her two most important things

007is that she's Asian and that she's female and that every ill in life that she faces will be because of one or both of those things. This diversity, inclusion, equity, this die ideology that you all worship so much, it's absolute poison. In California, we've implemented everything you guys are just starting to talk about here. We've implemented things that you guys haven't even thought of. And their schools and many of their cities are in absolute shambles. Because if you consistently educate two to three generations of kids that skin color and gender are the most important thing, your communities will be filled with anxiety-ridden, useless young people that are only good for protesting and finding oppression where there is none. So... on your watch, you will continue to watch your school district race to the bottom because

008that's what CRT does. It drags students down to the gutter. Your time is up. Please have a seat. So I implore you tonight. Your time is up. Please have a seat. To find your courage to get back to what really matters, which is high-rigor academics. So did you say race to the bottom academically? Is that what you're referring to? No, I said what CRT does, it drags students to the gutter. It's the race to the bottom. Oh, gotcha. Okay, thank you. Matt? I can't read it. Search or something? Matthew, sir. Brownsburg, Indiana. In May, the school board, with the support of the superintendent, approved a list of words and definitions that they put into the school curriculum, which has caused much division in our community. However, I feel that you left out one important word

009that should have been at the top of any definition list that you would have, and that is transparent or transparency. free from pretense or deceit. If someone is transparent, it means that persons, that person cannot or does not hide or conceal anything. A person who is transparent has no secrets and tells no lies. An important character trait that I think our kids should know and we as adults should learn. The past six years there have been two major controversial issues, really actually more than that, that have divided our community. The tax referendum, and hiring of a DEI officer. The reason that both were controversial was because there was no transparency when it came to making the community and taxpayers aware of these. Many truths were hidden. Things were concealed and very secretive. Not having an

010open forum or sending emails, letters to parents regarding the possible hire of a DEI officer. Why you want to hire a DEI officer? What was the job description of the DEI officer? And most importantly, what is the end game for wanting to hire the DEI officer? None of this was transparent. And I know a lot of it had to do with COVID and stuff, but that would have been even more of a reason to communicate via email on that. After the tax referendum defeat, you would think administrators and board members would have learned and been more transparent on controversial policies. Obviously not. You can sit up here and preach our school corp is not teaching CRT slash SEL. Your time is up. Please conclude. Okay. But don't expect the people in our community to believe

011you with your past history of not being transparent. Thank you. Beth Rega. I'm Beth Riga. I live in Lincoln Township in Indianapolis and I have one child in Brownsburg Schools. Last time that I was here I asked for examples of how CRT was being taught in our schools. I asked people to come up and talk to me afterwards. I corresponded with one person by email. No one has provided me any examples. I've talked to my child. I've talked to many other people. children to try and figure out is CRT being taught in our schools? I don't think it is. I have been a college educator and I've also been a lawyer, so I've studied CRT fairly frequently in school. And it's a theory that racism is embedded in our legal system. It has nothing to

012do with education. CRT is not the idea that all white people are bad. It's not the idea that anyone who isn't white is helpless and unable to achieve. We don't teach CRT in our schools. Now, training on diversity is different, and the school system has a flyer that they just passed out today at this meeting saying that SEL is taught. that part of the educational system and the standards in Indiana require us to have an awareness of other people and the ability to work with other people. And that's something that I think that Brownsburg schools do well. Last year, 71% of the students at Brownsburg High School were white, and there were 29% minority. I think that's pretty universal throughout our school system. And as we talked about last time, issues do come up. Dr.

013Snapp mentioned the N-word being used on social media. That's something that needs to be dealt with in our schools. We need our students to know all of our U.S. history. The good, the bad, not just the part that we like. Time is up, so please conclude. So I ask that the school board please continue the diversity education initiatives that they have worked on. Deb Bagan. Hi, Deb Bagan. I live in Lake Ridge here in Brownsburg. I have one son who's a rising sophomore. He's at band practice tonight, which makes me very happy, and him. I'm going to talk about a slightly different topic I don't think a lot of people even care to talk about tonight. You guys have seen, I'm sure, the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with their guidance today. I know

014we didn't necessarily follow that to the letter last year. Indiana's COVID map came out today. It's not looking so great. Hendricks County is still looking good. A lot of the counties outside, the rural counties, not looking as great. CDC, Department of Health have all given their guidance. We're not really wanting to follow their recommendations, and I've heard all of that. I'm not here about my son. I'm here for other people's kids. My son's vaccinated. He's fine with going to school however you tell him to go to school. But at the last meeting, we talked about my kids played sports and they're fine. Not everybody's kids get to play sports. They don't have the same health. They have different health restrictions. We're supposed to be a school that takes care of all of our kids. And

015we're not. We sent out an option to kids. To say, oh, if you're at risk, go ahead and stay home. We'll give you the at-home learning again. Great. I sat in this same board meeting last month, and we said that option was inferior to being in school, and we're not offering the kids those options. Or we're telling parents, please put your kids at risk because other kids aren't going to take your kids into consideration. That doesn't seem like the Brownsburg I know. Separate is not equal. I believe we can do better as a community. Thank you. Thank you. Frederick Rademacher. Should have sat closer. Frederick Rademacher. I do live here in Brownsburg. I have two students currently enrolled in Brownsburg schools, one recently graduated. Someone wise once told me that one bad apple spoils the

016bunch, and I think we have a situation here that proves that to be true. In August of last year, my daughter was forced to endure an entire English class that the subject matter was Black Lives Matter. She and another student that were not in support of Black Lives Matter did not raise their hand and they were singled out. Per your policies and guidelines were public complaints and concerns references. The initial conversation should happen between the teacher and the parent and I reached out via email to Mr. Brock as well as the assistant principal. I had a conversation with Mr. Renner shortly after that and then on the 9th of August that same teacher attended school on a casual Friday wearing a Black Lives Matter fist shirt. All of which I believe to be totally inappropriate

017and outside the scope of education. This policy of initial contact was never was never taken through was never shown through by the staff member I had an additional conversation with Mr. Polosky and I was assured that this matter would be handled and it was not and I can say Quite frankly that it wasn't handled because just before your last board meeting I was approached by a peer, a friend and someone I've known for over 20 years and who is also an employee in the school system, and he asked me why I was trying to get Cameron Brock fired. I followed your chain of command, and this body did not respond in an appropriate manner. As a result, since I have been confronted with the public being made aware that I made an effort, which I

018did not. Please conclude your comments. To have Mr. Brock fired at that time, I am at this point asking for his termination and or resignation. Thank you. Thank you. Walter Kovacs. My name is Walter Kovacs. I'm a Brownsburg resident. I want to start off by saying that it is disgusting that I have to come here tonight and state my concerns about my child's school and what appears to be an agenda to indoctrinate them. Frankly, it's something a parent should never have to be concerned with, and only a sick and twisted mind would be willing to push CRT or anything resembling CRT by any other name. At the last meeting, a school board member asked for the parents to show him proof that CRT is being taught. My only reply to that is the burden of

019proof should not rest on the shoulders of the parents. It should rest on the shoulders of the administrators and the school board to show that CRT is not being taught. In closing, I would also like to respond to another statement made by the same board member. The statement by this individual was that the school board doesn't have to let us speak. A statement that came across as nothing more than crass and condescending. So I would like to take the time to say thank you for letting someone like me speak. Someone I'm sure you view as a simple peasant and beneath you. So thank you, Your Majesty. I hope my words have not affected your delicate ears too harshly. Trump 2024. Thank you. Kristen Ferklick. I also would like to talk to you tonight about some

020school board policy that anyone can find on the website. It's kind of buried, but you can find it. Policy 2416 in relationship to a character ed lesson my son endured last year at the beginning of the year. But first, you also need to know about a conversation I had with Dr. Snap June 22nd of last year where he told me that there would be no BLM. mentions curriculum and that there was a strong support of law enforcement in Brownsburg schools. This character ed lesson was conducted on the behalf of the leaders of tomorrow club in the first week of school, July 2020. I was informed a couple months later when I finally started figuring things out by the guidance counselor Rose Rosenbaum that the student survey component would be used to develop further character ed

021lessons for the year. The lesson plan went as follows. Teachers were to write Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter prominently on the board and then let students ponder that for 60 seconds. They then were given a handout during which a video played. Hoda Kotb talks to students about Black Lives Matter. The handout indicated them to write down video quotes that make you feel something with three bullet points. The video portrayed strong themes of police brutality. BLM signage of I can't breathe, say their name, silences violence. Statements of students from the same age of these peer groups saying things like I feel like I'm in danger, like I'm being hunted, and that's just unacceptable. These are black children, you can imagine. People are being killed for like no reason. The student handout also said, Your

022time is up. Questions to answer honestly, which something is probably the school board can need to listen to. How do you feel about yourselves in light of these events? We're asked to these children. My child is the child of a law enforcement officer. Your time is up. Please have a seat. Please review your policy. Your time is up. Please have a seat. You are not to survey children on these topics without having prior written consent of their parents. Your time is up. Please have a seat. That is federal law, state law, and general law. Ms. Ferklick, please have a seat. Thank you. Penny Bigelow. My name is Penny Bigelow. I live at 1424 Sandy Drive in Indianapolis. My husband and I both signed up to speak. When I timed my speech, it ran a little

023over, so he is conceding his two minutes to me. I'm sorry. We don't have that policy, so we can't do that. Why not? I'll speak. You said each person can speak for two minutes. I looked it up in your policy. You can. Each person can speak for two minutes, so you're welcome to speak. It looks like I'm going to run about 20 to 30 seconds over. It's not going to take full time. We'll start your time right now. How's that? I'm sorry? We'll start your time over right now. Okay. Excellent education is my passion. The curriculum is my primary focus at this time. On July 1st, as you know, the school board members have responsibility for the curriculum and as elected officials, you have a responsibility to everyone, not just to the students in the

024school, to all the taxpayers and all the residents. I want to see the money spent in all school systems going to quality education first, teaching children to become productive members of society with marketable skills and the ability to communicate well, both verbally and in writing. According to information recently published in the Indy Star, five of the top ten school systems are located in counties surrounding the city. One of those is Brownsburg. Don't dumb down the children. This means a priority should be placed on reading, writing, and arithmetic, plus higher math, science, and civics without bias. Thank you. In many schools with CRT-based curriculum, the honors classes are being removed so that all students are being presented with the same material, which is less rigorous. If you cut back on the pre-stemmed courses, our whole nation

025will suffer from a lack of well-trained scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians. If you are taking teaching time from core courses to teach SEL CRT, you are taking away valuable learning time. The emphasis in all courses... Your time is up. That was the first one. Thank you. So now I'm assuming... Okay. Jim, is it Jim Bigelow? Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Bigelow. Ready? Okay. The emphasis in all courses should be fact gathering, critical thinking, problem solving, and logical conclusions. As elected officials of school board members are to represent all the citizens including taxpayers and not just the parents of the school employees. It's the duty of the school board members to keep an open mind when opposing views are brought to them. It is an obligation to all school board members to research and fully

026understand opposing views before taking positions. Thank you for listening. And that's a quick one. But let me add a little something to it. Yeah. Metropolitan School District, Washington Township. Korean student. exchange student came. She starts her school education at 6 in the morning and ends at about 9 at night. She came here, her education was so far advanced, she had to call home every night, or email home, whatever, so she could keep up with her classmates in Korea. The same thing's going on in China. These kids are exposed to critical thinking, extremely high math, They are super engineers. We're being buried by them. If you want this country to survive this Marxist-like takeover, and that's what it is, Black Lives Matter, I have black friends. I like them. They like me. The problem is that

027people that control Black Lives Matter is nothing more than a Marxist organization. I'm with my black friends. We want to see critical race ended. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Eric Knight. Just leave him there and we'll get him passed out. Thank you. So Mr. Knight can have his time. Just wait until he's seated and then we'll let you get going. Thank you. Okay. mr knight please proceed so uh thank you um first i'd like to address i can't believe nobody else has addressed this so far is some comments that were said at the end of last uh meeting um that i noticed that they were directed towards one side and that dr snap you want us to stop this front and you believe that there is no crt we're not implementing it I

028want to believe that. However, we first had a diversity, equity, and inclusion officer hired. That's strike one. Strike two is the inclusion with this SEL language for microaggressions and such. That is all part of the SEL umbrella that CRT sits under. So when these social advances start, it's hard for me to trust. my kids and your trust. When you guys do these things, it puts my guard up. And second of all, Dr. Hilton, you work for the, well, Esquire, you work for the Indiana State Teachers Association. It is a charter under the NEA, correct? I do not work for them. You don't work for the Indiana State? I thought you were counsel to them. I'm a partner in a law firm. Okay, but do you represent? I do. Okay, so as board members, who do

029you represent? The teachers or the parents of Brownsburg schools? I have to ask because if we're going to talk about this and the NEA and the teachers want to implement CRT, and they've made that very clear, who do you represent? I look at this and I notice that we've got these things coming out. There's support. I just want you guys to understand, do you represent, and answer to all of us, do you answer to the students and the parents, or do you guys represent the teachers? Because it's very clear that the teacher organizations are lining up to support CRT. If you want us to believe that CRT isn't coming in, put it into policy just like you did that language. Tell us that teachers in the Brownsburg school system cannot advance CRT agendas. Period. And

030then we'll back off. But otherwise, telling us that you need to... Your time is done, so please conclude. Thank you. Thank you. Telling us that we're going to stop, this only solidifies and encourages us to keep going forward because we need to hear that it's not. Thank you. Sam Mace. Good evening. My name is Sam Mace. I live here in Brownsburg. I have three daughters that go to Brownsburg schools. I would agree with many of the statements that are set up here that it surprises me the amount of division that is in our community right now. I would challenge this group that sits here in front of me to bring those groups together. There is a lot of conversation. There's a lot of things happening. People feel different ways. You keep telling us that things

031aren't being taught, but most of the people in this room, regardless of what they believe, actually believe you are teaching this. It's about the only thing they have in common right now. That alone should cause you pause and should cause you to reflect on what's being taught and what you're doing. I believe you have an opportunity to lead from the front and bring people together. Everyone in this room has a right to the voice regardless of what they believe or don't believe. That doesn't mean they have to align to what I believe or what you believe, but they deserve to have a voice. And it should cause you pause and it should cause you concern. When there's this many people that are on opposing sides when you have the opportunity to bring us together. I

032certainly believe that there is a lack of trust. One of the ways that you fix that lack of trust is through transparency. Matt, you and I didn't talk tonight. Don't even know each other. But transparency is the key, and that is one of the ways that you fix the lack of trust that this community has in you right now. I certainly don't want to see the atrocities and the racism and the discrimination. continue to occur. I don't want history to be repeated. But you have parents in this community that are concerned that at the same time you're bringing in teaching or books that are teaching our teachers from people that have made very controversial statements. One of those controversial statements relates to the only way to fix past racism and past discrimination is to discriminate

033in the future. None of us are for that. I don't want to see that done. I don't want to see that implemented. My kids shouldn't have to experience it. No one's kids should have to experience that. Your time is up, so please conclude. So please, the way you create trust in this community and bring this community together is transparency. Be more transparent about what you're doing. Thank you. Joe Walsh. Thank you for letting me speak. I'm, like many people, out of Brownsburg. I have three kids. I have a recent graduate as well who was enlisted in the Air Force. And I do keep seeing the politicalization that's going on here every single meeting, and it just keeps getting worse and worse. But my focus, like Mr. Bacon, is on masks. The American Academy of Pediatrics,

034the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, the National Institute of Health, the Indiana State Health Department, and even the Hendricks County Health Department have all issued guidance stating that masks for unvaccinated children, spacing students three feet apart at a minimum, continue to roll out vaccines as they become available. This multi-layer approach has been deemed the safest, most effective, and most cost-efficient. But what we seem to be doing is buckling under political pressure from the loudest voices in the room. I have children that are immunocompromised. My answer, I'm being told, is you can either send them and hope other children wear masks around them or keep them home. Now, you can come to my house. You can't last year when my kid was looking over the fence because I live in the backyard of

035my kid's school. And he saw his friends play. Because if they do catch COVID, it could be detrimental to them, especially the Delta variant. I would like to not acknowledge it. It's not an issue. People want to look at the statistics because the stuff worked. The things that we put in place as a nation works. What we're going to do is we're going to go in this blindly again, act like nothing's happening at all. I've been in, I worked in warehousing before I recently changed my job. I've seen what happens when we don't protect ourselves. It can get very bad. So I ask that you please reconsider that. School's starting soon. And I know you are very smart people. And there are smart people around the world who are telling us the right things to

036do. All you got to do is until we can get vaccines. The moment vaccines are out for children, give a two-month window. That's all you got to do. It's just that simple. But instead, please do not succumb to political pressure that people are giving to this room. I can see it, and I'll have to be more board meetings because I see a lot more of it. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Rob Kendall. Rob Kendall Brownsburg. First, I would like to congratulate the board on lifting the mask mandate. Thank you for listening to Dr. Fauci before this was politicized. Thank you for listening to the Fauci emails. He thought no one would read that masks do not work. So thank you very much for doing that. You deserve to be commended. Tell the truth

037about what's going on with CRT. Some people are for it. Some people are against it. I think you're seeing tonight a lot of people are really against it. But whatever it is, it's your right to do it and deal with the consequences next election. But you are enacting CRT. You're enacting the language. The nation's largest teacher union, of which Mr. Hilton is very familiar with regardless of how he wants to describe what he does with them, is saying they're going to enact CRT. Are we to believe this board and Dr. Snapp is going to take on the entire teachers union? It's not going to happen. They're saying they're going to do it. You hired a DEI officer who is all over the internet. It takes seven seconds to find it saying she sees race in

038everything and certainly has a chip on her shoulder about it. You're entitled and able to do whatever you want to do. But I think you're seeing here tonight in the comments a couple months ago versus the comments now, people are seeing through it and they're very angry about it and they're going to be motivated next year to fix it. So just be honest with them about what you are doing. Thank you. Becky Secord. Hi, I'm Becky Secord. I understand your need to put critical race theory to bed, but lowering the standards of our high ability, adopting racially divisive terminology, and hiring a diversity equity, not inclusion officer. I cannot do that until some of our many questions have actually been answered. Since you felt the need to bring me and my views up during your

039closing statement, I ask you to refrain from being condescending to parents who are concerned with where our school is going. At the last board meeting, it was stated that we aren't teaching critical race theory. If that's the case, why not ban it altogether? Why not set parents at ease? Along with using any of its teachings, any books that promote treating people differently based solely on race, and the hiring or firing of teachers. Now, I know I've asked this question two other times, but I have never received an answer. It would be helpful if the board could clarify, could give one single example of systemic racism in our schools. Is it our policy, teachers, curriculum? Can anyone answer the question? Also, what are the new equitable qualifications for black and brown students to be eligible for

040high ability classes? How will this differ from that of white students? How will this change the coursework if qualifications aren't the same for all? Since the school is now wanting to police the social media of students, will the staff be held to the same standard? Shouldn't adults be held to a higher standard than our children? And will BCSC create a morality clause for teachers and how they use their social media accounts? Last, if any of you are receiving money from the radical left teachers union and are up for reelection, tell the teachers unions to get their checkbooks out. Thank you. Maddie Lee. My name is Ian Mattingly, and I have a second grader in the Brownsburg schools. I'm also a local physician, and I just wanted to say a couple of things. I want to

041thank the administration and the school board for prioritizing in-person education. It's been very beneficial to my family. I don't have the luxury of working from home, and the ability to send my son to school has been very important to him and his growth and development. I know the CDC has released guidance that has stated that masks should be worn indoors by all individuals over age two that are not vaccinated. And then the American Academy of Pediatrics released information today that goes a little bit further in recommending universal masking for all students because such a large proportion of students are not able to be vaccinated. And also because there's no system in place to monitor the status of vaccine among students and staff. The Delta variant, which is now the dominant variant in our community, is

042about twice as contagious as the strain that we were dealing with last year. So the layered approach that was so effective at minimizing the classroom transmission of COVID-19 may not be as effective, and it definitely will not be effective if we don't have a universal masking in place. Hendricks County cases have increased, the average daily cases have increased more than 100% over the last 14 days. and then the percent positive tests have increased by more than 50% over the last 14 days. I also want to point out that the Indiana Department of Health has released information that only about 20% of students between the ages of 12 to 18 are fully vaccinated for COVID-19. So this is not just going to be a problem for the elementary schools, though the elementary schools is obviously my

043primary focus because I have a second grader. I also want to point out that the quarantine burden is going to be significantly higher for families because the guidance for quarantine of three feet within the schools is with the caveat that universal masking is in place. And if there's no universal masking in the classroom, the quarantine is going to be six feet. That's going to significantly increase the quarantine burden for students. A lot of people will say the kids don't get that sick. but there are long COVID symptoms, multi-system inflammatory syndrome in students. Please wrap up your comments. That is something that can linger for students for a long time, and we don't have effective treatment. So I'd ask you to reconsider the mask stance, or what could you do to cohort students that choose to

044mask within the classes or within the classroom? Thank you. Dave Wyant. Good evening. I'm David Wyant, PO Box 513, Brasburg, Indiana. Again, I have not spoke to any of the folks here in the room, and I am here on the topic of transparency. So in your claim dockets this evening, there's $1.36 million that folks asked you to approve, and you did. Is there a detailed line item for that in your packets? There's not in my packet. Do you have any idea what you passed? That's the answer I'm looking for. So, you know, the doors open at 6.15, and the meeting starts at 6.30. And what little is in this packet, that gives me 15 minutes to review and assemble comments on packets for a two-minute public comment. Is that transparency? Now I ask if the

045packets were available prior to the meeting. They're not on your website. The packet's not available after the meeting on your website. So it kind of draws me to question this transparency issue on a broader scope. Now, why is this all important? Well, we're coming up on the 2022 budget presentation, which won't really start until August. But my suggestion would be, I have actually, you might want to write this down, I get more transparency out of the town than I get from you guys. Can you believe that? And I get three minutes, too, by the way. But I get more transparency out of the town than I get from you folks. So if I'm having trouble just what I'm doing much less what these folks are concerned about your academic policies Sounds like transparency is a

046problem. Please address that going forward. Oh and I'm sorry. Hold on a minute. I'd like to praise you for this document here Thank you for doing this Because part of what I asked you folks to do and challenge my public servants was to continue to communicate this matter I believe this document is a good step Please continue to go forward and do so But as is evident by the number of folks in the room, there's a long way to go. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Stephanie Stout. Hi, I'm Stephanie Stout. I'm a Brownsburg resident. I have two children in elementary schools here in Brownsburg Community Schools. I don't have the data that Anne has nor the degree that she has, but I am a research scientist and I value greatly data-driven decisions. And

047I'm asking this board to be more transparent with information that they use to make a decision about masking being optional for our students. For students who are ineligible for vaccination for a variety of reasons, but especially because of their age, I think it's incredibly important that we have effective mitigation measures to be able to enable our students to have on-site learning in classroom time like they did last year. We've proven with the measures that were put in place last year that we can do that with very few quarantines in the elementary level. I am concerned that given all the guidance from experts, nationwide, worldwide and even locally that they are recommending universal mask usage in schools that this board has made a decision to go optional. because they are being influenced by political pressure rather

048than making a data-driven decision. If you have data that demonstrates that you have alternate mitigation strategies that will keep our students in school and prevent transmission of COVID, please share it. If you do not have that data, please reconsider your decision. It is very important that this next school year goes as successfully as the last one. a lot of that success last year was due to your strategies of distant distancing and masks please reconsider your mask decision thank you thank you chanel cheney daily okay thank you my name is shanae daly i currently have three kids in brownsburg schools from all levels i understand that decisions can only be made with the information we have at the time since the last meeting As of July 10th, the CDC said, and I quote, masks should be

049worn indoors by all individuals age two and older who are not fully vaccinated. As of today, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a statement that recommends universal masking in school for everyone over the age of two, regardless of vaccination status, and that is quoted as well. I ask that the board, in light of new information, revisit the previous decision of optional masks. That's all. Thank you. Rick Centieri. Centieri. I'm going to ask questions, but I guess it's not a give and take, so I'm going to read quickly. The critical Marxist theories in question, critical race theory, genderism, 1619 Project. Those are critical race theories. Critical Marxism theories. Are they being taught? If you want to find out more about it, American Marxism by Mark Levin, very scholarly, well noted, pick it up. Inform yourselves. The

050school board, in light of transparency, the school board has a duty. We're not going to take your word for things. You need to provide for parents a copy of the entire K-12 curriculum. one copy of every textbook, workbook, supplemental materials, photocopied items that are handed out that are not in the textbooks, and any book reading lists that are assigned. For two obvious reasons. We parents are the primary stakeholders. These are our children. We parents pay for everything in the school system. Through our property taxes which are going to go sky-high So we definitely have the money to provide one copy to all of these parents not each Just one copy that we can divide among parents. We're getting organized as parents The other thing I would like to see in order of transparency I'd like

051to see a camera in every classroom that picks up video and audio Teaching should not be done in secret and we should not have to get reports home from our teenage or even younger children on what happened. Again, we pay for everything in this school. I'm the same philosophy of the great Ronald Reagan, President Ronald Reagan, trust but verify. But the second part of that is when they don't see the light, make them feel the heat. Okay? In terms of the masking, has this school board empaneled any PPE experts to ask them about the efficacy of social distancing and masking for an airborne virus? Your time is up. Please conclude. If you want to find out more about the COVID stand, essentially, a Faucian bargain by Steve Dase and Todd Erson. Again, a scholarly work.

052Thank you. Mark Nierswig. Hello, I'm Mark Nierswig. I live in Brownsburg. Tonight I would like to talk about one of the hidden gems in the school system, and I would like to ask the administration for a little help. When it comes to STEM education and preparing students for a career in STEM fields, the high school robotics team is an outstanding program. If you're not familiar with the robotics team, it is more than a club that just tinkers with robots. It's a varsity-level team where students can earn a varsity letter if they meet all of the requirements. One of the things that makes the robotics team special is that in many ways it is run like a business. Students get first-hand experience with the tools and project management techniques currently used in the industry. The team

053size is typically 50 to 60 students and is organized into sub-teams such as electrical programming design and fabrication. There are also non-technical sub-teams such as a business team and a multimedia team. The team has two very dedicated co-sponsors or adult leaders who have had children have gone through the program. There was also a team of mentors, including myself, who bring their experience to the team and provide guidance to the student leadership. What the team doesn't have is involvement from a teacher at the high school. And while this is not a requirement, it could help strengthen the program in the long run. The obvious choice may be someone from Project Lead the Way, but I would like to assert that a teacher absolutely does not need to have a technical background to be involved. The only

054qualification a teacher needs is a little enthusiasm because the team of mentors is there to handle the technical aspects of the robot. Teachers may also be hesitant about the time commitment, especially during the competition season in the spring. They need a lot. However, with multiple co-sponsors and a large team of mentors, the time commitment can be shared. In summary, I'm asking the administration to keep the robotics team in mind, and if they know a teacher who may even be a little bit interested, to encourage them to come to a meeting and see firsthand what the robotics team is about. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our comments from patrons. We now move on to communications. Groundsburg Education Foundation report, Mrs. Dierman. Okay, first I would like to welcome, we have two new members on the

055Brownsburg Education Board. First one's very easy to pronounce, Sarah Dobson, welcome. Second one, I'm gonna give it my best shot, Igor Jakovlevich. Close. Welcome and congratulations for being new members on the board. And our retiring board members, Mindy Brat, Melissa Goss, Kevin Kersey, and Beth Obern. So we thank you guys for your service. The Chip-In for the Kids Golf Outing presented by Summers Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling. That was a huge success and the event raised over $33,000. Thank you for that. Designer Purse Bingo, which is presented by Adelsberger Orthodontics, Tuesday, August 17th from 5 to 9 at the Brownsburg American Legion Hall. Tickets are $40 each, and they are on sale now, and you can contact the BEF office to purchase those, or you can see the BEF website for more information on that. The

056annual surplus sale will be Saturday, September 25th from 8 to 10. Please check the BEF website for more information on that. And last, the drive for your school event will not happen again until 2022. But surely within all that, you can find a way to support BEF. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Dierman. Operations update, Mr. Boyd. A few quick updates this evening. First of all, in the packet this evening was the confirmation of the bid awards for West Middle School, so that project's moving forward, and we are rapidly approaching the start of school. Staff access actually opened up today. We're still in the process of getting the air conditioning back up and running. That equipment arrived last week, and so... We've been working with some COVID delays from shippers and manufacturers, but we're working around

057those and have been able to overcome all those issues along the way. Sixth grade orientation occurs, I believe, Wednesday, if I recall correctly, and we should be up and running. in the building there. Also parent pick up and drop off if you drive by there right now you may wonder how is that going to work that will be in place before school starts. So we will be in good shape there. Finally, unrelated to our project but many people probably are not able to discern the difference, the work at airport and Hornaday Road which is actually a town of Brownsburg project, not ours, that is interrupting a walking zone to West Middle School and we already have put in place a temporary bus, much like the bus that we ran over in Sugarbush when we were

058working on the Transportation and Facility Services building. That bus will take those children that normally are walking to West Middle School and will get them around the construction zone. We expect that construction to be completed sometime around Labor Day, as we were told by the town of Brownsburg. Those parents have been notified individually that have impacted those students and families. And then the other thing I wanted to mention is that as part of the meal waiver program we've been talking about this past year in nutrition services, one of the components that Ms. Ryan has identified is our ability to provide meals to families that are eligible for free and reduced meals. through the waiver program over the breaks. Normally we don't serve meals to students over fall, winter, and spring recess. And this year we're

059going to try that for this fall. We'll have to take those orders for a month in advance and then we'll have those distributed out. But that will provide students with a total of 10 meals, five breakfasts, and five lunches each week for fall recess. If that goes well, we'll continue to expand that into winter and... spring recess that's something that again is part of that meal waiver program that we've been talking about and i believe that is all that i was going to share with you this evening any questions for mr boyd okay thank you mr boyd uh opening of school update dr snap students will be arriving next week and we are ready for them i think it's best to communicate to distinctly separate plans one for the secondary and one for the elementary

060the high school will be back to normal as far as the scheduling as far as spacing as far as all those things at the middle school they'll be back to normal absent their lunch schedule that's due as much in fact to the construction at West and shared staff between East and West as well as the high school and scheduling so they will be back other than the schedule when we get to the elementary i understand the the leveling procedures there and certainly appreciate the comments tonight particularly dr mattingly thank you we are still going to space the students at six feet we're still doing the staggered lunches we're still doing the hand sanitizing we're still doing the pod All the things basically that were in place last year with the mask optional is the only

061difference. And so that will continue in place until vaccines become available for elementary students, and then we'll review that at that time. I think it's safe to say, and we've had conversation about this with the board, is that the board will obviously respond as data comes in. And so should some of these things begin to come to fruition and we're watching trending and data that will bring that conversation back to the board and I'm sure the board will act appropriately. Some things are outside of our control. For example, the federal government requires that all students wear masks. buses and so we don't have a choice there the federal government has said you know where about the mask on the bus this is an incredibly challenging job for all of our bus drivers that have to

062have students wear a mask on the bus we do not have a choice in that matter that's part of the federal Department of Transportation so We have a plan in place after the board meeting tonight. This will be communicated in more detail to our parents tomorrow, but happy to answer any of your questions about the start of school in light of all the comments tonight. Any questions for Dr. Smith? I had one question on the instruction with Schoology. What happens with the K through five? With K through five we'll go back to what we would do if the student had a long-term absence and we'll send work home in that manner Schoology is a costly program and to the per pupil Cost when we're not going to use it in all grade levels in all

063classes every day is a little bit cost prohibitive for K through five in Six through twelve. We know that what it'll be used on a very regular basis with our students That's why we were keeping it there any other questions thank you dr snap we now move on to the 2022 budget presentation i i will tell everybody you are all absolutely recommended to stay and please join us this but i just want to warn everybody this will be a long presentation if you need to leave that's fine but i encourage you to stay as well i just want to let people know ahead of time so if we if you if you would want to And I'm not offended in any way. Like I said, I encourage you to stay and listen to it, but

064this would be a good time if you've decided not to stay for the whole meeting to go. So thank you for coming. I think it will be the budget presentation. We can put it on there. Yeah. No problem. Very good. Well, go ahead. Sorry, Mr. Hacker. Go ahead. All right. So tonight, just very similar to what we did last July at the work session, tonight is to kind of give an update on where we are in the budget process, as well as provide a little bit of education on what that budget process looks like and any changes from the state when it comes to the amount of funding that's coming our way. And so, I just always want to start out with this particular slide, which shows our four major funds that we provide a

065budget for each particular year. Really three out of those four. But our four major funds. And so the Education Fund, Operations Fund, Debt Service Fund, and Rainy Day Fund. And so it's important to know what those funds are and what expenditures come out of those particular funds or what they're designed for. And I think education, obviously, we know that's pretty... self-explanatory, anything associated with the education of the kids. And so it pays for people, teachers, support staff, as well as our educational supplies. Operations fund, a lot of people think that might be more towards operations of the district, which is absolutely true, but there's still quite a bit of people that are associated with the operation of a school district, including custodial maintenance, bus drivers, mechanics, central office staff, and other administrators, including utilities, transportation,

066fuel costs, and other supplies. And debt service fund, that's ultimately for making our bond payments. So the amount of debt that we have, any of those payments on an annual basis come out of the debt service fund. In rainy day, that's just for our one-time expenses. We don't actually submit an annual budget, as we don't intend every year to use those funds, but it's there if we need it. And we do have one item on the agenda later on where that is a case. And so back in 2000, I believe, 19, when the state made the adjustments to these funds, went from old general fund, capital projects, bus replacement, and other items, the revenue sources for these funds didn't change, but the expenditures did. And so we do have some shifting when it comes to

067the revenue that comes in for items based on where we need to expend dollars. So the education fund, which is considered the old general fund, that is from our state dollars. That's from the state basic grant that the Department of Education provides to us. But items that are located within what we're supposed to use those dollars for, such as utilities, HR, insurance, like property insurance, security, and administrators, any of those items that are going towards the operation of the district. actually have to be expended out of the operations fund. And so we have what's called the education to operations transfer, which I'll talk about in a moment. So there is some movement amongst these funds. Technology is one of those areas that used to be part of the capital projects replacement and fund there, and

068technology fund. And since a lot of the technology has a direct impact to the students and the education of the students and technology accessibility that they have, again, we can go from operations to education. Now what we do in Brownsburg and what a lot of schools do is just a one-way and so we net those two out and look at the education to operations fund transfer. The other transfer that you'll find on an annual basis or what we attempted to do on an annual basis is that transfer to the rainy day fund which typically would come out of the operations fund and that's remaining non-spent or remaining appropriated funds from our budget that was submitted. And so let's talk about the education operations transfer because I think that's a celebration for Brownsburg. IDOE states that

069they'd like a maximum amount of revenue transferred from education operations at 15%. And so what we are thankful to say, since 2019, our history, we have been underneath that mark, number one, and also are looking to lower that. So 11.4, 9.1. Right now we're anticipating 2021 at 8.1. And just looking right now with potential expenditures, it's going to be around that same amount as we're just getting started in our budget process. And so really what that has allowed us to do or why we're able to do that is because we're very... We've used our bond proceeds in a manner that we're looking at capital improvements, so it's not just major construction funds, but other items, our bus replacement, those kinds of things that we are looking to use with our bond money that we are

070able to then keep in our operations fund, which ultimately keeps money in our education fund, which goes to our staff salaries. And so very, very excited for that and something, again, it's a celebration. there are several schools that go above that 15% and it is not, it's kind of a naughty list among school finance discussions and so it does take a lot of additional work on the school district to explain why. And so again, just a very, very positive spot BCSC continues to be in. When we talk about school finance essentials, really, again, budget really defined as a submission of expenditures and revenue based on both historical data, future projections to determine the annual appropriations for the funds that I've mentioned. And really, this process aligns the authority with the ability. And so cash balance

071and cash on hand obviously allows us the ability to spend money. But we have to submit that to the DLGF to give us the authority. And so this budget process, which we will wrap up in October, that will be the budget approval board deadline. Once we submit that to the DLGF, that gives us the authority or the appropriations in order to spend our dollars. We do look at over 3,000 lines of the different accounts of the projected expenditures. One of the challenges of creating an annual budget when the state budget is on a fiscal year cycle, July through June, and we are on January through December, is the fact that each budget will actually kind of, we have to look at two different teacher contracts. And what do I mean by that? So we are

072currently getting ready to negotiate the teacher contract for the 21-22 school year. So the increases that we determine for this particular school year, they will start in... around October. So I guess really September is when our August when our first pay goes, but we'll see those expenditures hit our funds in October after everything's approved. And so that contract will impact what teachers are making starting in January of 2022. And then as we get to this point in time next year, we're renegotiating a second contract, which will hit the second part of the 2022 year. And so really we are looking at two teacher contracts within the calendar year that makes it pretty difficult to navigate as we, again, try to make the... this based on some projections. And so some challenges there, but we'll submit

073that to the DLGF in October. And just a highly regulated process and look forward to coming back with you with the formal process starting in August. When we talk about building the budget, really we kind of look at the line item budgeting here. And so we're looking at the 3,000 plus lines. We're hand entering those into Excel spreadsheet, which has become my friend. And so we're really taking a look at historical expenditures. What have we spent up to date? And so what have we spent up through June 30th at this point in time, the first six months of the year? What are our projected expenditures towards the second half of the year? We're looking at our ADM projections. ADM is our enrollment. And so we have to submit that to the state in May as

074what we think our enrollment will be come start of the school year. And so that begins to kind of give us a foundation of the revenue coming into the education fund. And we'll determine the money to receive in July and August and September until those things are finalized. Working with Mrs. Gordon, we're looking at staff changes. We have retirements, we have staff that are resigning, new staff coming in. What's the difference of what somebody who's retiring was making versus a new teacher? And tabulating all of that. Take a look at anticipated increases in insurance, property, utilities, preventive maintenance needs, working with Mr. Voigt here and also the building principals when it comes to what the buildings may need, as well as our annual bus replacement plans and looking at our bond payments. And so all

075these items are taken into account for when building the budget. And once we build the budget, it's certainly not something that just ends there. Obviously, we monitor the budget. It's a constant process. It's not something that really is ever done. And so we have our business office, especially Mr. Foster in the business office, he monitors our updates. We have 10-year cash flow projections, which kind of looks at every single account line from every fund up through 10 years as we kind of see how things change and evolve. We want to make sure that we're looking. not being too afraid to make a decision now based on what's going to happen 10 years down the road, but certainly want to make sure that we understand what's coming. We look at quarterly meetings with our operational leaders,

076Mr. Faulkner, Mr. Myros, Mr. Sharkweather, and Ms. Ryan in all those particular areas. Just want to note there that while we do meet with Mrs. Ryan, Nutrition Services is its own separate fund, and so isn't necessarily part of our annual budget. But certainly we want to make sure we're on the same page. And again, we talked about some HR tracking. That's an ongoing process with Mrs. Gordon and I looking at staff. Savings and any car staff changes and any savings or additional expenditures that might come from that So we look at the three different funds that are that we will be creating a budget for education operations and debt service I think it's kind of interesting to see where the all the revenue comes from at least it's interesting to me and so And the

077education fund, the basic grant, which we'll discuss a little bit more, comes from ADM, that's our enrollment, and makes about 93%, as well as some other miscellaneous revenue, other local income tax, things that we are allowed to put in the education fund, including student fees. So the textbook rentals, student supply fees, those all would go into that education fund. And you can see over the last couple years and what we are anticipating in 2022, what that revenue might look like. operations fund that's and debt service as you can see there at the bar in the middle those two funds are those are the two funds that determine our tax rate and we'll get into tax rate um a little bit but again we will in 2022 will be the 10th consecutive year of a tax

078decrease for the brownsburg community school corporation which we're excited to to communicate and celebrate But local property taxes, that really is about 44% of the overall revenue that we receive in the operations fund. And the education transfer that we discussed earlier a few slides back, while that was only 9% of our revenue that we're kind of looking at moving forward, it still makes up a large percent of our revenue in education transfer. So while we want to monitor that, we also understand the importance of that transfer because it certainly does help pay for a lot of expenditures as well as some of the other items there. But that's just kind of an idea of where all the revenue comes from in each of our funds. So kind of diving a little deeper into, especially the

079education fund, ADM obviously has a direct impact, as you can see by that graph, a positive correlation there between our enrollment, which is the purple line, and the revenue that we receive in our education fund. And so obviously we've had two things you can look at that. Number one, the enrollment continues to grow. You can see the little flattened out line there between 2020 and 21. That would be a result of a little bit of a slower growth last year, obviously due to COVID. And you can obviously see that right now we are projecting, although that might change based on some recent data. an enrollment of 95.50 for the coming school year but we think we actually might be over that based on what current enrollment trends look like however for the time my presentation

080together that's the number that we're using and so the record increase by the state which we'll discuss in the moment that bar for 2021 is actually going to be much higher than what we thought it might be this time last year and so really last year we put together the 2021 budget with the COVID mind where we thought we might be asked to take a budget cut in education. And so we're very, very fortunate. We were not asked to take a cut in educate K-12 education. and some things worked out well at the state level that provided record increase by the state. So when the fiscal year budget comes into us and we receive our additional funding come July and August, we will receive more funds than we initially thought, so that's one of the

081reasons why that bar is a little higher than what it was in the past. And as you can see, with the increased enrollment and the increase by the state, the revenue in the education fund looks to be much higher for 2022. So let's take a look at a deeper dive here with ADM because I think this is an important topic. And obviously, this is something that we monitor every single Friday. Kathy Adams, our registrar, sends us an update. And ADM, I mentioned already, it stands for Average Daily Membership, also known as enrollment. And as you can tell from the previous slide, significant factor in the education fund revenue. For the budget purposes, we're really looking at the net change. And so while there's a lot that goes into that, what I'm doing right now is

082I'm saying, all right, I think that we are going to be, for 21-22, about 95-50 students. What was our enrollment last year for the 2021 school year? And right now we'd say, okay, we're growing 255 kids. That's the additional revenue that I'm looking at when I'm making budgetary decisions for 2022. However, the actual ADM process is much more complicated than that. And so when we think about every individual move that has to take place for a student going out of the district and a new student coming in, it really starts as soon as graduation is over. We have 666 graduates leave us, not necessarily every year, but this year we had 666, 660, we won't do 666, 660 graduates leave us. And as of right now, we look at 665 new kindergarten enrollments. And from

083our out of district enrollment process, we have about 40 of those students coming to us. And so we could stop there and we are already at about 1,200, 1,300 different individual transactions of kids going out and kids coming in. And so obviously our registrars here at central office and at our buildings level have a significant amount of work in our summertime. And so then we look at the amount of new students that we have in grades 1 through 12. And then also we have students that withdraw to other schools in and out of state. And so it's really difficult right now to understand where our enrollment will fall, and which is why that we're using projections, and they asked for those in May. And we'll talk about it later in the presentation. But there are

084certainly, it's a reason why that we're not finalizing the budget until October, because we want to ensure that we have the time to make those adjustments. ADM is not finalized until September 17th. And why is that the case? Well, because we are one of the school corporations to start in the state, if not the country. And so if students are moving to us from out of state or we have students going out, a lot of those folks aren't starting until September. And so for us to get an accurate reflection, knowing how important this ADM count is to revenue, we want to ensure that the schools and families have an opportunity to move, and we wait until the 17th of September. to finalize what our funding will be. And so that's one of the reasons why

085negotiations for a teacher contract does not start until after that date. We want to ensure that for the school corporation's sake and teachers' sake that we know exactly how much revenue we might be bringing in based on enrollment. Because it's not finalized 917, it's also difficult to understand maybe why students are leaving us or why students are joining us. We're not really asking those questions and a lot of times schools, we won't even receive requests until around that day, especially if we're moving out of state or schools aren't starting as soon as we are. And so we may not know until after school starts of students who might be leaving us. And so again, one of the reasons why we wait until 917 in order to... figure out what our enrollment will be at the

086state level. And so what I'll do is use that ADM count and look at the Form 54 worksheet, which is provided by the Department of Education, to help determine what our funding might be. And so why did I put this up here? I think it's important to understand the different components of when we talk about the basic grant or ADM funding. The basic grant, which is kind of the overall term for the money coming from the state, is really the foundation amount the state gives to every single student in the state of Indiana, plus complexity. And so complexity is based on SNAP and TANF, or some poverty levels of the students in which we serve. And so obviously a needier population of a school corporation, you might get a little bit more of a percentage

087or two when it comes to the amount of money given to you from the state. The honors designation grant is for those students who the previous year graduated with either an academic or technical honors diploma from Brownsburg High School. We do get additional revenue for those students, and so they look at the previous cohort and give us that dollar amount. Special education grant, number of enrolled special education students, and career and technical education, that would be number of students enrolled in career and tech classes at Brownsburg High School. So all of those kind of add together to give us our total amount there. So we look at that $65,991,000. That combined with the local other revenue miscellaneous fees helps provide the revenue that we will use for the 2022 budget. And we are excited about

088really the increase of the K-12 education. So back in April when the legislative session ended, we were notified that for the next two fiscal years, over the next biennium, that the state was going to provide an additional $1.9 billion into K-12 education. So very, very excited for that. If we remember back to October of 2019, the Red for Ed Day, which was kind of a movement down at the statehouse from teachers from the state of Indiana. And I believe legislators listened. And so there really is a focus to invest in teacher compensation and really go beyond what the recommendation was of the teacher compensation report that was provided this past December. And so one of the items with this new budget is the state recommends a $40,000 minimum teaching salary in the state of Indiana.

089And so for some districts, that will be a struggle in order to figure out how to bring that dollar amount up. Luckily here at BCSC, we're already above that. Last particular school year, we were at $44,500. The other requirement that they've, with the new money, is that schools must spend at least 45% of the state tuition dollars on teacher salaries. And I think that's an important designation that salaries are not compensation. And so when the state will take a look at this, they're only going to look at the 110 code, which is salaries. So any of the contributions that the corporation makes when it comes to any insurance and annuities will not necessarily go into that 45%. So that's a little bit of a change and something that we'll work with our teacher association on.

090But the last report, BCSC was at 54.2%, so again, very, very proud of that. As well as we are going back to the transfer list, the state requires at least 85% of revenue or the 15% transfer out. And again, BCSC is over 89%. So we are really trying to push all of our dollars as much as we can into our education fund. And so while with these new $40,000 minimum and 45% requirements have come down from the state, BCSC feels pretty proud that we are kind of focusing our efforts and dollars into that already. Below there you'll just find the dollar per student in BCSC, a little history of that. And so typically it's between $100 and $200 from 2015-16 up through this previous school year. And if we look, that increase really has us

091up about $400 per student for the coming school year, another 300 students. And again, those are projections. But again, lots of additional revenue coming in. Very, very excited from the news from the Statehouse, which is surprising. When we look at tuition support and complexity grant comparisons, I think, you know, Zionsville Community Schools, not to pick on Zionsville down there at the bottom, because they are, for lack of better terms, the wealthiest school corporation in the state. So they receive the least amount of dollars of state tuition of any school corporation in the state at number 360. Brownsburg is at 340, so not too far away, meaning that the dollar amount that we receive per student, while we certainly do a great job making work and we have done what I think less, or excuse me,

092more with less, when we talk about MSD Wayne Township at number 61, it's $6,625 versus our 5744. When we look at that per student, it makes a significant difference. So if we look at our ADM count at 9550, that's our projected amount. If we were Wayne Township, having their per student dollar amount, it's about $882 more when we look at this school year, which again is $8 million additional dollars. Franklin Township was a very, very comparable district to us, again about $173 per student additional, $1.6 million. And if we compare ourselves to state average, again $4.6 million. And so again, very proud of the fact that in BCSC we have pushed a lot of dollars to the classroom, including 20% more or fewer central office administrators since 2009 as we look to continue to provide

093as many dollars to the classroom as possible. Not going to spend a ton of time here. One of the items that we always discuss, especially when it comes to operations and debt service factor, would be property tax caps. As a reminder, those took place in 2010 for full implementation, where we went from the 2009 cap percentage of 1.5%, 2.5%, and 3.5% to 1%, 2%, and 3% when it comes to residential, agriculture, and then commercial. When we look at Hendricks County, all of our schools there, for the most part, really the purpose of this slide is to talk about the property class breakdown of your community really determines the level of impact that a school corporation or town might see due to tax caps. And so we've kind of put two up there, Brownsburg and Plainfield,

094which actually have a very, very similar assessed value. It's not 100. million, but just for the sake of an easy comparison. When we look at Brownsburg, it's 72% residential and only 17% commercial compared to Plainfield, 37% residential and 53% commercial. When we look at those tax caps, the maximum amount of revenue that we can generate based on just property value or the property class breakdown alone, obviously Plainfield can generate a ton more dollars based on just having a higher 3% tax base than us. And so this does play a significant part. Nobody's doing anything wrong. It's not a school corporation issue. It's just the way that the community is kind of broken down. So we look at overall amount of circuit breaker, that's what CB stands for, or tax cap loss. You can kind of

095see us compared with Avon or the rest of the county schools. And one of the reasons I put this slide up here is because right now, That 4.6 million would be a total hit to operations and so because debt service we required to pay our debt or we have to make our debt payments our bond payments Those are protected taxes and so that full 4.6 million really hits operations alone however because we are at such a high level of loss at 32% We do apply an issue a waiver which you'll hear from us again this fall the protected taxes waiver that allows us to redistribute that loss Amongst the operation and debt service so it's not such a large hit into one fund only We look at expenditures, again, kind of from the first slide.

096The education fund and operations fund are primarily people. So, again, teachers, support staff in the education fund, and then our operations staff as far as people in our operations fund. We look at supplies at the other really 6%, and you can kind of look through there at the others where, again, debt, our bond payments for our debt is 100% of what our expenditures are out of debt service. So as far as the 2022 budget estimates, again, little asterisks there. This is certainly subject to change based on the new enrollment and other projections and changes through mid-August, which is when we'll come back to you and ask for a formal approval to advertise for the 2022 budget for the hearing. We are looking right now, we think our education fund budget will be about $73 million,

097operations fund at $25 million, and then debt service at $25 million, $918 million, $941 million. Obviously, debt service is much more exact because we already know right now what our debt payments will be. Still determining with enrollment and such what education and operations might be, as well as additional teaching staff based on the new enrollment. So that's kind of where we sit at the moment. Also, again, mentioned this earlier, but we are heading into our 10th consecutive year of a tax decrease. And that just gives you a perspective of the different... county schools and so we were fourth last year and probably be fourth this year when we look from 2020 2021 we stayed fourth and that seems to be pretty consistent from year to year it was a good year for hendrix county schools

098in general as everyone saw a tax decrease but but again just kind of information there for you as far as next steps go again from this point forward we're looking on the bus replacement and capital assets plan we will be posting those on our website and getting those submitted in gateway At the August board meeting, we will come back to you with a little bit more of a solid numbers in the budget and ask for approval of those to advertise the appropriations. In September, we will then have the public hearing of the 2022 budget and approval to transfer the education operations final and finally the approval of all those items in October. And I realize that I just think these are important things to remember because someone could think about, again, we're making these decisions

099in August. If ADM isn't finalized until September, there are a couple of adjustment processes in place. Really, December was called 1782. This allows us to ensure that the tax rate drops and make any final revisions based on change in ADM or enrollment. So that's really kind of before the budget is certified. And then once we get into 2022, we do have a couple items. We've actually utilized these in the last two years. We have an ability to do appropriation reduction. We had to do that in 2020 because we had fewer expenditures than we anticipated due to COVID. And then we could also do additional appropriations. So revenue expenditures are more than anticipated and we probably actually have to do that in 2021 with the new money coming from the state. So while we have to

100submit this in October, there certainly are a few different ways to make adjustments if we need to based on actual numbers and not just projections. And so that's try to be quick and dirty there with that information. Certainly. Didn't mean to bore you. I tried to give some enthusiasm there. But it can be dry, and I know it can be overwhelming, but I certainly want to make sure that you guys understand the process and have the ability to ask any questions in which you so choose. Questions for Mr. Hacker? I have one. So with the education fund and the operations fund. And how great we're doing with not taking so much out of education and having to put it into operations and using the bond program and debt service for that. So do other schools

101not do that as well? No. In short, I don't think as many schools utilize... It's a lot of work, quite honestly. And so it takes, when we talk about our financial planning team, what we're doing is utilizing them, and really John is a significant part of that, with knowing so far in advance what our capital project needs are. And so we're able to go to that finance team and say, all right, here's what we think we're going to need next year, the year after, and the year after. And so when we make our decisions for the amount of bond or the amount of debt we might take on, we already know. What we can do now that won't impact us later on and so I think the fact that we are doing so much Advanced

102planning and have a good comprehensive plan for our facilities allows us to make those decisions to utilize the bond maximize the bond payments And the other thing we have is assessed value has gone up for us so that it gives us additional capacity But yeah, I just think we're trying to pull all strings possible in order to keep money in the education fund and really operations fund as well That is awesome. My only other question was the enrollment number for last year, the 92-95. Is that a net number, or is that just our enrollment? Yeah, that was just the net. That was our enrollment. I think I pulled that as a February. But that was our February count date for the total number of students that were enrolled in Brownsburg Community Schools. Thanks. No problem.

103Other questions for Mr. Hacker? Mr. Hacker, thank you very much. No problem. Old business being none, we'll move to new business. Recommendation to approve purchase of real property. Back to you, Mr. Hacker. Very good. So some of these slides will look familiar to you from our May work session. But in May, we came to you with, as we think about, again, our advanced planning here of Mr. Voigt, as we look at the construction of Crossroads Elementary School, what we've known as the Anderson property, which is just, I guess, on the north. east corner of Northfield and Airport Road as we begin design knowing that elementary number eight We'll be soon be looking at constructing that, but also we got to develop that site for elementary 8 and 9, very similar to what Lincoln and Reagan

104looked like. And so we kind of came to you with this option, and the initial drawing came back, and it was a little tight. In fact, it was very tight. When we talk about the flow of both of those buildings, we talk about where the bus lot would be, the exit and entrance off of Northfield or airport, and just the flow of overall traffic, the amount of space we have for our playgrounds was very, very snug. And so because again it's not necessarily about the amount of acreage you have but it's amount of usable space. And so while we were able to maximize that and can do it really we looked at and said man it'd be really nice if we had just a little bit more room in order to kind of spread some

105things out and also potentially save some dollars without having to underground storm water storage tanks. And so Give us permission to take a look at those two property and potentially address those two homeowners and we are happy to to go back to this have to admit that they have Agreed and come to terms with the the BCSC making a purchase of those two properties and so according to Indiana code The school corporation can, maximum value you can offer for a school is the average of two appraisals. And so the information that we secured is there on the screen for you. At 8810 East, we had two appraisals at 550 and 535, average being 542.5. And at 8820, 448 and 445, the average of those two being 446. And so John and I met with those

106two homeowners and had some discussions. And some of the things we agreed to is that, and some of the things we're asking you today, is that BCSC purchased those property using the rainy day fund. And again, one of those one-time, not annual expenditures. One of the agreements just like we have with Norma Anderson in which we bought the first part of that property amount is that the sellers would be able to continue to live in those homes until we need to construct elementary number nine. It's not until elementary number nine that we would actually have to mess with their two properties. And so one of the, just a little bit of a, you know. nugget for them to kind of hold on to and additional savings and one of the items that we've asked or

107they have asked for is the BCSC provides notice of 12 to 18 months in advance when they may need to vacate the property and so these these terms as well as obviously if we're owning the home we're going to be paying the property taxes and those kinds of things those are the terms working with real estate broker we're able to come to and as of Friday afternoon Both parties have agreed to those terms and are agreed to sell that property so that when we look at the construction of the two elementaries, you'll notice that we can utilize that additional space. That's the property line there. We look at the amount of bus parking. We've got some, John, help me out with that term, the water. Stormwater detention. Thank you. Detention is the name I need.

108Detention for me as a principal was a bad thing. As well as just additional room for pick up and drop off, additional spots for playgrounds. And so we just think it's a much better use of the space and very, very excited about the opportunity to make that purchase. And so really the resolution in front of you tonight is asking you, the authority, to make that purchase of both properties at the purchase price listed there in yellow, as well as providing Dr. Schnapp and myself the authority to sign closing documents. as we move towards a closing date right now anticipated. It could be as of August 13th if we're able to move forward tonight. At this time, I ask for your approval. We have a motion. We have a motion and a second. Any questions or

109comments from Mr. Hacker? How much have we got in rain day funds right now? Just under $6.5 million. I know this is highly unlikely to happen, but in the event that we didn't somehow need number nine, what would we? Just end up selling the property again or hanging on to it. I think that was very highly unlikely that we need it based on the enrollment trends. I think it is too. But in quite honest, there are certainly options down the way that we could sell it and those things sell back to those property owners if we didn't need it. However, we really needed to have this. in advance now in order to properly plan even elementary number eight because how that sits on the property with the mind of what nine might might look like

110we needed to know if we could have this land so um just much like the north property we bought it with the intent of needing it and so um just like this we think we're going to need it and we'll utilize it effectively we'll cross that bridge if we need to and purchasing these two properties saves us money in terms of Doing the underground water stuff the site development we have so I was gonna ask that John what can you kind of explain that just so How that works in the amount of money that saves? We I don't have a number on that right now, but yes, it makes a significant difference in how we're able to manage stormwater detention. If you recall, if you drove by Taft's when we were building it, the little

111yellow kind of looked like dog houses, that whole site was covered with those, and we were expecting to have to do a very similar process with Crossroads. Shane showed a pond being expanded on that property, and we expect that to help us not only in... allowing us to detain our water above ground as opposed to putting it into those underground chambers it'll also give us an opportunity to reduce costs for bringing material in because we expect that site to have to be raised up and so rather than trucking that material in from an off-site location we're going to be able to pull it directly from our own property at that point so we expect both of these things to make significant dents in our financial parameters for crossroads but also just make the site more

112effective so Double benefit for the project any other questions? When we staff crossroads We're gonna pull the funds from that and so a couple different options we have and so there's some budget decisions we can make now as we look to kind of for lack of better terms just prepare obviously when we look at 22 and 23 we could potentially look at what's what we call a ghost hire but but but you just kind of set aside some some money there in the budget as we look to do that so that's one option number two i think we talked about this the winner is utilizing when we are looking at the capital projects or capital improvements of our bond proceeds. So when we look at potential covering more of those operational funds out of those

113bond proceeds, that that would allow us to transfer more funds from operations into Rainy Day that we can use with it to help us offset the initial cost until enrollment catches up and then we'll just have the revenue in the education fund. But over the next couple years, that's our plan with the bond proceeds is to help replenish our rainy day fund to a spot where we can then staff crossroads without impacting other areas. Any other questions? We got a motion to second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, Mr. Hacker. Superintendent comments, Dr. Snap. Thank you, Mr. Hilton. We had 21 speakers tonight and a number of questions and claims. I understand. I don't know that I would sit through the entire budget presentation. I do want

114to make it clear on a couple of issues. Someone said that we have put CRT in the school curriculum. Well, that's not anybody's knowledge that deals with the school curriculum. So that's not in place. There's a claim made about honors classes being removed. No honors classes have been removed. I think Shane did a nice job tonight talking about, there was a comment made about property taxes would be sky high. We're in our 10th year of property tax reduction. And I do want to wrap up with some questions about the... mask as well. We've had offered all of our parents if they needed an alternative health requirement to submit a health request and to this day we had 31 received. Some of them we contact them said never mind so I think right now Dr. Jessup

115is working with 16. about 16 health requests to make sure that those parents, some of which had comments tonight about their students being safe, were working with them to make sure that they're in a comfortable spot. So I think that that's important. One person commented about a document that we provided. We did not originate the document. The board received it from the Indiana School Boards Association last week. It was released by the Indiana Department of Education. The headline or the header of this document, at least by the Department of Education, answers and information regarding education standards required by Indiana law. In it, it talks about the Indiana academic standards, Indiana employability standards. It also talks about... SEL that was mentioned and certainly CRT. This document has been released statewide by the Indiana Department of Education

116and we provided copies back there if people were not aware of that. So I'd encourage folks to take a look at that and look at that document from the Indiana Department of Education. We talked about enrollment increases tonight. All last year and then into this year, it's really kind of hard to predict what's happening with enrollment. Last year, we had predicted a higher enrollment. We ended up with about 70 new students, which was down for us. As of today, we're up 400 on our count. And so how's that going to wash out in the next week and a half? I have no idea. As Mr. Hacker mentioned, there could be some people that have not submitted applications to withdraw. Their schools might not be open. And we still have a week and a half. Our

117kindergarten number enrollment continues to climb. We're at 665 this year. We had a huge jump when we were talking previously. In our first grade numbers, we typically grow about 30 to 40 students. from kindergarten to first grade we're up 62 students so we think some families may have just stopped out of kindergarten during covid and come back uh and or enrolled in um First grade, 820 eighth graders. That'll be our biggest class right now. And so a couple classes, 809 in seventh grade. So when we look at enrollment, we are up 400 students at this point in time. Those all came before the release of our ILEARN scores. 379, 379 districts in the state. Those are public schools, charter schools, private parochial schools. you name it they took i-step they're in that 379 and not

118for the consecutive year because there wasn't testing last year but i think this is the fifth year that we've been number one and so while that is just one indication of our success it's not we don't put all of our eggs in the i-learn basket we want to do have high graduation rates ap scores honor classes and all those things but i think you saw tonight in mr hacker's presentation about the state funding that we get that we get significantly less than many other schools and that we can have teachers and that we our teachers can perform at such a level that we have the highest performing students in the state and i learned when we're receiving far less funding than many other schools i think that's a testimony to our teachers and our school

119district overall so very pleased with that number one i've had conversation with many people here already in the central office we'll talk about our teachers it's we have to be real careful that we get those results that we're not relieved. We're relieved that we were number one. I remember the first year that we saw that and we were very excited and celebratory that we were number one and now it's oh we did it again, we did it again and I don't ever want it to feel old or... routine that we continue to be at that spot in the state of Indiana. So that's my report. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Snapp. Board member comments. Mr. Wills. Yes, as Dr. Snapp alluded to, you may have mentioned about CRT not being part of the curriculum. Obviously,

120part of the community came up and spoke tonight because they do believe that CRT is being taught in the schools here in Brownsburg. I've met with a number of community members. since this was discussed during the may 10th board meeting as i told each person i met with if you believe it's being taught in the schools please bring it up because you know this number of people mention the lack of transparency here in brownsburg hopefully if you it once the school year starts next week if you see it or you believe it's being taught you will bring it to the attention of the school and hopefully if that's the case dr snap and the administration will address that Mr. Wells, Mrs. Dearman. Yeah, I just wanted to say, again, thanks to everyone who came tonight.

121It's kind of a long night, and for everyone who spoke, we appreciate hearing from everyone, whether it's masks or our curriculum. It's important. I wanted to thank Dr. Snapp and Mrs. Jessup for the back-to-school plan and all the detail in that, and Shane for the presentation and what you do with our finances and keeping us in really good shape. That's really it. Just thank you guys. Thank you. Dr. Friji. As always, I applaud all those who spoke tonight, no matter your viewpoint, and appreciate any constructive feedback to better the schools of Brownsburg. And also look forward to the new year and encourage families to take advantage of the nutritional service, basically the free meals. Full bellies are a good thing for our kids. Make sure you feed them. Get them there. I mean, take advantage

122of this opportunity. Thank you, Dr. Friedrich and Ms. Seffernan. I'll just mimic everybody else, but thank you guys all for speaking. It's great to hear from everybody. I'm super excited, again, about being number one as well. So congratulations to Testament. Our kids, our parents, our community, our teachers, it takes a village. So congratulations. Thank you, and I'll just point out I think if you'd hear a lot of the comments that were being made tonight you would think that our school system is really struggling and going through a lot and our kids aren't being educated properly and and they're being indoctrinated and so forth you know I think we've got the best school corporation in the state of Indiana and I think Dr. Snap was being a little bit modest as far as the credit that

123goes to our teachers. And again, if we could get rid of state testing, I think we would do it tomorrow. Nobody likes doing it. The teachers don't like doing it. The staff doesn't like doing it. It takes away from some other things you can do. But when you look at the actual data and what's what we go by, it's... You know, we were at around 63% of passing both language arts and math. There was in the Archdiocese of Evansville, and then the first public school was Carmel down at 56%. And then it went 55.5, 55.4. So we were basically seven percentage points ahead of the second place public school corporation in the state, and that being Carmel. So anytime you can beat Carmel in anything, that's cause for celebration in Brownsburg. But it's a wide

124gap. It's a huge gap between us and even second place. And it's not something that we should just expect every year, but it's just a great testament to all the wonderful, good things our teachers are doing in the classroom. and uh you know we'll continue like mr well said um you know i can sit here every board meeting and say crt is is not being taught in our school corporation which it's not but um there'll be a group of people in our community that don't believe that so and that's fine they can continue to come back and continue to like mr wells said just continue to see what your kids are learning at school um i think they're you know we're learning great things as the masks i appreciate the people that talked about that

125tonight i will i will state that um there was I don't think we were swayed by any public input on that. And although people take credit for getting the board to take away the mask policy, there were a lot of things that we talked about. The number of low cases in Hendricks County, the very few. cases that were in the way that things were going down but just to know we will be flexible and if we need to change route we will do that and I know that's disappointing to some and it's it's it was a tough decision to make but I don't think I think as a board here I don't think we're swayed by people demanding that masks be taken away. I think it was this time last year, it was probably one

126of the most nerve-wracking times that we could ever be on a school board as to should we start back in person, what should we do. We worked very closely with the Hendricks County Health Commissioner and other people. Um, you know, with COVID, we didn't know if it was the right thing to do. We we thought the kids would be safe. We thought they were gonna be safe with mass and everything. And we had a very successful school year. And I don't think we had any days canceled because of because of COVID. And that's a great testament to having the staff that we have and with people to back up and so forth. So, um, all of us up here care about kids and wanting to keep them safe. And I appreciate your comments, and we

127will continue to to monitor that and monitor the cases and like you we don't quite know which way COVID will go, but if there is a requirement that change be made, we will. So I think I just hopefully that gives you some reassurance. I know it's not the answer you necessarily want to hear, but we will be flexible to be able to return to another process if needed. So again, thank you everybody for coming. We welcome people to come every board meeting and make comments and that. So that being said, do I have a motion for adjournment? Let me say motion in seconds all those in favor signify by saying aye aye all opposed Motion passes. We are adjourned. Thank you