001Congratulations. >> Congratulations. >> You figured out. >> Well, thank you. >> And I've never seen >> I had to keep I had to bite my tongue for two months. >> Well, we got seven and I'm like, she's telling us not to tell, so I can't say a word. >> So, we had >> I had I we kind of she talked to somebody about a little bit. So, we had six. Now I have seven because Mr. >> I have a male teacher whose wife is pregnant. >> Well, one time I'm just, you know, and you look over and I'm like I look away like I can't look at smile. I don't know if she's one of your salmon or not. >> All right, president. It's time. >> She emailed me and like, "How about you on
002the list?" >> I told her she better get on the list. But they answered >> I thought it was >> it was supposed to be yesterday but they >> it didn't come back from the states I mean from Lily's in Indie so there's been no answer yet >> maybe by the end of the week but the foundation should have all let us know because our students are very >> on edge I mean all right we'll go ahead and get started 6 o'clock Um we will start with a word of prayer. If you'd like to join us, please do. If not, please step out. >> Let's pray. >> Heavenly Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for the uh the break in the weather. Um just be with the the facilities team here to
003just uh catch up with everything um with the cold and the snow last week and the cold coming this week. Um just uh be a positive influence for the kids as we end up the semester. I know uh down here they're doing testing and down in the elementary they're having lots of fun. So just be with the kids and let them enjoy the last last few weeks of school. Um be with us as we make decisions and what's best for the students and the community here. In your name we pray. Amen. >> Amen. 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. All right. The first thing on the meeting is to call meeting
004order and then the approval of the agenda. Any additions? >> No additions or corrections. >> I will entertain a motion to approve the agenda. >> Make the motion. A second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Motion carries 302 absent. >> Mr. President, I do have a quick bear positive before comments for patrons. Just want to recognize a lot of groups, um, students, uh, staff and faculty, community that have helped out with a lot of the activities going on this time of year to collect for those less fortunate. um the Rex Aburn Memorial Food Drive. Mike Gordon heads that up each year and Mike is such a good great individual. Does so much for Monroe Central. Um he reaches out each year to ask for help and I know a lot
005of students and sit staff community support that. Obviously Mr. Hall has done the Larry Hall Christmas the angel tree down at the elementary for I don't know 60 years plus. It's amazing. um he is not he's not doing great and he just got out of the emergency room couple days ago at the hospital so but I know he was in the building I think yesterday I saw him so he plans on doing that again and then of course this Saturday is the Randolph County Secret Families which uh Mr. Wagner and we have a lot of locals that participate in that throughout the county. Um so we'll have groups that will help wrap and shop and deliver trees and deliver presents and stuff. So, lots of good things going on, a lot of people contributing and
006I just want to recognize those folks. I think that's a a great positive for our community and definitely our school corporation. So, I'm sure I've missed other groups that are doing things, but those are three big ones and and Central and Randolph. So, thank you to those folks. >> All right. Now, we move to comments from patrons. If you do have a comment, please limit it to three minutes. Go to the podium and state your name and your address. I don't have any comment but three minutes would be very difficult. I was not watching specifically. >> All right, we'll move on to the consent agenda. >> Um, let's see here. I don't think there are any. Nope, we're good on all those. Uh, Mr. Kennedy, I will say we're pretty excited about getting him to
007do track. Uh he has a lot of expertise in that area. Kind of holding off. I'm glad Mr. Beach is able to convince him here and he's going to do track, you know, free up our athletic director to be Jose athletic director in the spring, which I know he's excited about. I think we are as well. So, I think that's going to be a great hire. So decided to get Sean as our track coach. The rest of those pretty self-explanatory. >> Perfect. >> I will make the motion to accept the consent. >> I'll second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Opposed. Motion carries 30 to. >> Yeah. On the admin office, director contract extensions. The folks we're talking about here are um M. Cheeseman, treasurer, Miss Butterfield, the payroll, our
008tech director, Mr. Headland, our assistant tech director, Craig Hantrell, operations director, I don't know, you heard before the meeting, he's not retiring. So, operations director and uh transportation, David Hoser. What we'd like to do with those folks, I mean, obviously they are doing a great job. I just like to give them the security of knowing that you have a contract. They're not teachers. They're not necessarily admin principles. They're not licensed folks, but these are folks who are boarding. They're salary folks. Um, but it just gives them some assurance that I have contract for the year. The board has that much faith in me to give me the contract extension. So, I'm asking that those people, their contracts be extended through the end of next year. That's what those are. Okay. I'll entertain motion for that.
009>> I'll make the motion to extend I'll second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Motion carries. 302 absent. >> Certified staff appointments. Um I'll make just a couple comments because we are really obviously it's kind of bare bones tonight. Um Mr. Middleton's did have a basketball game that he was planning on attending tonight at Frankton, but his brother had a a pretty serious heart attack overnight. So he left today. this morning so he is not here. Miss Bllye and Miss Hobbs are at the kindergarten tea as I what we're calling that again kindergarten. Sorry, didn't mean too many. >> They are at the tea tonight. So um they're down there and then Mr. Hedland had an early commitment. So little start staffed on the administration side but I can cover
010most of these appointments. Um, we have several maternity leaves which we talked about in spring at the elementary. Um, Miss BL would like to recommend Shawn Gray for one of those maternity leaves and Missy Sims who did her student teaching or in the process of getting that all finished up for the another one. Those would both be fifth grade leaves. It would both be in the spring. She is very excited about both of those individuals because Sean is a licensed teacher and Missy I believe will be if she's not already. >> Yeah. Today >> that's awesome. What that means is those people will be able to administer I learn in the spring and we'll have to go out try to find a teacher to come in and do those tests. So two great great individuals
011to cover some leaves for us. So excited to get them both. >> You guys get to take those together. >> Yes. I will make the motion to accept the certified staff appointments. >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. I. >> I. >> Opposed. Motion carries. 302 abs. >> All classified staff appointments. Uh Katie Milholland has completed all her requirements for her CDL. Can she see over? >> Yes, they're they're working on Yes, her. She pulled me in. I was out there last week waving her in. But yeah, so excited to get Katie. Um, she's she's going to be a great addition as a bus driver and um, yeah, she's she started driving. She I talked to her uh, yesterday. So, ran into her and she's fully licensed driving, so glad to get her.
012And then Britney Shipman, she's already started for us. This would be in the life skills room. This would be with Wendy Anderson. Um, Britney's in there as a full-time pair professional. Like to get those folks hired on the classified staff. >> Perfect. We'll take these together as well. I'll entertain a motion for that. >> I'll make motion for the classified appointments. >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed? Motion carries. 302 absent. >> Okay. So, it's December and you know, every December as you get into operations, um, try to see where you're at with your appropriation, what we have left, we're doing quite well this year, um, on the operations side. So, we're trying to take care of a few things that, you know, are kind of wants, needs, but
013obviously you don't have the appropriation there. You're not going to not going to get them at the end of the year. I talked to Ron about, hey, what's what's what's a what's one of your biggest needs right now? And he said, you know, we really need to replace one of our snow plows. So, we have a recommendation from Rightway. I'll let Ron kind of talk about this a little bit, but I had no idea it would cost that much to replace one snow plow, but it does not come with the truck included. But, um, Ron, you want to talk about it? I I know I got a couple questions about, you know, if we already we're adding this to a truck that already had a plow, do we need some of the stuff that's already
014there? So, >> well, kind of switch gears. I think I'm going to put it on the newer truck that way. I have four plows available. My oldest plow is an '09 and we're starting to get into cylinders and things that we're repairing on. So with the Ford truck, it'll make it a lot easier when I get a 5 in snow cuz I can get it off in 3 hours where five and I've got it dry. >> So right now we have three three plows. This is replacing one. >> Well, I was going to put it on dump truck. I think I'm going to put it on the new truck and see how long I can get by. You're going to keep I know one of the questions was what are we going to do with
015the old pl recycle it? Are we going to try to trade it in? Doesn't sound like we need to worry about that. >> After that last five inch snow I thought boy would it be so much easier to because I got the driver the trunk and plow. So >> I have any questions on snow plow? This would be right way total plow install. I mean everything 11527 11,527. >> Okay. I will make the motion to accept the snowplow purchase. >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. >> Oh, sorry. >> Motion carries. 302 absent. >> Okay. Next up, this is actually not from operations. This would be a recommendation kind of as we wind down on project 24. This was mainly the solar obviously got the hall gym rub some
016other items there. But in that in that budget we had for um bus replacement radios. So we kind of waited to the end to see if we would have enough. This was not top priority a priority but um we're doing well on that project. We've got some money left over. Brent's done a really good job on the technology side of things. So, we had actually budgeted about 50,000 for this and he's got it down to about 35. Again, this is all out of the end of project 24 money. These are the Motorola radios that would go in all of our buses. All of our buses right now run analog. And I wish Brent was here because he'd explain a lot better. But all our buses run analog. While all of our administrators have newer radios
017that would go digital, but we have not switched over to digital because we'd not be able to talk to the buses until they get to digital, if that makes sense. So this would got all the old radios and the buses. We would get digital. We'll be able to switch the admin to digital. In addition, this recommendation is um providing the radios for each classroom pod. So, every pod at the elementary as well as certain areas in this building will have a set of radios in case of an emergency if you're going out to recess. Those kind of things. We've talked about that for years, but we've never been able to provide enough radios to do that. But again, they'll all talk to each other. And what was also kind of nice about this is um
018this will not go out and people will not pick up. This is all going to be encrypted. So there will not be any computer out there being able to listen in on all the conversations that going on between bus drivers and so on. So I hope that makes sense. Um that's what the the Motorola bus replacement radio again we talked about this three years ago when we started planning for that project. This is just kind of the tail end of it. Like obviously trying to spin down the balance before you go into a new project. That's what the recommendation is on the bus radios. >> Entertain a motion to accept radios. >> So second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Motion carries 302 absent. >> Okay. So we've had this
019next one on the U. Oh, we do those as part of the budget process. We do the capital project plans. We have to include any major purchases and we've talked about replacing car the corporation car for a couple years now and we just have not, you know, had the appropriation to do it and we've been able to get by with it. But this is the Malibu that sits out in front of the corporation um building. Um, that car's only got about 75,000 miles on it, but but it just it gets driven, you know, a lot. Almost about every day somebody's in it. So, who's driving it? Well, I drove it this morning to a meeting with Caleb and Brent down at Randolph Southern. Ann drives it. Beth has to run to get something at the
020dollar store. She gets in it. I mean, we don't we will pay mileage to people if they're using their own vehicle, but we we tell them they need to use a corporation vehicle if a corporation vehicle is available. First option is always that. So, um this is used by the principles if they're going to a meeting. It's used by that athletic director on a Friday night going to a football game if he's not driving a bus. I mean, it's it's used. But tell you, she does the schedule on this now keeps up with it. So, um, and talking to all those people like, okay, we want to replace this, um, the talk was, well, we want to get obviously something that's safe safe to drive and we love to get something that's a little easier
021to get in and out of. Malibu sits low. I I enjoy driving it actually, but I have a truck. You know, it's a little different being a little car, but that was kind of the talk. So, we've looked at some vehicles. I don't have recommendations tonight on a vehicle. I it's just too hard to do that. They go with the wet used cars, but I put some ideas in your packet. Um, we're looking at possibly a traverse. And again, we're not looking at that necessarily to to haul four or five or six or eight people. I mean, this is mainly a one, two, three person at the most that would be traveling in this. We're not transporting kids in this. Um, but we'd like to do that. We still have the corporation van and that
022van is going to need to be replaced soon. Um we used that all last year every day transporting McKenna Vento kids every day. >> Um you guys know because you ride in that van twice a year down to Hagerstown. You kind of know what that's like. But we're going to need to get rid of that. That this is not to replace that. We're we still need that vehicle. And then obviously we have the SRO vehicle. Um, and that is that vehicle is not in great shape, but we're going to get by with that hopefully for a little while longer. We really need to that vehicle needs to be driven off campus more often. It is what's what's tearing that thing up is it's get it's not going more than a mile a day. I mean,
023literally, he'll drive it up here to the high school maybe once or twice a day and that's it. That's the only miles it gets. It needs to go to Muny once a week or something just because we've had so many issues with that. But um and then obviously we have you know the white buses if we're taking a a big large staff somewhere or number of staff but just want to give you an idea of what what we're talking about when we say you know vehicles and vehicle replacements. What we would like to do and again this may not get done I mean I hope it does but we would like to just get a number what what what what do I have permission to go out and spend hopefully on a perverse something in
024that area. What were the other vehicles? Ann, you mentioned them all. This doesn't Jessica's been working really hard on this one. >> I can't remember what else. I don't all my vehicle types, but something in that kind of a class. Um, we're looking at Hera down at Noblesville, but you know, we'll shop around, but I just need a number that I can go out and say, "All right, this is what I know I can get to get a good deal. Try to see if we can get a number on that Malibu, trade it in, and make it happen." So I think my recommendation I mean most of the ones that we were looking at I mean 24s 25s a lot of them must be rental cars. A lot of these have low mileage but newer
025vehicles but they are but they are used. I mean we're looking anywhere from 30 to 35 is probably what we're looking at without the trade in. So can I don't even remember what I asked for 375 I think for 375 >> just to compromise yeah the recommend yeah not to exceed 375 obviously there wouldn't be any tax so just need to have an idea we need to get a vehicle purchased and I don't have one to bring to you just too hard to do that we've done that before and it's Ron Ron knows correct by the truck, you know, they'll go before I can get to a board meeting and get it or we could I mean, if you would like for me to do that, I mean, we put money down. We've done that
026before, too, on vehicles, but um we can say if you'll give me permission to put so much money down on something, it's like get back to a board meeting with a specific vehicle, you know, here's the number of miles, this is the year. If you'd rather we do it that way, we could do it your call. >> I appreciate you answering my questions and emailing that today. Um, I've ridden in the van and that's my first question is I assume this is to replace the van because it is old and if it's needed more on the Malibu than it is the van, I am totally on board. We if you you say it's worse than the van is, we probably driven the Malibu. It's >> it's weird like when you stop all this water gushes
027like you don't know where it's coming from. I don't know. I feel like yeah, >> it's got some problems. >> It's scary a little bit. >> It's Dave does a great job and he's got it service. He says it's safe, but it's a >> You're trying to trade this in that vehicle's fine. >> It's great. [laughter] Wonderful. >> Great. It's in great condition. >> I don't have a problem doing not to exceed 375. >> So, are we saying 375 after the trade in or what are we going to do with that? Bring it out to auction. >> I have no idea what we can get for that. I don't see us going nearly that high. I'm just I I put some cushion there in case I had to, but I mean I'm hoping to keep
028this under 30 to be honest with you after trading. But I don't also want to get a vehicle. Hey, that's that's exactly what we want. It's straight and it be >> Do we also do we do it also as allowing a trade in of the vehicle without board approval right now? That would make it easier for you, I imagine. >> Yep. make that as part of the motion. That'd be great. With or without trading, >> I'll make the motion um with the change that with or without the trade in. So, um and I would allow molten discretion on the amount of trade in whether you'd like to accept it or not. >> 4375. Yep. >> Not including the trade in. >> Bring down the trade in. >> Y. >> Did that make sense for you?
029>> I'll second. >> The motion's been made to accept 375 bless the trade in with Mr. Molton's discretion on the trade in value. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Motion carries. 30302 absent >> and I'll keep I'll keep you informed which are even and like I said this may not happen. We may not get this done for the end of year. We're hoping to um and then obviously if we do make a purchase between now and January I'll report everything out in January and public but just gives me a little leeway to go shopping and I know what what we can do need to appreciate that. I know that people that drive that every day. Well, Rook drives it too every day around twice. Twice a week maybe. Yeah. Okay. Uh,
030next item, permission to pay any unpaid claims. Don't anticipate this, but with this being the last what we ant what we hope will be our last regular meeting of the year, um, this would allow Jessica, if something were to come in late, um, to pay it prior to that January meeting. So again, this is something we typically do at the end of each every year. Get your permission for this. >> I will make the motion to accept the permission to pay unclaimed unpaid claims prior to the end of the year. >> I'll second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. Motion carries. 302 absent. >> Okay. So 26 monthly transfer from education to operations. Um, you guys do this every year. Um, I can I can tell you we were, you know,
031we're going to be within I don't want to probably two to 3,000 where for this year's transfer. So, it's a lot of times I'll come back and ask for more like transfer another 10,000 I think was what we did last year, something like that. Um, and it's it's so little of amount that we're not we hit our mark. We hit it just about right last year. So not asking for transfer of you know either direction for this year going into 26 though we would like to to plan 115 115,000 not to exceed 115,000 each month just to give you an idea where we were right now we're transferring 112 each month so jumping up to 115 obviously receiving a little more in education so it doesn't affect doesn't kick us over that 15% Again, this
032is just to help offset those costs that used to be paid out of the old education fund. And now that we switch funds around, this helps offset any operations deficit. So, it should keep us 115%. Our education fund is typically pretty low in November, and it is right now, but it's a little bit lower right now than it typically is in November. talking about ops or >> that was education fund. I'm pretty sure down 23,000 >> maybe it was operations maybe operations. Okay, I was looking at the wrong Okay, never mind. >> Yeah, >> 21 this time. So this will allow us come December next year if you know by by saying not to exceed if we need to reduce this then we will we'll only transfer 50,000 next December if if we get to
033a point we're like well we know we're going to be over it. Obviously if we really miss it and we need to transfer more or could transfer more we'll talk about that December. But that's the way we wrote the resolution for this year. I think 115 is again this is all going to be determined on what our February count is, what our next year's October count is. We all way off on counts for not just that numbers. 115's what we're looking at. >> Okay. I will make a motion to accept the uh transfer resolution. >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed? Motion carries 302 absent. Neola policy second reading lots policy volume 37 number two special update volume 38 number one and the non-discrimination policies unless there's any other
034questions on that I'd like to get those approved and we will move on we'll entertain a motion for that acceptance I'll make the motion to accept Neil I'll Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Motion carry 302 absent. >> Okay. For my report tonight, um TAG, just to give you an update, last Friday, the teacher applications were due for TAG. I believe we got 16, maybe 17, which is great. I thank each and every one of those teachers for taking the time to apply for this. um at the lowest mark amount which is 3500 um I think the most we could give is 11. So if only the lowest tier 3500 um you know we're going have to tell probably six people sorry you don't get anything. So um and
035they know that we've talked about that. That's just the that's the that's the where we're at. That's what the statute says. So we're in the process myself, the admin team, we'll talk about Friday our cabinet meeting. We're going to go through and look at all 161 17 of those applications. We're going to verify the information is correct. Then we'll extract any information, personal information from those and then in first part of January, we're going to swap those with Liberty Perry and they'll judge those, rank those based upon a rubric that is yet to be written, but we'll create one. And then uh at the end by the end of June we're gonna have to submit to the state here are the 11 or so names that we would like to receive the site. So that's
036that's the update on that or you have any questions on it? No, I know there's been a lot of social media on it and I just not >> just here but in general >> in general and it is I just want everybody to know it is it is a statewide thing not a Monro Central thing but it is 20% of teachers which is in any other industry that the ones who get the top bonuses are the top 20%. So it completely lines up with the normal industry to incentivize people to be the best in their classroom. And I know it's it's education, not competition. It's not any kind of I get that. But just just so that people can align it with their own worlds of business wise, it's not uncommon in other lines of
037business something like this. >> And just glancing at the applications, I mean, we have we have some people that have just excelled. I mean, they really have and they've stuck themselves out there. I'm I'm proud that they applied for this knowing that they may not get it. I mean, good work. And the ones who get it are going to get a lot more than they typically would have. >> Yes, they are a lot more. All right, bus sale. There's there's your number. We did sell a bus $2,500 two. I mean, that's that's better than nothing. It's bus that we could not use. We'd not be able to drive it with the fuel tank the way it was, and it was going to cost a lot more than that to fix it. So, um, it is
038what it is. The best that's what we got on the gov deal site. So, it's $2,500 more than we had. What are you laughing about? >> I'm hoping to see at Anderson Speedway. [laughter] >> Is that got it? I didn't >> You got it, but I'm hoping they did. >> Yes. On July 4th, >> number on the back and I was like, what kind of corporation is that? >> That's so funny. Union City bought one um and they turned it into the Polar Express for the life display out front. I saw it for their appra. >> So that's better than the 1500. They offered us some in trade a couple years ago. >> Yeah. Not much, but >> new bus should be here in January. We'll let you know as soon as it shows up.
039Should have a bus arriving >> first of the year. Um solar tax credit. I just put a a a quick email in your packet to the board. Just reminding the board that we are in the process of applying for a tax credit from the federal government um on the solar project and the financial consultant that we're working with said all preliminary work for your track tax credit has been completed. We are now on hold until the IRS releases 25 tax forms. Those are usually allowed or released out in uh early February. So they have the information and once they file that we should see some kind of tax return hopefully at some point in 26 and that will be it should be a large amount of money. Can't tell you what. Um but I we
040have an idea it's going to be roughly about a quarter 25.5% of that overall project. So we'll see where that comes in. Obviously, that's exciting. That money can be spent or placed in whatever fund the board chooses. So, when we know the amount, then we'll start start planning where you want to put it and how you want to spend it. Till then, you probably ought to hold off till we know exactly the amount. Um, ready. Yeah, ready 2.0. I'll let Ann talk about this. I don't want to say anything. I'm not supposed to, but just just so everybody knows, Mrs. Taylor's worked hard um on a grant um here through the uh Randolph County Economic Development other groups that she'll talk about. We informed the board just so you would not be in the dark
041about what she was writing the grant for. That's child care and the lack of it in Randolph County and East Central Indiana. She's worked extremely hard on the grant. Put up a great grant proposal together. had some help. Very little from me. Very little from me. I did read through it. We talked about it a couple times. She got a lot of help from Renee Haney. I know. Sierra Hobbs. >> Sierra helped me a lot, too. >> Sierra helped a lot. So, good work for her. And I'll let you talk about it. And then couple things I want to say to the board. >> Okay. Glide's here in case I say anything wrong or anything like that. But >> I've always heard of ready money, but we've never applied for ready money. Um when um
042Baker worked there, he was like, "You guys should apply for money." And just something that never really came on our radar to actually do. And again, I heard the other schools getting it. I'm like, "Okay, we should, you know," and I was approached that we should go for this because there is a spot for early childhood. And that's where we're at. Rene's built this program that's doing amazing, doing great. And I think everybody in here knows that we're having an influx of babies next year. So right now we have seven infants that will are not born yet. None of them are that will be here by next year. So um six of our female teachers and then one of our male teachers wife is having a baby. And we already take care of all their
043older children. >> All except one. So, um, we also, so we've always been like just our staff daycare and we were looking at expanding to do community daycare. So, when we did our little survey out just to our community, like, hey, would you use this? We got lots of positives. Um, we got a lot of like, I wish that was around when my kids were through school, like, I would use this. Um, and we're building our own workforce, so we're like, okay, let's let's see what we can make happen. And Ashley's helped, too. Well, we applied for 600. We applied for 750,000. We got 650,000. So, I can't say that. I mean, to me, it's like almost the same. Um, >> it's the same number. >> But I look at what we did with the
04490,000 that we got and what we made into that. So, I know like we can do this even whatever we get. It is a matching grant. So, it's really 1.3 um that we are going to do to expand to community daycare. Um we do have one community child already that we have and we'll be picking up a second one in January. So, already kind of opening a little bit, but knowing that our staff right now is what we're looking at and having more infants than we know what to do with next year, like we already know we need another room, but to do it for the community, we're going to need more space. So, um, the grant was wrote. We're not building. That's not our plan because we do have open space. Um, we just
045got to decide if we're shuff we're shuffling stuff around to accommodate. Will it be up here or will it be at the elementary? So, definitely need to get together and get that figured out so we can start planning. Um, but our goal is to have six classrooms total. Right now, we have two and have six total that we can use and for daycare. And it's I mean, it's early learning. It's not daycare. Those kids are doing so much and being in there today um for a few hours myself like they've learned so much. They're they like wanted to sit down and read with like they're learning other people and other adults coming in and just learning colors and counting and everything. So our plan is to open have a total of six areas. We have
046a lot to do. Um we have a lot to do as us as a school board. We also have a lot to do as the program because our hours won't be 7:30 to 4 anymore. We're going to have to accommodate that. We can't be closed on to our delay days. We can't be closed on snow days. Like these people still have to go to work. So, we have a lot of things for oursel to learn. Um but I know expanding next year even to another room like our first thing is going to our seven seniors that are graduating and being like, "Hey, are you going to Ball State? You going to IvyTech? Who wants to stay back and continue working here at Mener Essential?" Which I hear they do. So, we're excited. We got a
047lot of work to do. >> Can I say something? Is that okay? I'm fine with that. >> So, Randolph County, if all of our providers, licensed providers were at maximum capacity, could only serve um a little under 21% of our zero to five population in the county. Um when this opens, uh Monroe Central will be one of two licensed child care providers. Um, so the only other one is the YMCA. Um, and so this is a huge huge huge win for our county, for our community. Um, you know, we we think of our our area right here as Parker and Farmland, but we have a large population of people that drive to Muny, drive to Delaware County to work, and they're all driving down 32. Um, so this is a huge victory. Ann has worked
048really hard. she's worked with the coalition um a lot and um for our community, for our county um that that 20 21% is regionally the lowest um and our schools have really stepped into a space to try to provide that. But of that 21% the vast majority of it is prek only. So those are our four and 5 year olds. So, this gives our families with those zero to three population access to child care that that they just don't have. They just don't have it, let alone whether or not they can afford it. Um and so that survey that Ann put out um that that said a lot because uh being able to afford child care right now is an obstacle, is a barrier, but by the time this is fully open, CCDF vouchers will
049be the weight list will in some way, shape, or form be lifted. Um and so this is a huge win um for for our entire county, for our entire community. So um sorry, they're a little down. Super excited. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Is this our sec third year with the preschool or the daycare? >> Second year. >> This is our second year. The grant was only for one year and then we're on our second year. >> Y >> do we in the first year was hanging. Did any of the students move across the hall? >> Yeah. >> Our school district. >> Yeah. Like into the prek. >> Yeah. Yeah. And we're sending three-year-olds over to prek. like as soon as they turn three, they're eligible to go Tuesday, Thursday mornings. And we had one that
050started today. We sent a three-year-old today and then we have one starting in January and we have one starting in February. So, as soon as they hit three, we I send out an email and I recommend to our parents, hey, it's just a small extra little money and we'll we won't charge you, but they will for those times. So the goal is like they leave our room at 3:00 for a half day two days a week and then at 4:00 they go in the afternoons and then at 5 they hit kindergart you know like the goal is that they progressively move through preschool and then stay with us through kindergarten. >> The goal is to go to kindergarten, >> right? The goal is they stay for kindergarten and we do have one that's a my
051district and dad already said he goes, "Oh, she's coming here. >> She's coming here." >> And I know I told you guys I know I told um Adrian, but at one point in time Charlotte was not bringing her kids to Men essential. They live in the Salma district. She was gonna send her kids to SA and she's like, "No, Kipton will come here." Like I walk in now and the preschool teachers are like, "Hi." Like he knows them. They know him. Like Like it's just they bond. >> So convenient. >> Been a long day. [laughter] >> And a little bit of good news. This money was supposed to go to Winchester. >> All of it. Wait, all of it was supposed to go to Houston. That makes it even better, right? >> Well, I have
052to that I was supposed to represent the whole county. >> You do. You do. You do. >> But years ago, we looked at daycare back when Dr. Long was here because where the kids go to daycare is where they will go to school. Period. parents, especially if they have one one child, they're not going to run a kid to Selma and one run one to Muro Central. They're going to drop them both. It's simple math. >> We've talked about that. We talked about >> We have and I'm I'm excited about this. And I was one of the early I was one of the early naysayers. I will be the first to say now. >> You didn't make me cry. I made him cry. I can tell you I still believe in privatization. >> I do
053not believe >> in public schools taking over. We are also in a shortage. We are in a desert of grocery stores. It doesn't mean that we need to open our school up to school up to be a grocery store. We have no grocery stores around here though. But we don't need to be a grocery store. Just like Mr. Schaer said, to me, I look at this as an opportunity to get those kids in the door. And this is a lot of other things that we're looking at as a board. we're looking at is hey what makes sense to be able to sell what makes we we are a sales organization we are selling these kids to come here what can we do to bring more kids in and what can we not do to waste
054money on things that don't benefit our community and our kids here >> and I think with that too the early childhood program has really helped kids decide what pathway they want to go into and what age group they want to go into like do I really like the littles do I really like the preschoolers do I really like the kindergarteners and that's going to help them save money and time in college if they know kind of where they'd like to go already. >> I just think we need to be careful and weight it appropriately and make sure that we have things in the right areas and everything else and and the vouchers and we, you know, we've talked about the vouchers and what it takes to have a voucher. If we moved up here, would
055we meet the regulations of the voucher? Would we have the bathrooms? Would we have so all that kind of stuff? Those those are >> you're getting into an area we know we're going to have that's going to take a while. But before we even go there, I think we have to I I think back to your point and I think we have to make sure that this is philosophically what we want to do. I think we're already down that road obviously, >> but we need to make sure that and when I say we, the the board needs to make sure you're behind this. I don't want to get into something and then you start getting questioned, especially by board like, well, is this something you were behind? Like I said, we were already well into
056this and it's multiaceted. It's not just I mean all of these things are important but to your point Mr. Co I mean it's not just that we're providing a service for our community which is huge okay but it's also a pathway for our students. Yes. Okay. >> Um it's obviously a direct pipeline to Mr. Schaer's point of these kids will hopefully start here and hopefully walk across the stage here in 13 14 15 years which is huge from us from a financial standpoint. I've shown you what one child could do over a 15-year period financially for us. Just one child, the amount of money, the difference that is in those 15 years is incredible. So, that that part and then the other part that we don't talk enough about, I don't think is, and I
057know this is not everybody, and this is a perk, but it is a it's keeping quality staff members here that I'm afraid we won't keep if we don't provide childare. So I I think and I'm sure there are other things but it's not just hey we're doing that for this reason. I mean there are a lot of I think valid reasons for why this thing can happen but to your point I mean you're right from a funding standpoint if you just purely black and white it you know we've got to make sure this works and it can it can work. Um, Ann is running that thing right now. Just so you know, I talked to Jessica about this today. The the daycare, not I'm not talking about cubcat in preschool. The daycare is completely separate
058from the education fund. Okay. There's no payroll coming out of that from education. I mean, obviously utilities. Okay. Yes, we're paying we're not separating out utilities, but they buy their own supplies. They they pay their own staff. Obviously, the money that's coming in is going into that fund, but right now it is supporting itself. It is all right. That's going to be I mean I know I'm going to get that question. I got that question when we started preschool. You know that. Okay. And we can show that a preschool beyond whether or not they stay here and we're getting educ. We know that. But is it sustaining is right now it is. It's not my goal. If it was my goal, we never would have approved to build a $3 million building because it will
059never pay for itself. Yeah. >> Yes. I just I just want to make that clear. Every time I hear that it's it's sustaining itself. It's not. It is far in debt. We have completely built it and and it will never pay for itself. And that's not the intention. It's not to pay for itself. I don't care if we lose money on honestly. The intention is that we can get these kids better educated from an early start and keep them here in our school. >> That it's a choice. I mean it just let me tell you there's going to be a lot of money thrown at it. economic development number one at the state county level daycare >> at the national level. Bottom line is if we can't find somewhere for these little guys to go,
060mom or dad have to stay home. It's a massive economic engine. You'll also see the benefit from housing. Higherend housing will come if there's daycare to be offered. But I agree it it's you're still the state. But unfortunately daycare has to be run by the state today. >> And the child care grants that we are seeing are all for capacity building. They are not for sustainability. They are all for capacity building. And that's probably going to be the trend for quite some time. >> Good job, Mrs. Taylor. Thank you, Mr. Schaefer, for your leadership and we appreciate your support of North Central always. Obviously, Ashley Renee, thank you. Didn't know you guys were both going to be here tonight, but kudos to you guys. It's a it's a this is a good thing. Now, obviously,
061it's going to create some I won't call problems, but going to create whatever challenges. These are all good. I don't want you to come across as it's going to be a lot of decision making. Obviously, a lot of visioning the board's going to have to do along with our community on some things. This is like Ann said, we're not I I wanted to be really clear when she wrote this application. I don't want you getting in your head exactly like this room's going to be that this those those are things that we're going to have to figure out and we can't we can but we had to first find out are we going to get it okay and is this going to work? Now we can start getting into some particulars and one of the
062big and before we get even much further than that my my January work session. You're have to figure out how you gonna match this. Okay, $650,000 is awesome. But it's a one to one match. And again, we haven't got a reward letter. So I don't want to get too far ahead. I want to see >> early February. We're supposed to find out how much we get from the solar that's true. Trust me. I've already mentioned that during I saw her eyes just light up when I said that. But, you know, whether you use that or not, I want to see that reward award letter. I want to make sure that we understand exactly what the match can go toward. You know, I mean, Ann's wrote a great written a great proposal. If it if it
063if we can use our match and what she said in the proposal, no problem. But if it's very prescriptive, then we may have to think about how we're going to use this match money. Then obviously you got to go out find out where whether it's solar whether it's outside donors which looked at some potentially other things you this is not something you know this is not something you just say oh we'll write it out operations I mean that's that's a fourth of your operations budget for the year right there you can't can't do that but we'll figure it out whether it's another another project those are all things that once we know now that we've got this now now you need to take next step start planning for. So with that, um I think it's
064going to be important in addition to your January meeting that we have a a work and it's going to have to be separate from a regular meeting. It's going to have to be on a night, possibly even Saturday morning. We've done those before. Really have a a sit down and really plan out where you want to go. Not just with this, but if you want to do another project, what would that look like? And it's critical that the timing of our next project is also something you're going to want to consider and that is due to the closing of Union School Corporation. We know that right now anything you do immediately right now is going to be the debt is going to come from just the taxpayers the current three townships with no central correation
065to take on debt um you know in the future and to include Union School Corporation or Union Township then it's going to probably have to be a little later down the road. So, those are all things that we're going to have to get answered um and figured out, but good problems, good things, and we're excited. So, Ann, thank you. Appreciate you. Good job on that. What other questions you have for me? I think we did have an executive session planned for tonight, but due to a couple board members unable to attend, I was asked by Mr. Morris, the president, to schedule or go ahead and advertise an executive session for next Tuesday at 7. You guys can talk whether or not you can make that, but he would ask me to go ahead and announce
066that, get that advertised. Um, and there may be no executive tonight. So, Ron, you got anything else? That's all I have. Mr. President, >> I just want to say it's awesome and Mrs. Haney, I know she's had a lot to do with it from the get-go and the excitement that you have and this whole program and it does concern me a little bit about 100,000 not being a big deal off. You know, I may have to talk to your husband about that. >> I'm concerned a little bit. >> I mean, >> plus or minus 100,000. >> They're big time stuff. We'll figure it out. >> But just because just the drive with every I mean this whole group had something to do with it, not us. And I I think it's awesome. And I said
067it before when this started going down. We need to get in the paper. We need to impress. It's something to brag about. I mean there's not many schools that do it. There's not many people in the county to do it. And it's something we need to get out there. >> I will also say that we had Union City in Winchester. They came and visited on >> Friday. And um I got an email from Union City today and it was forward from a girl that sent it to um their counselor that said, "I went and visited Men essential." And that lady [laughter] told me that she'll be there, come back to she'll come to Union City in September. No, sorry, not September, in after spring break. And I'm doing that program. You let her know that.
068So, I mean, >> I do want to let you know that regionally I lead our child care efforts here in the county, but I'm part of a regional coalition and regionally people are looking at Monroe Central to see how you how they're figuring it out. Um, and we're hosting our second regional training for early learning providers tomorrow. tomorrow night. Uh all the nights are running together. But um so Monroe Central regionally, not just with schools, but other providers are looking to this district to say, "Hey, what are they doing?" Um so minuros central is something that I speak about very frequently in those um meetings because not only have you guys stepped into a space that is a little bit unconventional. A lot of schools are offering prek, but when it comes to child care,
069um, a lot of schools are that that's not our business, right? Um, but with child care kind of taking a major hit this year and a lot of them are closing and we're seeing some kids going to some unsafe places, um, other unconventional places are looking at how do we provide safe care and neuro central is one that gets brought up very frequently. So, um, even though you don't know it, there are eyes watching and there are people that are curious, um, and a big portion of that is because Ann is such a great collaborator, but then that workforce development piece that is happening with RAS 32, um, people are looking at that and so this is what's happening here in this building with child care and early education really is huge regionally. So, just
070um, just know that, too. I think that I I mean I'm saying put in the paper. I can't imagine being a parent living in Muny and knowing that and knowing because that's got to be your biggest concern to stay here and knowing that hey if I'm hooved out that way I'd drive right by there and get out of Muny City schools and they're doing better. But I'm just saying in general in general I'm saying >> better is a is a problem is now we got have some housing. I mean that's the biggest problem. But maybe it'll all flow together. So, >> and communities $100,000 houses row houses. >> It's always good to prove that uh Douggee Down, too. >> All right, that is all for this evening. Thank you for coming. >> Thank you, folks.
071Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.