Noblesville Schools - October 7, 2025 - Work Session

001So Dr. >> Okay, let's give this just a second to connect like magic. All right, thank you board and our other guests in the room. Good to see everybody. Um so as we are required by Indiana law now um once a collective or excuse me a tenative agreement is reached between the board and the uh local teacher association which here in Noblesville we call that teachers forum um we are required to hold what's called the teacher contract tenative agreement meeting which is what we're going to do here for the next few minutes which is essentially a chance for me to show share with the board and the community the um the terms of the agreement that we have reached. So one little um caveat to everything I'm going to share I'm only going to focus

002on things that have changed. Um, so if I don't talk about it, you can assume that everything else in the contract didn't change. Um, but just for the interest of time and for clarity sake, um, I'm only going to focus on those things that change. So, I always like to start with a quick explanation of how we do bargaining here because it's a little different than some districts do it. Here at Noblesville, um, for the last gosh, I think decade now or so, they've followed something called interestbased bargaining. And so, the process itself is is used to ensure that we develop shared interests that are that are important to everyone in the process. Um and and we are very clear about those on the front end. Um and then we have a very diverse group

003of teachers, administrators, and representative from the school board are all part of the team that that sits down to bargain this contract over three days. So um if you'd like to see who participated this year, these are the two teams. Um so if you look there on the left, I listed all the forum members that were there. And then in addition to the teachers on that list, you also see Becky Sllayton at the bottom. She um works for the Indiana State Teachers Association. Um she's what's called the UNISER director. So she basically represents um a group of districts in a certain region of the state. So she is our unerve director and we are very fortunate to have a great working relationship with Becky. She's she's very um uh good to work with from our

004side. And then on our side um you'll see the list of folks that are there. Typically Dr. Rich is a part of this, but he had a a conflict that came up due to a whole bunch of different circumstances. Um so he wasn't able to to participate this year. But one notable change from prior years, um, this year I asked two principles to join the team also. Um, that had not been the case in years past and and I'll be honest, two years ago when I did this for the first time, it felt kind of weird to me that they weren't already in there. Um, because they have a lot of perspective on some of these topics that we don't have. And so I I think that was proven true through the process for those

005who participated. They were able to really speak to some things where the rest of us would not have been able to do. So really really great. Um, we had Dr. from Mley and Tanya Moody from Promise Road there. And then Christy of course was your representative that that's always been the role of the school board president to sit on the bargaining team as on the voice of the board. And then finally, um Amy Matthews, who's one of our school district attorneys through CCHA, she is the one that for again I think probably close to a decade now has been the the attorney assigned to Noblesville for the bargaining process. Um but I always think it's really important to say this next after that even though yes, technically I just showed you two teams. Um the

006mindset and approach that everyone takes through this process is truly that we are all one team with the same goal and we want the same things at the end. Um we are all on on team Noblesville, right? And so that's even though um I showed you there are two different groups, we still come from our perspectives and work together to come up with something that everyone uh feels h feels good about at the end. So through the process um the shared goal between all of us, we talk about this on the very first day is at the end the final product has to meet these three requirements. It has to be feasible. Um, meaning, you know, it has to be something that we can actually afford or that we'll be s we'll be able to,

007you know, implement appropriately. It needs to be sustainable. So, an example would be we can't agree to some, you know, $10,000 raise if we know in the next year we couldn't afford to keep having that $10,000 raise. So, it has to be something that we believe we can sustain long term. And then at the end of the day, it has to be ratifiable. And that goes that goes two ways. Um, one, obviously the board, you know, a job for for me and Christie is to make sure that we feel that the things that we're agreeing to are things that we believe the entire board will support when we when we bring it forward. Um, but on the flip side, the teachers have the same responsibility to all their members. They need to make sure that

008they are agreeing to things that they think their membership will will support. And we'll talk a little bit about that part at the very end um of this today. So, um, so at the very be on the very first day, we kind of spent an hour or so talking about what are our interests right now as we as we looked, uh, ahead to what we're going to do over the next three days. And we had a long list of interests and we kind of went through a process to kind of whittle them down and group them. And these were the seven that kind of seemed like the big bucket items that everything else kind of fell under. So you'll see there we talked about protecting or enhancing benefits for teachers, obviously attracting and retaining quality

009teachers, providing a path for future growth, elevating the education profession, honoring the the work life balance for our staff, honoring education and experience, and of course and probably most importantly and I would say the six above this all feed to the last one, which is providing positive student experiences for all of our kids. So here we go. Let's talk about the changes in the agreement. I tried to group these by um big topics to kind of keep similar things together to make it a little easier to track. So let's talk about leaves first. Um you may remember board two years ago we did a um a partial shift over to a a paid time off model, a PTO model um with some some things we left in place to kind of navigate this in that

010first that first year trial. Most of those things went well, but we definitely learned some lessons and so we we felt ready and comfortable um making a full shift to a true paid time off model now. So all leave dates will now convert to a PTO model um with some with some appropriate guardrails. And the primary the primary one is the second bullet here. Um that if a staff member is wishing to use more than five consecutive PTO days that are not illness related, they do need to get approval from either me or designate. That would likely be Dr. Hendrickk um at least two weeks in advance. And then we we did add a cap add a caveat that obviously if there's some extenduating circumstance, they should absolutely reach out to me and we'll we'll

011work together to see if we can if we can work that out. Um, we this is something we haven't really had in practice for a while anyway, but so we want to take it out of the contract. We took away the two for one penalty of PTO days before after a break. This really hasn't been an issue. Um, in fact, trying to enforce it was the issue and it it led to unintended consequences. So, we all agree that that was something we wanted to take out. Um, anyone now who has remaining PTO days um over 184 at the end of a contract year, automatically those extra days will just roll into our sick leave bank, which is where we bank up extra days for people who need them in extreme circumstances. And then um we

012also are removing the work experience language that that currently exists in the contract that is an allowable sbatical leave. So let me let me give you a little context on that for a minute. So most districts have a sobatical leave section in their contract which essentially says that if a teacher wants to go off and do some sort of an experience, they can take a break from employment for maybe six months, a year to go do that. Typically those are thought of as um you know maybe like a professional growth kind of thing that's bigger than just a few days or some experience would maybe enhance their work as a teacher and then they would come back to the district. Um, Noblesville for a while has had this extra cloth or little line in there

013that says work experience. And what has unfortunately happened sometimes is people will leave, they will go do another actual job and then they may or may not come back. >> That's a very weird feeling concept even as I'm saying it out loud that we can go test drive a job and then still have a safe job. And so we all were in agreement that this really doesn't make any sense. And honestly, most of the time when that happens, the people don't come back anyway. So now we've held a job for someone who wasn't sickening around. So, we all felt comfortable that it was time to take that out. But the rest of sobatical leave definitely has a a true good place in in our culture and we want to keep the rest there. Um, a

014few more leave things, a lot of leave things this time around. Um, went on a leave for a reason that qualifies for FMLA. Um, we've always had that, you know, you need to use your PTO days, but we talk we talked through some very specific scenarios where it might be appropriate for a teacher to be able to save a few. Um, so this way this ensures that if they're out for a long-term FMLA reason, they can still hold back up to three PTO days if they want to um, you know, just to have for when they return to work if there was something. So a good example that we talked about a lot might be, you know, if someone has had a baby and they're going to be out for a long time, they may

015want to keep a few days because when they get back, there may be some follow-up appointments or things. So that was very reasonable. We all we all felt very good about that. >> Absolutely. Yes. >> Yep. Thank you. >> Yep. Great clarification on that. Uh bereavement leave. We we added I don't know sometime in the past that a close friend was a bereavement leave reason. Just for clarity sake because of a few questions that have come up over the years. um we are adding some language that clarifies that the close friend must be the person who's actually deceased. That seems like a very morbid thing to say, but um we need to be very we want to be very clear that that is who we're we're talking about in those in those uh situations. Um

016we also clarified again this was already happening, but we felt it was good to make sure it was clear in the in the contract that association days. So in our contract we allow um a certain number of association days where they can do forum things without counting against their personal leave days. Um, and we we wanted to make sure it was clear and no question that bargaining does not count against those days. That's a separate that's a whole separate thing. So, just making sure that was clear. Um, we also clarified that if someone has been out for a long leave at the start of a school year, so prior to the year starting, that they will not receive their annual allotment of days until they actually return to work. And let me give you an

017example of why this is important. Um, if someone, let's say they've worked for us for 10 years, they they are off on an extended leave over the summer and they don't come back and then they get their aotment of PTO days for that year and then they start using those days and then they choose not to come back. They have been given days tied to a contract that they never actually started. So, we all felt very this felt like a very common sense thing that probably should have been done before. So, we're just clarifying that you won't get that next aotment until you've actually returned to work and started a new contract and then you would get your days. Um, and then this last one is all new and there was quite a few different

018examples. We talked about this. Um, we added a we're going to add a little section in here um that gives me the ability to grant discretionary leave for a situation that rises within the scope of a teacher's employment. So, an example might be let's say um unexpectedly a staff member gets hurt at work and and I feel they need to they need to go home. I have the ability to give them a day to go home um without them having to use a day or whatnot. But you'll notice we made sure it's very clear that it's within the scope of their employment. It's something related to their job that happened that day. Um it's not just they're upset about something at home or whatever. That's that's a PTO situation. But it gives me that that

019flexibility because again, every once in a while we will have a unique situation come up and wanted to be very clear that yes, it's okay if if we do that. But that those are obviously extreme um exception type situations because they they would come through me. So benefits um we clarified that again this is something that's already happening. We were just cleaning up the language a little bit. Um we wanted to clarify that Noblesville schools as a district will pay the mandatory um TRF that's teacher retirement fund contributions. Um right now it's spec it specifies a certain percentage. We just wanted to um remove that and just clarify it out that we will always cover that is what that is even if the percentage were to go up by the state. We don't anticipate that

020happening but just to clarify we we feel that's that's something that we want to do as a district that we pay that on our teachers behalf. Um we are also making a shift to how we calculate how much the district will pay towards health insurance um the health insurance premiums which is what that second one means. I probably could have written that a little better. Um and and without getting too deep into the weeds, the basic the basics are that in the past we were calculating the percentage share that we would pay based on one type of plan. Um through the work of the benefits committee and David's expertise felt that it would actually make sense to align it to the basic premium pricing. This actually is a slight increase of benefit to teachers, but

021it also makes for more um more uh consistent and fair um way distributed in the future. Um, so I don't know if you have anything else to say to that. Explain that. Okay. >> Really well said. Yeah. I mean, >> that's out of my area, but yeah, it was really to help our plan get aligned for future plan changes. It was not really aligned to industry standard, so we made that happen uh within this contract. So then that way when we have any future insurance plan design changes, we can do that fortunately within our plan. >> Yep. >> Uh the next one is again, it's really just aligning to what we're already doing. Um, I think our contract at the moment says there'd be like up to six retirement vendors or something, but we actually

022don't have that. We really just have one. Um, and our teachers felt like for clarity sake, we should really bring that down to just match what we actually are doing. So, we're we're going to clean that up um to match the number of retirement vendors we now offer. We wanted to memorialize and just note in the contract more to make teachers aware of it um that we do provide a 10% discount to our staff for Miller Explorers and Little Millers. That's not new. We've always done that, but thought it would be good to have it here so teachers could see it and be aware of it. Um, long-term leave coverage is compensated at the teacher hourly rate. This is again something that's already happening, but we felt we needed to get it in the contract

023because we haven't had it clear so people understand. So, what this means, just so you understand what we're talking about here, let's say um we have a teacher unexpectedly leave, like truly leave, like they're not coming back um in the middle of of a semester, and we can't get a qualified sub or it's a course that's too difficult for a sub to carry. And we truly need some of our teachers to unfortunately take on additional real responsibilities like grading and lesson plan design and maybe even having to teach on their prep or something. Um the way we've always handled this the last few years is we pay those teachers their hourly rate because they are truly doing full-time work. Um but that wasn't clearly spelled out in the contract. So we wanted to get that

024clarified so that in the future people know if this if this happens, this is how you'll be compensated. And then um class coverage amounts. Again, this is not really a a major change. Um, but because our sub rate has the has the uh possibility of fluctuating and and usually going up over time. Um, we wanted to realign the amounts that teachers are paid if they um if they are filling in and through sub duties throughout the day. So, you may know right now in the contract if a teacher, let's again make up an example, if they give up their prep and say, I'll cover that class because we don't have enough subs today. They right now it's just a set dollar amount for what they get depending on the time. But the concern that we

025all had is well as the sub rate goes up it will suddenly feel like our teachers are getting compensated less than a sub for the same amount of time. So basically we just aligned it to a percentage so that if the sub rate goes up it will just rise with it. It basically works out to be the same as what a sub is is making um just in fairness to our teachers to make sure they're feeling like they're getting what they should. A few more uh benefits things schools um is going to cover the entire cost of the required background checks for existing employees. So board, you may or may not know this, but every 5 years on a cycle, every employee has to go through the full background check process again. Um, that's a

026requirement that changed a few years back. So all of us are on kind of rotation. When someone's newly hired, they have it done right then, but then they're put into the cycle. Um, why this why this matters is most people have always been covered, but because of the way it works, there's a few situations where it would be over and above what the district normally covers to pay. And typically that's if someone has worked in multiple states because we have to run um some of the indexes on every state and so the cost starts adding up. Um but the financial impact on this David David figured out it's a couple thousand dollars a year. It's not a significant amount and we just felt like it would be a good thing that we just cover that

027because if it's a longtime valued employee we want to we want to cover that for them. Um, we wanted to clarify that extra duty compensation that's already in the contract, but we wanted to clarify that that would also apply to um any district-led or created um big programs such as like the program review. So, if you remember, we just finished up the the CLA um decision with, you know, literacy and language arts. Um that committee was a lot of time and a lot of work for our teachers and they were not compensated for that. And that really kind of put us put us thinking about this this year that hm we really should probably find a way for something that's a big commitment like that that it should turn into a compensation situation. Obviously every

028committee does is not need to be compensated. If it's a couple hour volunteer that's something different but something like that was pretty significant. So that that was something we wanted to to work on. Um our viva contributions which is kind of like a health health savings for after for retirement. Um we we all agreed that we were going to discontinue that. Um, and I'll tell you why in just a second. So, those will end at the end of this calendar year. Um, and then all of us who have VIVA accounts, we will all be immediately vested and we'll be able to access those funds now instead of waiting for retirement. Why that why that matters is it's no secret to anyone that health insurance costs continue to rise. Um, and right now, just where the

029state of everything is financially, we all felt that it'd be a better use of those funds to be able to free them up and get them ready to um to put in somewhere else, namely salaries in just a second. we're going to talk about. Um, but the idea behind freeing up people's Viva accounts right now is if they wanted to, they can use their personal VIA accounts to start um, you know, subsidizing their own health insurance premiums if they want. So, some people may not want to do this, they may want to just leave that money for retirement, but if they have a a balance and think, gosh, I think I will start, you know, starting to use that to cover some things right now, it can benefit them. Now, um, a big a big

030theme that we talked about a lot last week was just the idea of trying to get more dollars in our employees pockets right now with the rising costs of of things and obviously some of the tightness of the budget. So, um, so I kind of just said that the funds currently allocated to EVA were then redirected into the salary increases we'll talk about in a second. and then new employees who were just hired and if they're at the bottom of the scale um we are going to do a one-time lump sum into their VIA account um by the end of this calendar year to finish their full contribution and the reason is because of how the salary um piece works on the next page. We want to make sure that they got that full aotment.

031So there's only 11 people I think that are actually at that level. So, that's not a large a large number of people, but so compensation. Um, I wasn't sure where to put the one-year contract, so I stuck it on this page. But, uh, for the first time in a while, we we all mutually agreed that it was best for everyone to only agree to a one-year contract this year. And that's a little different. We normally do a two because, um, as you may recall in Indiana, we can have up to a two-year contract if you bargain it in the first year of the budget cycle. Um, but we all felt given all the things going on that one year made made the most sense. So, that's what we decided on. Um, we did make several

032ECA position adjustments. I didn't want to go through all those today, but if you look at the document I put on board 3, there's a link that'll show you the full list of the ECAs. It's it's not a lot, but easier just to look at. Um, so you may remember that we are now required to have a uh a an additional base salary increase for people who've earned their literacy endorse endorsement. So, um, after talking this through with Amy and Becky and and sharing all of our thoughts, we settled on a $200 base salary increase felt most appropriate at Nolesville schools. Um, so anyone who has earned that endorsement, which is kind of overseen by the state of Indiana, um, they will receive a $200 base salary increase. Um, this will be separate from the

033salary scale. It is a base salary increase, but it's not on the scale itself. It's kind of a separate thing. Um, and then the notification period. What I mean by this bullet is we already have a a process in place where um let's say I earn a master's degree. So I would get a raise for that. I have to let the district know by a certain date. I can't just, you know, take a random time to tell me. There's kind of a window where we'll make your adjustment. Otherwise, you need to wait till the next window. So we just align this with that same window that already exists. We didn't do anything new. We just said we'll align this with the master's degree. Um and then the salary schedule itself, if you look at the

034old um the old contract and and what last year's salary uh schedule is, we kept the same salary schedule. So, um the only change is the very last step got a $1,000 increase to make sure that our friends that are already at that scale will get some sort of a salary increase this year. Um otherwise, everyone who's eligible and is a returning teacher will move one step on the scale itself. Um, and then those who were sitting at step 21 last year, so they're not moving a step. Um, they will receive the new the new amount plus to make it a little more um fair and balanced between what everyone else is getting. We also felt it was appropriate to give them a one-time contribution of an additional thousand into their BA account, which again

035really just makes it um much more in line with what everyone else is getting. Um, otherwise they would not be getting getting um near as much. And if you're wondering, we have aboutundred and 80 213 check. >> Excuse me. 213. That's higher than I thought. 213 teachers that are at the top of the scales. So that would be a lot of people if we didn't do something to take care of take care of those folks. That's a lot of our obviously very veteran loyal loyal staff members. So we need to make sure we're taking care of them too. So those are all the changes. Um I would just want to remind you really quick of all the steps that happened. So board most of these things have already happened or happening as I'm sitting here

036talking to you. Um, if you may recall, we had our pre-bargaining hearing back on September 2nd. Um, we did that at one of your at your work session in September. Um, and then we just did the three days of of formal interest bargaining. That was last uh Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. We uh we actually advertised this meeting, believe it or not, about 3 weeks ago. Um, truly it was cuz Karen was going to be gone. I didn't want to risk forgetting, so we did it early. So, it was advertised a long time ago. Um, but then we posted the tenative agreement on the website on Friday in accordance with the timeline we had to follow. We did that as soon as we were done Friday. Um, we are currently fitting in the tenative agreement meeting right

037now. Um, the next thing that happens is tomorrow Tracy and her team will be talking with all their members to go over the the contract details and then I believe they give them a few days to vote on it. Perfect. So, so what that means and again we're not involved in this process. This is a forms business only. But um the as I said at the very beginning of this part of the process is the the forum itself also needs to ratify this. So meaning their membership needs to say yes we agree with this or no. So there is always a chance that their membership could say you know we don't like this and if that happens we would need to start bargaining again and sit down and and come back to the table. I

038don't know if that's ever happened in Noblesville and I hope it doesn't happen tomorrow but so Yep. Sure. Yeah. >> Yeah. I'm I'm sure it'll be fine. Um so assuming we get a a yes at the end of the week from that, then board the very final step falls back to you. Um at your regular meeting on October 28th during the regular uh public meeting, this will be on there as a recommendation for approval and ratification. Um we do have to allow public comment, but we have public comment at every meeting. Um, so there, but we do have to make sure people have a chance to comment before you vote, just in case someone from the community wants to come and speak to the contract. So, we'll do that. And then assuming we've cleared all

039these steps, everything's done. I believe the last step is that uh I believe Christy signs on behalf of the board and I think Tracy signs on behalf of the teachers if I remember right. So, there you go. I tried to move quick. I know we got other topics, but any any questions for me or Christy or Tracy or or David? I guess we were all all on there this year. Um I do have two questions. One is as far as the participants in all of this. Um how do you determine which principles are participating? >> Great question. Well, this was the first time they've ever participated. Um, and so this time I I felt it was really important that the high school principal was one of them because and I think those in the process

040would agree, Jana was able to bring a lot of really important um perspective when we got to especially the extracurricular stuff that none of the rest of us had because there was a lot of questions about >> what a lot of those positions do and most of them are high school positions as you know because there's a lot of athletics and performing arts. So that was one that was kind of the >> you know that that to me that was a must. that had we had to have a high school and and so I've had her kind of speak on behalf of all the secondaries. And then as far as the elementary principal, um we had we had never done this before. We we decided to choose or I should say we I decided to

041choose Tanya. Um partly because I know Tanya and Tracy have a great rel relationship because Tracy works in Tanya's building. Um and since this was new, I wanted everyone to feel very comfortable with with the process. Um in the future, I don't know. May I I may consider rotating elementary one. I guess I haven't thought that far ahead because this is the first time. I think it went very well. >> Curious only one principal was representing them and then for middle school have two of those, >> right? And again that the idea a lot of times we will do things for secondary where we kind of have the high school principal speak on behalf of middle school or vice versa. We do that sometimes in discussion and some other things too where um part of

042it's really just being mindful of everyone's time, trying not to pull everybody out of little things too at the same time. So, good question. >> And then for the extra duty compensation, how is that determined what is allowed or at what point do we say okay, you need to pay for this? Is there like >> duty? >> Yeah, it's it's spelled out in the contract. Um, I don't have the contract pulled up, but the but essentially basically the way I think of it is is this something that is um that is basically the district is asking you to do it as part of your job versus where you're just volunteering because you want to do it, right? So like so like if I said, well, I want to be a part of the social committee

043and it meets after school, but I've chosen to do that. >> That's not going to be a paid thing. But if it's something like, hey, we need you to stay after school a few days cuz we have to do some additional curriculum work and you have to be here, >> then we need to compensate that person because they don't really have a choice. >> So I guess maybe too much at this point, but in that example, >> Yep. >> How would they determine what teachers or staff participate in the curriculum review? Mhm. Well, I wish Jenna Ryan was here because they they're probably the experts answer how they go about that choice. But they but similar to most other things, I think they kind of have a set number that they know they're going to

044need to have a balance and they're looking for whatever. I would imagine there probably is a question of who is interested. But the way I think about that different than others is if no one said I was interested, we're going to make people do it anyway because we need we got to have somebody. So, it's kind of a you can volunteer. we still think should we should pay you because someone's got to do it because we have to have it. But that's a great question. I I can ask them to share a little more about their process later. I can I can figure that out from them. So yeah, >> in regards to the one year, is this in hopes that the state legislature might revisit something andor the state ends up picking up more

045money? What what help me understand what we might get out of the >> state legis? Why why are we doing a one-year? there um there's several unknowns in our world right now and a few of the factors that really and again I don't want to steal David's thunder for the very next topic but a little but it but it but it matters here what we really talked about in the room a lot was yes we just had some fairly significant changes from the legislature that is kind of upended the way we plan so there is a little bit of hope that maybe they will improve a few things from sea1 in terms of how all our property taxes work as you know the referendum is a part of that and that's a big part of

046what helps fund our teacher contract. Two, um the referendum will expire at the end of next year and we know that it is possible that the board will ask the community to reconsider that. So, I guess I didn't say this explicitly, but I will. Um we discussed that we will probably wait and not bargain again next fall until after the referendum vote, assuming there is a referendum vote, so that we know what the community's decision was because it will matter >> um one way or another. it will change our planning one direction or the other. >> Um we felt like that's kind of an uncertainty because we don't know for sure what will happen there. So we need to make sure we know that. And then the third and this is a big one that

047we don't have a lot of control over but it it's awfully important is our enrollment. >> Yeah. >> Um this year we saw a significant enrollment shift the wrong direction which again David I know is going to talk about in just a second. Um, so that will also make sure that we have a good handle on where that where that is too because all of those things they all add up to dollars. >> Multiffactorial. >> Yes. So part of it is delaying in the hopes that maybe things are a little bit better. Um, but if nothing else at least we will have certainty of where we are. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, good question. >> One of the things that I learned when it when you talk about it's not the year that it's complete.

048Marts and stat I didn't really understand until I was involved in bargaining. So that's kind of when you talk about the stat complete not year. So you're not in you're not in your 20th year, >> right? Yep. >> It's true. Can you send? >> Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'll send these out. >> Yep. I will send them out as soon as I unplug here. >> Teacher that forms available as well, right? >> It's in the It's in the contract. Yeah. >> Okay, great. >> Yeah. So, if you go on our website, I mean, the the current teacher contract is always on the actually I think we have several years prior, too. Um, but the current contract is always on the website for the public to view. So, you can pull that up and see what

049was already in there. And like I say this time >> the number of teachers. >> Oh no that's not that we don't have that out but if the board wants that we can pull it. >> Mhm. >> 213 213 apparently. >> Yeah. >> There is a link >> I was wondering about retirement and all new guy here right? Mhm. >> Well, the the numbers um that's calculated >> rehiring people that are going to retire in the next 5 years, that kind of thing. >> That's a discussion. >> Say that again. >> Yeah. >> The number of people that will be retiring >> in in the budget. >> So, you're going to bring in people at a much lower rate. >> Well, see, that used to be what always happened, but that hasn't been very true

050lately. >> Okay. >> If I'm being really honest, and we talked about that as marketing, too. it because some districts have tried retirement incentives to incentivize people to go ahead and retire with the idea that then you can hire cheaper people. But I will tell you that >> well it it hasn't worked very well for districts that done it. And we've been tracking our data and whereas I think David shared a few years ago we would see anywhere from a >> 500 to maybe even a million dollar savings every summer from hiring. This year I think the savings was $2,000. >> Wow. So, it's not really working. And part and there's reasons for that. Part of it is the the the teacher shortage is very real. We don't talk about as much anymore, but it's

051still there. And so, you know, we are hiring people with more experience and because that's who's out there and that's a good thing, but it's an expensive thing. >> Sure. >> Um, so >> didn't we just was it the last time we did contracts we um gave an incentive for to notify us? Was it like Yes. January? >> And we still have that. It's $1,000 if you let us know by January 1. So that's more of a >> help the HR team out because they get your posting up sooner. It's not that's not enough to make some money. >> Yes, but good question. Yeah, we we kept that because that actually really does help Heather and her team out a lot if we have a little more advanced notice um so they can get the

052process started because then we get the best pool too versus somebody waiting till June to decide, oh, okay, I think I'll retire. >> Yeah. So, >> yeah. >> Yes. >> Yep. Y >> it didn't shift. >> Okay. >> For districts that do that, and again, we talked about this last week just as we were brainstorming things. Um, I I feel like from what I've heard from districts who tried it, the minimum you need to offer, the lowest PE that usually seems to get people's attentions is $20,000. And it just goes up from there. And even then, it's not necessarily guaranteeing that you're saving because a some of those people might have they might have retired anyway without the money. And again, you may not get lucky and hire somebody new. And we also talked about,

053well, maybe you could get people to retire and then we just wouldn't fill some of the positions. Maybe. But it depends on who leaves because if it's a position we have to fill, we're going to have to fill it. Um, so like if a physics teacher leaves, for example, they're hard to find and they're expensive and we're going to have to fill it because we have to have physics. So it's it's a gamble and one that most districts who've done it have said we don't really end up saving much money. So I'm not saying again we won't ever talk about it, but it just >> I think we have some other things we try first. So, >> and the thing that we really talk about is is the fact that, you know, teachers can retire

054really fairly young >> and that it's the insurance. >> Yeah, it is. >> You know, is the it's the insurance. So, you can retire, but, you know, you can't um go on Medicare until, you know, for several years after unless you have a spouse or something like that. So, that I think that's the big thing. the state um gave us 2% increase but minus the uh fees that we have to I this I'm sure you're going to talk about this right how you developed >> that's a complicated answer >> I know I know >> I would say no they didn't actually get us 2% but yes actually 1.7 or less than that >> and remember that's tied to enrollment so if your enrollment goes down that doesn't necessarily mean you actually got more money anyway

055>> are we down 200 Um Mhm. >> A little more than that. >> Significant. >> Yeah, it's a significant shift. >> See where those went. >> We'll let you know in 3 months when that report comes out. You know, I watch that report and I will have a we'll chat with you once we get it. But state so account day just closed Wednesday. It usually takes the state two to three months to clean it all up, get the report put together, but they usually put it out in December or January. So, as soon as I get it, I'll analyze it. We'll we'll sit down and look at it. >> There's so many variables here. So, I'm not sure how you >> Well, it'll be interesting to see with HSC's open >> enrollment. Yeah, >> they

056didn't get very many. >> No, >> they they told me they they did not draw. I think they were very surprised the wrong way of how few they actually drew with that. >> Um, and again, board I don't want to get down that topic today, but >> that is always an option we can talk about if we feel like it's something we want to explore, but just you've heard me say it a hundred times already, that's just a big decision. a lot of things to think about before we open that door. So, just >> demographic study said we're going to be flat >> and better than most of the other schools in Hamilton County. >> Is that I mean Westfield's Westfield's increasing, >> right? >> Everyone else in Hamilton County, I think, is is is

057declining in some >> Yeah. >> some way at the moment. >> Already calculated. >> It is. And like you said, there's there's variables, right? There's other factors that are affecting this, not just birth rates and whatnot. school choice. There are families choosing to do other things and take their kids elsewhere which which is fine. Um but birth rates is part of it. The housing the housing market is part of it. >> I mean look at the three of us right here. I mean you know our kids are out of the house and hey speak for yourself. Yes. >> Right. So yep. >> Okay. Anything else on this so we can move on. But Tracy, you feel like you've got a good pulse on this, >> right? Right. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and one of the

058things because Tracy knew what I that I was going to do my presentation for the full staff that that you guys all had chance to come to a couple months ago. And part of it was to get ahead of this a little bit because we knew this bargaining was going to feel different than last year. >> Well, and they're they're not dumb. They know this is why this was happening here. Well, hope hopefully people heard what I was saying and so to me I still think it's a pretty big win that we were able to do raises. >> I agree. >> There will be there will be some districts in the state that will not do anything this year. They won't be able to. So the fact that we were still in a position to

059do some things for our staff makes me feel really good. Even though yes, it will feel >> not as good when you're used to something bigger, right? But >> well, and I've heard some districts um talking about getting into their rainy day funds to provide like a one-year raise or >> period, >> right? >> That's right. >> That's a dangerous. >> It's a slippery slope. >> That's a dangerous to start because again, >> I should probably just stop because David's going to talk about the budget and he's probably gonna acknowledge some of these things. So, >> all right. >> Okay. Thank you everybody. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> David. We need to for a budget hearing. >> Yeah. Board. Uh thank you so much for the the time this afternoon. I

060I think uh you know it's hard to believe you know the the stuff that we're talking about today. You know, I I is one of the you do hear within the district when you think today about how much we spend on salaries and personnel that is really, you know, certainly impacts our really appreciate your your time today to be able to detail as well as for you. We do the the public Then the presentation. Now what I call is and uh we'll go from there. So, so that's going to be up from the five funds that you're very familiar with. These are the the buckets of of dollars that we we always in discuss every year. So you know grants for example I'd like by the DGF through the the certified budget order which is

061the process after the the board approves the budget on the 28th that I then send all the information to the DGF and we work back and forth uh to to ultimately then certify the budget for 2026. So today I'll go through the source what I call the sources the revenues for the each of the funds as well as the uses or the expenditures for each of the funds. Uh starting first with the education fund but before we get into the education fund of course we just mentioned that we'll talk about enrollment today. And so you see a chart here just for the a little over 10 years about 13 years worth of enrollment trends here. Seeing what we just alluded to that for fall ADM of 2526 where we uh in fact it'll be a

062little bit higher because we are sorting out those what we call those those those errors or those transfers. I think last I looked it was like 106 but for the budget it's uh 10100. So down just over 200 students or about 2% overall. Uh just for your knowledge, I I I do happen to have a historical ADM chart for Noblesville. And I noticed that this is the largest uh decrease in ADM in probably Noblesville school's history because like I said, the chart I had went back to 76 where there was less than 4,000 students. So I can't imagine that we we decreased um more than 200 beyond that. So obviously this is going to play a major role in the in the budget. It played a major role in bargaining in terms of the monies

063available monies on the table. And and that's to say that, you know, um you all recall last uh last November, almost a year ago, we uh had Dr. McKibben here. We, you know, paid $10,000 for his expertise to to tell us what's going to happen to Noblesville enrollment over the next 10 years. And as was mentioned, he said it was going to be relatively stable. And um we we know then, you know, again, we we talked about the impact of vouchers uh you know, and he mentioned, I do believe he said it in that meeting or I've heard him say it in other arenas as well, virtual, right? That's another major impact now that that we're going to see. And that's why we're really anxiously awaiting this transfer report just to see how many students

064that live in Noblesville may be attending, you know, Clarksville down by the river river or, you know, typically their virtualmies that they're now enrolling in. Uh, and then ultimately, I think homeschool is another factor out there that we're we're just starting to anecdotally hear a lot more about and realize that that's probably going to be those those three major factors there are, you know, really impacting our our enrollment number there. So unfortunately we're down 200 and um you know that that that that trend is is what you're seeing there. For the last four years we've seen decreases and you know if any of us were were betting folks we you know we know that we have a higher uh senior class than than kindergarten class. And so you know it's just to say that right

065now I think we're we're being very cautious and conservative as it relates to uh the budget and our predictions for enrollment moving forward. >> So now just one quick question. So last year's graduating class that was the highest class that has gone through Nolesville though. >> That's what I was told. >> And then this class was what like 10 less than. So it's still like the second highest. Yeah. This year's senior >> junior. Yeah. They're very big. >> Yeah. Okay. >> It's kind of expected but it still doesn't make it easy to >> Okay. >> Yep. Good question. So pulling out what is uh the 10,100 students into the the funding formula, the funding formula that has been revised by the general assembly in the past budget session to of course increase the the per

066pupil amount as well as some of those categorical grants. Those categorical grants include the the CTE reimbursement, the special education, the honors diploma, and the the non-Englishspeaking. Uh so when I basically put all the numbers together and run it through the formula for next year's budget uh or next year's calendar year uh it's 80 $85 million in total through that state funding formula based on that ADM count. Uh for for us that's about uh for the when you add in the foundation or the basic grant with complexity for us it's just shy of 7200 $7,184 per pupil. Uh so again, if you're thinking some some rough math here, you take the the 7,200 per pupil times the the 200 that we were down in students and and you're just shy of about $ 1.5 million

067that we would have loved to have in our budget had our enrollment stay stable, but unfortunately intended. So, you know, as it relates to that $85 million there, that's going to be reflective of again the the true ADM versus what where we would have liked that to have been. Moving on then to uh the the summer school reimbursement at $100,000. So, that's something that is continuing to decrease. In fact, we haven't received our summer school reimbursement. It's always it always comes in uh late November, December, uh for for each of the summers, but we know that our expenses are going down. Uh Dr. Dr. Rich and I think uh the the forum have engaged in the summer school committee to to review that. So, we brought expenses down, meaning that reimbursement is is going to

068be less there. So, uh bringing that down to $100,000 for next year. Investment income. Well, we're very fortunate to to have some cash in the bank that uh based on uh predictions for next year or estimate I'm putting it at $1.3 million. It is unfortunate though that I I continue to see our our rate in Trust Indiana go down. In fact, today it was at 4.11 versus last year was over 5%. So, this is one of those areas where it's it's always tough to budget. I usually budget it less conservative, but this year just trying to to kind of really squeak out revenue wherever possible. So maybe a little bit aggressive on the investment income, but uh it's definitely sizable enough to to make sure that we we get it in there to to um

069improve our overall position. And then finally, some miscellaneous there. $260,000 for a total of $86.7 million in our education fund for revenue. >> I have a question. Federal money, is that all going to start coming through the state? Like I understand uh >> are you referring to the block grant request? Are you are you referring to the the request for a block grant >> title grant title money and >> hit all right it comes through the state >> okay all of it >> okay so like ML money is going to be discontinued I understand we don't I mean those are the >> that's just this right now don't don't worry about that >> I need to qu watch the news >> yes that's good advice >> there's a lot of there's a lot of chatter

070it all all the federal grants flow through the state anyway like they The Fed's cut a huge check to all the states. The states figure out their formulas to divvy them up. But Indiana has recently made a request >> to change how all that works and to give us some additional flexibility, but I don't believe anything's actually changed yet. But Katie, Dr. Jenner has been speaking at to DC about Indiana would like a different authority, I suppose, to to have a little more flexibility in how they distribute those funds. So, we'll see. >> Thank you. >> But as of now, nothing changed. So, the revenue I just reviewed is going to fund then a budget in the education fund next year just shy of $81 million. In addition to that revenue, we will also be

071using about $4.4 million of fund balance. So, in other words, that that cash in the bank um ending which which allows us then to end 2026 with uh about 15% of our budget uh in the education fund. Meaning that uh there will be enough cash in the budget at right at 15% of that $81 million. That's uh relative because our board policy says that at any point in time uh we we will maintain a minimum between 8 and 15%. I I usually like to be just north of 15% just based on uh the overall size of our budget, the unknowns that always come into play every every year at the state legislature and and then again the ability to um earn interest income as well as uh maintain a high credit rating based on the

072cash on hand. the um it really comes as no surprise that the the dollars here fund the salaries and benefits of of really our teachers, instructional assistants and some administrators as well. Uh again, education fund is to be used for classroom instruction. So supplies or excuse me, salaries and benefits is really where that falls in terms of the majority. In fact, it's about 97% of the overall budget here goes to to fund salaries and benefits. Uh and then again, the remainder you can kind of see here. Sorry, it is a little small, but you have some some services, some contracted services, uh tuition, which would be um that's like our co-op payment as well as some supplies and then dues and fees um bringing up 02%. So other categories are very small in the education

073budget. This uh is where we also primarily fund the the changes that we just discussed in the collective bargaining agreement. So uh moving everyone a step was about $1.3 million. So, that's going to be funded, of course, in this appropriation right here, as well as shared in the referendum phone, which I'll touch on here in just a little bit. We also uh had the um ability this year to to have a work session almost a little bit over a month ago where we talked in a lot more detail about some of the the bigger factors. just to remind you that we had increases to health insurance uh which uh ultimately based on the change that Dan talked about in there with the um repricing were able to get that down to about $250,000 for the

074district increase and then um the $300,000 increase for the the turf uh that teacher retirement fund that mandatory employer portion that was increasing from 6.5% to 7.1%. So those are those are funded in this $81 million appropriation as well. All right. So, moving on from the education fund to our property tax supported funds that um I'll just really focus only on property taxes. There's some other miscellaneous revenues in there, but they're they're really small. Touched on those in the budget book. You can look at those as well as then those those taxes, those state taxes that are shared locally. So, that's the auto excise, the commercial ve vehicle excise, and the financial institution tax are also um you know, in these funds. But, uh for the most part, it's the property tax. And you know,

075it can't be a budget hearing this fall without mentioning SEA1. I know we've talked about it a lot uh and I'll just reference it really at high level. So this is not going to be an SEA one overview. It's just really what is what is the impact of that you know specifically to our numbers this year. So um well let's let's first talk about assess value. So looking at the operations and debt service fund 25 to 26 we went from $5.3 million to uh or excuse me billion dollars 5.3 billion to 5.6 $6 billion uh which is about a 5.1% increase which you know hey when it comes down to it knowing that there were going to be some deductions that were phased in some business personal property exemptions uh phased in as well uh

076this first year of SEA want to see an increase uh we're very fortunate to to see that I will say though that next year it is absolutely projected that that we would not see an increase on the uh referendum side you see our referendum debt and then our referendum operating going from 6.2 to 6.6. So the reason these assess values are different here is because it's the the tip districts, right? And um the increase here is about $6.7 million. So or 6.7%. And when you start to see a little bit higher increase in your in your uh tiff included funds, you know, it may start to trigger the the thought of there, you know, there is a lot of lot of tiff value, a lot of captured value. Uh and so if it wasn't for

077the referendum, you know, it'd be a different story. because we had that referendum, we are absolutely u receiving benefit from those those tiff districts. Uh so so very thankful for the growth that's happening there in those funds. Moving into the the blue then on the rate side 25 to 26. Uh happy to state like we talked about during the bond hearing earlier in the summer that for the seventh straight year we will be decreasing our tax rate. mentioned earlier though that with the assessed value decreasing just want to put it out there you know well over a year ahead of time we've already been saying this but next year fully anticipate our tax rate to actually increase and that is fully the design and the intent of this I believe of the state legislature to

078have tax rates increase they they spoken this they want everyone to get to a three-cent rate because at that point in in time they're going to just truly overhaul the system and work within that three 3cent rate uh so our rate will will be increasing because the assessed value is going to go down and so we need to of course increase the rate to earn the same amount of the levy which is there in the orange. So you see how in 26 we go from about 71 million to about $75 million next year driven primarily from the referendum operating fund due to the fact that that rate cap was uh eliminated. In other words, our voter approved rate was allowed to be restored to 37 cents uh in 2026. So going from the 34 cents

079to 37 cents uh nets us a little over uh $3.5 million which is was a great help based on the fact that we were really budgeting all along on on that going away the the year before based on it kind of being a one-year piece of legislation that they came back and and renewed. So that's the uh the overview uh on on on the property taxes and um moving forward then in terms of what those property tax fund looking at our operating referendum fund total budget next year 26.2 $2 million using just under $500,000 of fund balance. This is a fund that we've been uh strategically spending down the balance. It it's had a high balance uh really since the passage in 2018, the first year in 2019, it's maintained a high balance. Uh but

080in looking at those dollars, we've decided, you know, let's let's work on uh spending those down. So next year's budget spending down about a half million dollars, ending the 2026 budget year at about 22% of the overall budget. Used to be much higher than that. So that's dramatic spend down from what it's been going back to about 2020. Again, no surprise that uh in this case about 93% of the dollars here going to salaries and benefits. We are uh you know an industry on personnel. And so um outside of that it goes to um purchase services and supplies uh in in the safety category. So our safety program uses services and supplies and then in the tuition about 3.2% 2% that's about $800,000 that we budget for. Uh the pursuit institute um and you know

081all of our career technical opportunities at the high school whether you know it's through all heart or the ABC agreement um it's going to be those opportunities budgeted in the in the tuition category there. So so again obviously um the salaries benefits uh our CT opportunities uh safety as well as our mental health personnel all funded out of our referendum fund. our debt service. I'm I really combine both of our debt service funds here just to give you the overall picture. From the first slide, I mentioned that when you combine them, it's about 20% of our overall budget. So that total is about $34 million in total. This is the the sum total of we have 14 outstanding bonds. When I when I every year when I go through each of the amorization schedules and

082add up the principal and interest, uh this is going to be the annual amount that's owed in 2026. Um, so really not too much to call out here other than the fact that, you know, as expected, we talked during our budget hearings about how we tried to be aggressive in our in our payown in some of our most recent bonds. So you see right on the top in our 2024 and 25 general obligation bonds, we're going to be uh spending uh or, you know, buying down a little over $4 million in principal interest next year, trying to get that aggressive payoff and um and get those debts paid off uh sooner rather than later. Also, I'll just mention that the capital referendum, I think we talked about this before, but that expires in in 2032.

083So, that'll be the last year that I'll be calculating the debt service in the budget for that fund. Right. Moving on to the operations fund. Total budget next year of 28.97 million. This fund is actually projecting to use about $2.5 million in fund balance, ending the year at about 18% of budget overall. So once again, we're we're spending down dollars in our operations fund. Uh but when I when I I I say the operations funds been down, I I talk about the referendum spend down as well as the education fund down fund spend down. I looked at those funds. I refer to those funds really as our general funds because uh as we know the referendum fund can be used for anything. Education fund is for classroom instruction which is really the majority of our

084our operation. and then the operations fund uh the the transfer is allowed from the ED fund to the operations fund of up to 15% of that state um tuition support payment. So with that transfer I I really just refer to all these funds as you know our general funds. That's that's to say that when you add up uh the 4.4 the 2.5 in spend down and the half million dollars in the um referendum fund you're just at about $7 million projected spend down in our in our um in our funds next year which again it's a budget. There's there's areas where I need to budget high because there's unknowns. There's there's reasons to budget high because um not just in operations, but you know, if there were to be, you know, just thing things that

085happen with some of our equipment, right? You know, whatever that may be, uh there's reasons to budget high. Uh and even with bargaining again next year, there's reasons to put in some extra appropriation. Uh so then that way we can get through the year not having to come back and do an additional appropriation late in the year. So, right now, yes, it may be a budgeted uh deficit of just over $7 million, but I truly don't anticipate to be that high. Um, all the the details behind uh and and seeing that seeing the spend down will be in the budget book. So, if you go to the fund performance, you'll you'll see the spend in our in our budget fund performance when I send that out in the budget book. Dollars and benefits though are

086are once again high in the operations fund. So, in this case, about uh 56% of the overall budget. Uh beyond that, uh the other um 44% I I'll talk about here really in this slide. Uh utilities and waste removal almost $3.2 million. You may remember me referencing the fact that the 17% increase to Duke electricity is going to be fully implemented by March of next year, which we're expecting that to be about $200,000 impact. So again, something that's I guess inflation that's out outside of our control. uh technology uh about a$2.1 million budget. So that's uh software and hardware and that's one of the areas as you know and recall with um like the iPads and there's some other tech things that that we're able to pull out of the budget and to purchase those

087in bond. So that's been one way that we've been able to free up operational dollars to be able to truly put back into salaries and benefits. Uh we've been doing the same thing with bus purchases. So, uh, you may look at this dollar amount here for the buses at 636,000 and and re and realize, well, in the past it's always been over a million dollars. You know, when we replace 78 buses and yes, it has been, but this is the difference then when you take out $600,000, which if again, if you remember back to bond hearing, we we got about $1.2 million for for buses. $600,000 over the next two years to again free up dollars in the operations fund. So this is you you guys seen this really play out when we talked about

088that um you know months ago in the bond and how we're going to pay for buses out of that legal transportation. So this would be like Mckin Vento Mckin Vento uh transportation and um other miscellaneous services just shy of $500,000 vehicle fuel parts and tires. So really this is to primarily for the the buses about $600,000 worth of fuel and then the rest goes to to parts and like I said tires and and sometimes even our our mechanics um or there's jobs that they can't do. So we have some budget in there for them to have that done from an outside provider. And then insurance budgeting about 8% increase to to for a total of $ 1.5 million. So this is you know going to be property casualty um and um our various insuranceances outside

089of health insurance. I I am happy to report though that this is an area where um work working with our our broker that has other schools in his book of business. We're looking into exploring uh a pooling uh program that would bring together uh some other schools uh nearby schools uh specifically on the the property and the auto that uh they've had success within the assured partners realm with other within other states and he's optimistic and uh that we could do it here as well. And so I'd like to think that that could be an area where again we're just always trying to you know be strategic with some of these if you think about it right we talked about so much of our budget being funded uh or funding personnel and uh in fact

090you remember from Dan's presentation it was I think high 80s for this year and uh for 2026 I did the calculation it's about 87% goes to the salaries and benefits of personnel. So when we have um you know difficult times or we need to go through you know periods of austerity you know yes there's some areas within personnel but it only leaves 13% elsewhere and so that's where you know you know I start going through the the budget to think like where else can we get creative here and so this is obviously a big you know it's a seven figure dollar number when we talk about our insurance and year-over-year you know that number is going to it's going to increase but how can we then be um innovative with with trying to pull within

091other schools to essentially be selfinsured just like we are in the health side do basically the same thing on the on the property side as well. Uh so so more to come on that but $ 1.5 million budget for next year in total there and then finally within buildings and grounds about $3.8 million you know this is going to be miscellaneous equipment uh services on the maintenance side as well as some capital items uh that I'll show you here on in the capital plan. Uh, you know, you guys know this, you know, we're we're a massive operation, right? We're 170 plus million dollar budget uh 10 schools and and so whether you know it whether or not it's a piece that breaks on a chiller or a boiler or you know an interesting stat to

092share with you is that you know hey we have almost 600 sprinkler heads throughout the district, right? So just you know sprinkler heads alone, right? Like it's you got to pay for it somewhere, right? and and you have all these little things that just kind of add up sometimes that uh you know this is where one of those breaks or or a ml blade whatever it is uh it's the $3.8 million budget here that's going to pay for for that item. All right. So, the next two slides, I know this is small, but uh the details are in the budget book. Uh it's a statutory requirement pursuant to you can see the code site here, IC20-46-6-5 that for any capital equipment items over 10,000 that we would, you know, list them. And it's this has

093actually been posted on gateway. It's a statutory requirement. This will be a resolution for the for the board to approve on the 28th meeting. And um most of it on the top is really just technology items followed then by some of the equipment equipment. So like four and some amount to 34,000. So those sorts of items that again as a statuto requirement, we list those here, but as I mentioned, they were funded in that last line item on the previous slide. And then same thing with the bus replacement. uh for the sake of today's presentation to to make sure that we you know talked about it. This is uh the five-year bus replacement plan that that we are to to discuss and in summary in the 2026 column that's where I mentioned earlier took 6,000

094$600,000 from that total to get to the total uh from the bond to get to the total that is then in the operations fund. And then for the next five years, uh that's that's me working with uh director of transportation Robson and uh planning that out for the about the 127 buses that we have. So all buses are on this plan if you if you look out in the future years. Uh getting every bus replaced essentially at the 12 year mark is what it comes down to. That be happy to answer any questions. 87% of the 170 million salaries and benefits. Correct. >> That's right. Uh, excuse me. Um, the 170 minus the debt service. >> Okay. >> So, the debt service was I think at 25. >> So, I take the debt service. >>

095So, over 150 million debt service out. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. >> 87%. Okay. >> Yeah. >> I don't think I just think the average Joe does not realize that number. Then when we come to negotiations, trying to figure out how to get more to teachers, there's not much other area to ring things out of. >> Yeah. And I I think one of the things I guess I didn't really mention is we talked about enrollment and we talked just briefly about ADM, but let's just recognize the fact that, you know, when you're sitting our seats and thinking about, hey, if there are two factors that um represent kind of your financial health, you know, what would they be? I think we'd all say it's your enrollment and your assessed value. And unfortunately, both of those right

096now are are decreasing, right? So that's where I think we're just being very cautious in terms of our our future outlook and we're just trying to be very mindful in terms of, you know, making sure that, you know, we can sustain the deficit spending that we're that we have right now so that we always maintain a very healthy position. >> Again, I still always said we're a business and we got to sell ourselves so we don't lose more. It'll be interesting to see what you're going to come up with when we come up where they met. Okay. uh and where we can sell that to try to keep it as flat as we can uh fighting all the other things that are outside of us that we can't you know >> and my my gut

097will be we might see some some shifts of kids going places but I think an increasing factor is just there are less >> less too >> moving into the district too >> I agree >> I think we're going to see both we'll see we'll see what the numbers >> we can do the market we got to do okay I think >> and the only again not to bring up the topic that we're not going to talk about today but the only way districts somewhat controlled the enrollment pieces if they go open because technically you could try to entice students who don't live here to come but >> yeah we labor that today >> but future thoughts >> future thoughts >> that is an option >> but it doesn't always work so >> yeah but it

098is interesting that 87% of the budget obviously minus the debt service is salaries and benefits because when it comes to you know us as a district cutting cost or being more effective on saving money you know, you really don't have a lot of wiggle room, right? Because most of I mean, the largest percentage of of your budget is is employees and salaries, right? And and you don't want to cut that. So, it's not like there's other areas that we could be more whatever mindful of, I guess, so to speak. >> And I think that'll be an important thing that will probably come out. Again, I'm going to make a big assumption here that we are going to have a referendum conversation next year. And um that's why the question that I posed at the staff

099meeting a couple a couple months ago still holds true that you know that is where most of our money goes to people. >> So if someone suggests that well you need to spend your money differently or you're wasting money somewhere the question becomes well what is that because it is people that is most of our money >> now again if push came to shove that's also where we would have to cut. So we would have to figure out what that means, right? And for what it's worth, I mean, David didn't share it, but you know, we are constantly looking at ways to streamline some positions and whatnot. We actually just in the last month have had two positions that have come open that we didn't fill because we thought, you know what, think we can

100do it without. We're going to save some money here and and not fill them. >> Um that helps shore some of these things up over time. But >> yeah, >> with with 200 students, you know, we're short 200 students. Is that something? Obviously, you kind of always keep your eye on that. U you got to see where the classes fall. I mean, like you said, >> Yep. And there and there's Yes, I think I know where maybe where you're going with this because some people say, "Well, 200 students." Well, then you should need like what? Eight less teachers, right? >> Well, sure. they all came out of the same school in the same grade, but they didn't. They were spread out over 10 schools and all the grades. And so, yes, there is a tipping

101point. And again, we don't talk about it a lot necessarily because it's not something we need to discuss, but that's part of the HR team is every year as we're doing that, they do look at the various schools and sometimes they say, "Hey, White River, we need to reduce one third grade section because your class numbers are so low now that we could actually remove one." Or, "Hey, we need to add one over here." So that happens quietly behind the scenes. But the hard part is exactly that. It's it's rarely so clean and easy >> because again, if it was 200 all in one spot, >> right? >> That makes opportunities, but it's not. It's two here, three there, >> different grade level. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, 200 over really 13 grades when you

102consider kindergarten >> divided by 10 schools divided by 10 schools is really not that any. No. >> Right. To to be able to cut stay off. >> So it just it Yeah. And that again that's a hard concept for people to to track to because and you know you think about civil math is well you're going down students you need to cut staff. Well maybe but all the things still have to happen. We still have to have >> all the services you know. >> Yeah. When you come back at us with those numbers of reason why it it'd be also helpful and and mindful to think what else is going on in all Hamilton County. I mean we we know that just from reading things you know what's what are the other five or six

103schools done >> Yep. along the way. If you look at that information, >> this is this is not you heard me say this before, this is not unique to Noblesville. >> I would say this is the norm in almost every district in the state. There's a few exceptions, but most districts are experiencing >> very similar versions of this. The specifics vary by community depending on some factors in each one of us. Um there are a few that are truly growing, but there's not many. Um the the assessed evaluation uh problem with SEA1 looks different in every community but everyone's feeling it somehow just varying levels of whatever. Again one thing that we are so blessed is that we have had a business team that has been planning and you know making really good decisions. So

104we're still in a in a fine position right now. Some districts do not have the ability to navigate this the way that we're navigating this because they don't have the the cash reserves and some of the things on hand to to get through it. So they're going to have much more urgent decisions coming their way. >> So So the assessment valuation, David, it's two years behind. Am I correct? Correct. When we >> use what's knowing we're two years behind, what's next year? If we know what the numbers are, look at the just evaluation for next year. >> I think from a market standpoint, I think that I think that it's every reason to believe that we'd probably still see some increases, but it's all the deductions from SE, but we don't know for sure what

105they're all adding in. >> Correct. Yeah. as they phase in from going from the 1/3 to the 2/3 on the home set. >> That's what's really going to bring down our assessed value over the next four years. >> So, we may have to see the normal increase because of the new law deduction for the next does it exponentially get a little bigger for the next two or three years. >> It does. Yeah, that's that infamous chart. I I don't have it memorized yet. >> I know I don't need >> That's it. That's the one, right? It goes from it phases in from 1/3 to 2/3 is what it does for five years. So, so again what we talked about three or four years ago before they changed the law, we knew kind of what was

106coming. Now it's kind of more fuzzy. >> Yeah. >> Based on the new laws that affect them. >> It is fuzzy. Yeah. And you know what? It it could just so happen that our assessed value maybe is is is level or maybe it's a tenth of a percent increase. Like we we just don't really know. It's it's really hard to say, especially being the fact that we do have a lot of commercial coming online, right? Yeah. Yeah. And just for the point of clarity, what you what you just asked about though, I think is what's going to be very confusing for a while until people get used to this new system, assuming they don't change it again, is the assessed value is actually going to keep going up. >> Yes. >> But what we are

107able to tax and what leads to revenue will not because there's all these again, if you remember back to my presentation, we we talked at a very high level about all of the credits and deductions that are going to just take money right off the top. So even though the AV will our AV is going to keep going up, but it won't be taxed like it was. It will still generate less money because there's outside things that will knock it back down. >> And that's hard to understand for a lot of people, right? It's it's confusing, >> right? The gross net. >> So again, thinking about the charts David put together and that I shared before that will be the trend through >> and then it's fully implemented and then it should start coming back

108up again. But that's a long time to ride the train the wrong direction, too. So, we have to be able to navigate that five, six year period. Um, and again, who knows? I mean, the legislature very well could make some adjustments to all this. Um, >> plan that they haven't. So, >> the third year's a heavier hit, right? 28 from SP1 state. Um that's I it's looked like it's gonna come from the homestead uh deduction and next year goes up to from 37 and a half to 40 and then from there it's it gets to 66% at some point or by 2031 how it gets I can't remember it's 3 or 4% every year 5%. >> What's the likelihood that it's going to be change they're going to change next year? flip the coin, right?

109>> Who you're talking about. >> Couldn't even answer that question. >> Well, it's depends on who else, >> right? >> Yeah. >> Some people feel very optimistic. I don't feel very optimistic because there's a lot of political pressure out there with this idea of lowering taxes or property tax reform or whatever. And depending on who you ask, some folks would say, "Oh, yeah, they need to fix this because they've done harm to all of our local government units." There are some people say, "No, they nuh-uh. They need to fix it the other way. They didn't cut it." >> Yeah. It depends on who you're talking to. >> Well, to realize money coming back to the homeowner, $300 is not more than >> I do know it's 10% or a maximum of 300. >> I don't

110think many people are actually going to see relief in their property tax. >> So, it would be very interesting. >> But then as part of that SDA1, which I think I mentioned before, we lost our geothermal tax credit >> due to one of those changes. So, I mean, it's >> I didn't know that. >> So, so that $300 you were going to get is >> that's too bad. >> One other thing on SEA1, just remember a lot when they talk about cleanup. Yes, there is a property tax aspect of of SEA1, but there's also a local income tax aspect. The local income tax is they they kind of messed that up from what I understand. Just remember, we don't get any local income tax in our budget. Other some schools do, but we we do

111not get any local income tax. So, I absolutely believe that they're going to clean up some of the local income tax when it relates as it relates to that property tax chart with the deductions and the credits. I I don't think that they're going to touch that at all because that leads into what they're what they want to do come 2032. They need to get that chart implemented first. Uh so, so again, just remember when you start hearing cleanup, a lot of that is actually related to income tax that we don't we don't even get in our budget, >> right? 17% increase from Duke. >> Correct. >> What was the last increase? Uh I think it was nine. So it was by because it was a phase in so it was a 9% increase and

112then it was a 17% increase. >> Is it the clean coal? >> I don't I mean I think you've seen I've not been following too close but I think IURC has been under fire lately because it's not just Duke but AES is >> Yeah. All >> Yeah. They're looking the board members on the IURC. All that stuff's going >> Yeah. >> Well, thank you David. I mean, it's mindboggling. We we all agree. I think we're all very lucky to have you and >> Oh, yeah. >> Well, you guys are your support is just incredible, too. So, it's just pleasure to work with this wonderful team. So, >> so just to re just to review for the sake of the the timeline. So, David will um be I think the budget gets recommended at the October

113meeting, right? >> Correct. For approval. So, that'll come back to you here in a few weeks. >> And you're going to send some slides in the whole >> I'll send all the slides for today in one email. So, you just have one for >> Tell me what the budget book looks like. rather. >> Oh, yep. Yep. >> The website looks like >> what is it? A is it a preliminary your the budget book? >> Oh, it's a it's PDF. Uh it's PDF of some >> Yeah. I mean, is it a just a a worksheet that you're >> like 352 pages? >> No, it's less than uh it's like 20. >> Yeah, it's like 20. >> It just goes into more detail for you as you think about this. >> A lot more qualitative stuff. And

114then I call the fund performance. So, you can see the performance of our funds. >> Yeah. based on the object code of the expense and the revenue type and then you see the fund performance of the fund. >> So on public record too >> if he's with you it'll all be >> great to explain it. >> Yeah. >> Yep. It'll all be out there. >> Okay. Any anything else? Um >> thank you. >> Okay. >> All right. Okay. >> All right. >> Here we go. >> Special education. So on September 4th we uh were able to do a um special education kind of road tour, right? That was amazing. >> It was a great time. We could do it anytime, right? >> What's good for you next month, >> right? Later on in November. Thanks.

115Right. >> Um, so we were able to take you guys on kind of a tour of all the things special education and then from that tour there were uh additional questions and topics that you guys kind of wanted to go over. So those are some things that Amy and I will go through here in our um board presentation. Yes. So we wrote down as you guys had questions I had was jotting down um the questions that you had and these were the topics. >> So we've taken the topics and we've added slides. So I know um the first topic was there was a question about what's the what's the difference between a student with a medical diagnosis and school eligibility. Um so a student with a medical diagnosis doesn't automatically qualify for special ed services.

116There has to be an educational impact. So that's where the evaluation comes into play. Data is looked at. Assessments are given. Teachers give input. Um you have a lot of rating scales sometimes that they complete to see if there is an educational impact. It's not just grades that we're looking at. But that is a a piece of data that we look at. Um there are many students in our district that have outside medical diagnoses that do not qualify for special ed services. So it's not a you have a medical diagnosis, you automatically qualify. And many times um students uh needs can be met on a 504 plan. Uh students may just need some level of accommodations and those needs can be met through a 504 versus a special ed and IEP. Can you summarize what

117a 504 is compared to? >> Yes. Uh really a 504 plan is just accommodations. Okay. Um so maybe a student has a diagnosis of like ADD or ADHD and they just need smaller group um extended time. I'm kind of looking at Tracy just cuz you're like live it. But yeah, they just need accommodations. Whereas special ed, when you get into special ed, they need accommodations, but they need services. >> Okay? >> So, they need a special ed teacher or therapist providing some kind of support to them on a daily, weekly basis, whereas you don't get services per se with a 504 plan. >> And if we go back to talk about what we kind of did in our our work session before we did our tours is that we have um legal binding guiding documents,

118right? Like article 7 comes from IDA and then article 7 504 lives under ADA, the American with Disabilities Act, right? And 504s can carry into adulthood and and workplace environments too. Yep. >> So, okay. >> Accommodations versus um services. And really that ADA is what will follow them, like Aaron just said, into adulthood because the whole world of special ed IEPs ends when the student exits or graduates from high school. >> There's nothing that falls outside those two accommodations or those ADA and 504 special ed. >> So 504 or special education. >> Okay. Yep. >> Because there was a discussion, I don't know, a few months ago that there were some people had a concern that uh their child's um accommodations would could not be met because should have written this down. Sorry. >> No,

119you're right. >> Are you familiar with what I'm trying to Okay, I'll look it up. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah, look it up. If they have an IEP, it doesn't mean they're 504 and 504 doesn't mean they're IEP. Those are completely two separate things. separate things and they have both plans. >> Okay. >> But what about if they have an individual learning plan? >> That's that's >> But what about someone that's a mel student? >> Yeah, she's talking about an individual multilingual. >> I wrote down I wrote an ILP and they said it backwards. >> So they can have an ILP and an IEP. Correct. Or 504. >> And ILP could be they could have another one of those other two. >> Correct. All set. >> Yes. Yep. >> All these all these appreciation. >> The

120acronyms. I mean, that was one of the number one things that blew me away when I first got on the board was like, what? >> We're trying to get good at breaking them out for you all the time, but it's there's a lot of them. >> Okay. So, another question was, when do students uh attend their case conferences? So, uh again, annual case reviews happen at least annually for students that have IEPs. So students are required to be invited um to the case conference either when the student turns uh becomes 14 or enters grade nine. Um that is one of the requirements that were monitored on. So they at least have to be on the case conference notification invited. Um if the student doesn't attend either the student or parent choice uh the that we

121still have to take steps to make sure they have a voice especially when they hit the 14 years of age or age nine because there's a transition portion of the IEP that it needs to be the student voice. Um it's important to include students uh when we feel it's appropriate because the plan is about them and adults can sit around the table and come up with a plan for a student but if they're not on board and don't understand it then sometimes the plans aren't successful. So >> yeah some questions on that. So, one of the questions when we were at the high school, the climb, the vocational programming that was the gold mine that um you guys were got to observe and go in and purchase some things. Somebody said, "What are some other

122community partners that we have that we send kids out to do, you know, job skill uh type things?" And this was the list that Beth Kaiser, our transition coordinator, uh provided for me. So this is currently where we are sending students. Um we have connected with invest Hamilton County and they have been helpful and look like just here the end of September we've started a placement at Brewberger. Um so we are always looking for opportunities. Um I pres I was participated in the uh Noblesville diversity coalition all abilities. I was on the panel last week uh where we talked about um students with disabilities and there was uh somebody there from Connor Prairie and I went up to him automatically afterwards, introduced myself, have already connected him and Beth Kaiser to see if there would

123be opportunities to get our kids uh to Connor Prairie. So they're connecting. So we're always looking for opportunities for our students. >> That's wonderful. >> Yeah. So Mosaic's financials. So you guys got to go up to observe Mosaic. So the question was there was question about the cost of sending students there. So um we came back I got this information from Steve Warhoff who you guys met that day that's the director of Hamilton Boo Madison. Um the budget for mosaics is approved by the HBM board which are the superintendent of each of the school districts that are in HBM. Um, and then it it kind of outlines the cost to send students. So, at the end of each year, they determine the total number of days. Like, we'll get a list from Steve to say,

124"Okay, here are your kids. Here are the days they attended." So, we're confirming, yes, that seems right to make sure those are the days. They divide that total number of student days into what was spent, actual cost to determine a daily rate or then build. So for 2425, you can see the Mosaic's expenditures and then the total student days came up with a daily rate of $243. Any student that attended our days were $1,177 days. So you can see our total cost to send students to Mosaics for last school year. And are we the the biggest portion of are we the biggest portion of the total budget >> as a district for H for >> Yes. I mean >> or for HBO >> for for mosaics. We probably are. We probably send the most kids

125with our size >> with the size compared to >> But I guess I don't know that for sure because I don't know. >> I mean, if you did a I I think we would have to know like based on our overall student population like size like are we proportional to like other schools? I mean like is another school in our HBM who's much smaller than us sending >> x amount of students which actually is a larger percentage of their student population. >> Yeah. Right. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I don't know that answer, but >> Yeah, I don't. Thanks. >> Yeah. >> Any questions on mosaics? >> Uh, another question that came up that day was our Medicaid funding. So, we do bill for Medicaid. Um, and this is a way to get reimbured for sub

126services we provide. Um, it's just a way to bring in some additional money to help offset costs. We must have parent consent to bill. um does not impact any Medicaid funds. So a lot of families will not want to provide consent because if they're receiving Medicaid then themselves then they think that impacts what they're receiving and it's completely separate. So it does not impact anything the family can receive. Um we are not allowed to ask families if they're on if they receive Medicaid billing. So, we just our guideline is we try to obtain consent for every kit they have an IEP, we just try to get it on file um just so we have it. So, if things change or they do receive Medicaid, then we can bill. Um we currently bill for speech and

127language services, occupational therapy, physical therapy, ABA services, and transportation. Um we are getting ready to transition. We currently use Claymade for our billing and we're getting ready to transition November 1st to Relay. So, our staff, we are I just sent out emails today for trainings coming up after fall break um to get ready for that switch. And I know the question was like how how do we use the money? So, some of this is salaries to help with salaries that we have in the district. Uh we have outside consultants like we have uh two gals we contract with that do all of our IEP professional de development meet with teachers on writing um a good IEP opportunities for students. Somebody had asked like how what money are we using to send kids to agape that

128you also got to see. Many times it comes out of the Medicaid funds and if there's like certain supplies or stuff that we need. So, it's just an additional pot of money that helps offset costs and provides um things for students. >> What's uh what sort of salaries might be included in this that are paid? >> Because we as well because we as a district already include salaries in our budget, right? So, is this maybe additional people that we have to bring on? >> Y Okay. >> Yeah. if there's a um student with a specific u medical disability or um would need those kind of assistance. So, that's where that's going. >> Okay. >> Y >> I thought so, but just not >> as in addition to our normal teacher salaries, right? And so, this

129could be like for to offset those additional um special education expenditures because we know that it's not a one for one for when we get those dollars back in. There was question about uh uh IDE monitoring, how we're monitored. So, this is all brand new. We just this is hot off the press. Uh we just found this out a couple weeks ago at our state director's uh case conference, fall conference. So, DOE is moving moving to a new monitoring cycle. Um and a lot this is coming from guidance they're getting from the federal government. uh want to move from compliance only to compliance and outcomes, from a fixed schedule to flexible risk informed model. Uh they want to have a system that's proactively intervening and not just reactive. Um after the results are already done.

130So they're going to a six-year monitoring cycle, 70 plus eleas in each cohort. Uh they'll rotate annually. We will be in cohort two, which will be next year. So next year will be our monitoring year um where they will monitor 14 indicators and they look at our percentage for the alternate assessment. So if you go ahead and go to the next slide here are the uh 14 areas that they monitor. They look at students with IEPs and their graduation rate. They look at the dropout rate. They look at the number of students that um are being assessed on iLearn and are they making progress and what their past fail rates are. Uh they look at students with IEPs that are being suspended or expelled. They look to see where students are receiving their services that

131least restrictive environment and are they receiving it with their peers or do we have too many kids being pulled away from their peers. There's a preschool lease restrictive environment that they look at, preschool outcomes that they monitor, parent involvement, there's a parent survey that after every student's annual case review, we ask parents to fill out and they respond to questions about did they feel they were they had a voice and they were involved in their child's case conference that was just held. So they look at parent involvement. They're looking at disproportionality, uh racial ethnic groups, um either an inappropriate identification, just special ed, or specific areas. Um disability categories that they look at. We're monitored on our initial evaluation timelines. Um all initial evaluation timelines have to be completed within 50 instructional days. Um and

132so we have to ensure that those timelines are met in case conferences are held on time. Secondary transition is indicator 13 as we know it. That's the where I said when the student is in grade 9 or 14 they have to be invited. That's one of the criteria for uh secondary transition postchool outcomes. Uh they want to know where are kids that either graduated or exited school with an IEP where they are. like two, five years out. So, they try to be able to contact them to see where they are and are they doing what they think they were doing and uh schools used to be required to do this and then the DOE took it over and then we found out a couple weeks ago this is coming back to the schools. So, we're

133going to have to come up with a plan to do uh >> because you don't have enough to do. >> Yeah. Right. >> Yeah. >> And some people won't want to tell you. Correct. Right. Correct. I mean, some might say I, you know, Yeah. >> Correct. >> So, what is a preschool outcome? >> So, a preschool outcome is um we have something called IR that all of our preschoolers, ages three, four, and five are evaluated on um through their teacher of record. And so, um we have indicators within AR. It's kind of like taking I learn that you know are they meeting those developmental milestones? Are they reaching their goals? And so that has to be done six weeks within entering early childhood and then six weeks within exiting early childhood. And we also do

134it um at their birth date. So to get a better um gauge there. So um those are our early childhood outcomes. >> But it's not a test that kids take. It's not a test. >> It's a rating form that staff fill out. Yeah. prior to this requirement. How much is this adding to your workflow? >> Um I don't know yet. Um I think we were already monitoring quite a few of these things on RDA results driven accountability. Um and we were kind of um a lot of this information will come from the DOE. We were already doing AR. We were already doing preschool outcomes. It'll just be now part of our um IDOE monitoring. So, I'll let you know next year after we go through monitoring, how much more work um is there for um

135paperwork-wise? I mean, that's what it's going to boil down to. It's going to be more paperwork and then the post school outcomes, right? Like, that's going to add to um our workload. I would say just the secondary transition indicator 13 is a huge workload on our secondary teachers um because it's additional sections of the IEP that now become required once they're in nth grade or hit the age of 14 and then there's a rubric. So there's criteria that has to be met in all of those different sections. And so next year they'll DOE will randomly pull so many IEPs and review them. And if they're not 100% compliant in those areas, then we have to fix them or come up with a plan. How are we going to ensure that these are 100% compliant the

136next time our IEPs are pulled? >> Is that the alternate assessment? >> No, that's the secondary transition, the indicator 13 criteria. Um the alternate assessment uh 1% cap is schools can only have 1% of their student population assessed on the alternate assessment and we since Aaron and I have been here have always been over the 1%. Um I think currently the last time we were 1.2 so we have um gotten it gotten it lower closer to that 1%. Uh when Aaron and I came, we had students taking the alternate assessment that didn't qualify for the alternate assessment. So we have cleaned that up. Um so we are pretty confident that the kids that are taking the one per the alternate assessment now meet the criteria. We just have more kids that meet that criteria. It

137would be great if IDE was doing this monitoring to focus on the kids to see how they can better help them rather than trying to catch you at, you know, doing something wrong or not doing what >> it needs to be student focused, not provider focused. >> That's just silly. >> Right. Right. Right. [Laughter] >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Wow. Mhm. Um the other question was we had what is the number of students that have an IEP also on free and reduced lunch? And this was hot off the press. Michelle Turner, we got this from Michelle Turner. She just got back from a quick little uh being out of the office. So you can see there um we currently have 1,810 students identified and you can see the breakdown for uh free, reduced and paid

138lunch questions on that. >> One second. >> Yep, they're right. >> Will you send these slides? Yes, we will because you asked you're saying because you asked for them after the last one and we thought well let's use this same one to add our information and then we'll share it. >> Yes. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. So the 1810 students are special education students >> right now identified in our SIS system which is our student information system which is power school currently. Right now it has pulled out our non-public school students. Right. So this is just students sitting within 10 of our Noblesville school buildings right now >> that have an IEP. >> Okay. >> Yes. So the majority of the students actually pay for that are not on free. Yep. Okay. >> Yep. >>

139How does that relate to other schools in our district or in our county relatively speaking? I've always wondered. >> I don't know. >> Yeah, I don't know. >> We can we could pull that data. >> It appears we do a better job at what you guys probably fairly consistent. I would guess >> you think it is. We'd have to pull it to >> check if I'm right, but my gut would be >> there'd be a few percentages up and down, but it's probably pretty similar. >> So, would you say a higher percentage of our gened students are free and reduced than what the percentage of special ed students are? >> Um, I didn't pull numbers for our total um free and reduced. We only looked at Sure. >> if they were identified. So, you would

140tell me do some quick math just so I know what I know what our gened one is. Okay, >> let's see. Under 30%, right? Under 30% we're on reduced lunch in our higher >> 30%. Yeah. So, we're the same. It would be higher. A higher percentage of special education students are free and reduced than I'm guessing the other would be because our total this that that percentage right there is about 36%. and our district number is under 30 for everyone. >> So without doing run the full breakout of math, that should mean that Janette is likely a slightly lower percentage. Am I thinking about that right, dude? I' I'd have to pull the others and do the rest of the math, but in my brain that should that should mean this is a little bit

141higher, >> but not sign I mean >> it's not a huge discrepancy. Yeah. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> I mean, it's not like we're seeing an overwhelmingly large number >> on free and reduced versus paid, >> right? I think that was the question. >> Yeah. >> Right. Yes. >> Okay. So then another question was about our non-public schools. Um, so we have I think I don't know if we I think we shared them on the tour in our slides, but we have Our Lady of Grace, Legacy Christian, Garren Catholic, Premier Soccer Academy, Homeschooled, I think those are our biggies. Um, and so we are required through article 7, which again is our state special ed law, um, to have some kind of involvement. We're required for child fines. So, if any of those schools feel

142they have a student that might be eligible for special ed, we're required to at least respond and determine if we're going to assess the child to determine if they're eligible. Um, we're we provide a minimal level, a smaller level of services to our nonpubs. We are not required to provide FATE that free appropriate public education that were required for students that attend Noblesville schools but we do complete evaluations and then we have to have yearly consultation meetings with those uh buildings which we typically hold in January February once we know the budget because then state and federal dollars are determined from our December one count um and then we have to identify that amount of money that has to be spent then on the non-public schools the students attending >> who's doing that because that

143sounds like that's a lot. >> So we have a non-public school team. We have a director of nonpublic schools, Jeff Men and Paul. >> Okay. >> And then we currently have two resource teachers and one and a half uh uh speech language pathologists. >> Is that our school or is that in the co-op? That's our >> We do that. We we we Noville Schools does that. >> Yep. Those are our staff >> that we um we made the the the determination a couple years ago when Aaron and I came on board that it was easier and maybe kind of cleaner to spend that money on people than to say you've got x amount of dollars to buy stuff. Um because that's what happens a lot. So we use the money to to because they still

144have to add they're they're on service plans, not IEPs, but someone still has to monitor those. So we spend the bulk of our money on non-pubs on the team that we've put together >> and you have to report all that to >> IDOE >> even though you're not actually in the school. >> Wow. >> Yep. >> How long have you two been here? So, okay, we figured this out because we weren't sure. >> We did. >> It'll be six years for me in January. >> Yeah. And seven for me. >> Okay. >> So, I'm starting my seventh. You're starting your six in January. >> But you But you had other roles within the district before. >> Yeah. So, I left and came back. >> Yeah. And I started my teaching here and then left for

145many years and got administrative experience in other districts. and then came back here in so I was hired in January of 20. >> So I always said a year and perfected it and then came back >> and then I came back. >> Yeah. So I started here as a teacher left and I was a resource teacher in another district was a director for five and then came back. So I came back in fall of 19. >> Oh the fun time. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And then another question was just uh kind of that talking about that least restrictive environment and this is kind of small but it just is uh >> shows that that continuum. So what you see down there at the bottom of the top chart is we want the majority of our

146kids to be in the general education classroom with support within the general education classroom. So that's an LRE code of 50. And again, these are all state codes. And then based on the students needs and the support they need, that could increase. So eventually you could get to an LE of 51 where they're still in the gen ed class but they're pulled out more maybe for some instruction or different things in a special ed setting up to the most restrictive uh least restrictive environment code is full-time homebound. Um and that's because they're around no peers and that's an LRE code of 57. Um the separate day school facility which is our mosaics is an LE code of 53 and then if a student is in more special ed than JENED that usually gets to an

147LRE of 52. So you can just kind of see this is our continuum of services. Questions on any of that on any of those? >> That's a lot. >> It's a lot. It's a lot of categories. Well, and it's a lot to just know. >> Yeah. When when did you know beginning of my professional training, we went to MCAT and Central State treated children that were institutionalized? When when did we begin to uninstitutionalize children and bring them back into education? This would have been this would have been in the 70s, right? So special ed law article 7 idea well idea started it was uh 1975. >> So that makes sense would because in 70 in the 70s we would go to mscatuck and treat institutionalized children who we now see in the community. >> Yep.

148So 1975 was when the first idea um was brought in. >> It took 10 years probably to get close to where we are today or more than that. >> Yep. Oh yeah. I mean just to I mean because you even think back when I was in school, you know, there was a lot more separation of kids than it is today. >> Yes. >> And we had Tri County. >> Yep. >> In the 90s maybe. >> I don't know when. >> Um let's see. Uh 90. >> Oh, it would have been 2000s, early 2000s. I I took my hat to you having lived in this environment for my career and to see what we do, what you do, really what you guys leave in special education. It's just it's special to me to see that happen

149after having going to the institutional setting which was not nice. >> And seeing what was going on there with institutionalized children. >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> Thank you. Mhm. So then um some questions were around uh some of the specialized uh programming that we saw um and so um our applied programming um is designed so those are for students um who do have cognitive delays maybe uh participating in that alternative assessment um who really need to work on just key components of that program being communication skills, academic support, transition guidance, practical skill skills skill development and then social skills learning, right? So, equipping them with those essential skills across their different areas and really looking at that applied programming. And so, um, previously, you know, we looked at a name change, um, uh, two years

150ago. And so, that was like FAP, functional academics programming or life skills. And so, those are traditionally what those are still called in other districts. um we just felt like that was not a good representation of our students and their potential was really to change the name um for that programming. And so we do have those um locations. You saw um several classrooms while you were at Hingle. Um and then at the high school as well, >> the name change is so much better. >> We love the name change. >> So does our our parents. We did the same thing with um Pathways. So, Pathways was formerly known as behavioral self-contained. Um, I don't if you ask any fifth grader, middle schooler, or high schooler, no one wants to go to a program that's named

151after your disability, right? And so, we really felt like um it was important to identify the key components of that program as well. Um and then to also change the name um because their pathway to earning these are students who are earn on um high school diploma and can earn high school credits to graduate um is really a very structured and supportive educational environment where they can um be successful um to um help them across all their different settings. Right? We're really focusing on academics and behavior skill development. that looks different a little bit at the elementary. You saw this classroom at the uh White River actually um and east is where you saw these two particular um programs. And so really generalization, we work a lot at the elementary level and you know as

152they progress through of their behaviors across context and content areas practicing positive replacement behaviors. Um, and we really do a lot of that through all of our datadriven planning cycles that we have um with with our staff um to support them. And so really our vision being that we are providing a consistent, organized and responsive learning environment where students can grow um all academically, socially and emotionally um with equipping them with the tools of confidence. Right. So you we have these classrooms at um Hazel and White River East and the high school. Additional programming, special education programming. You were able to see some early childhood classrooms or EC. I try to put those acronyms in there, that jargon for you. Um we do have those at Hazel Hinkle. So you saw some classrooms at Hinkle,

153Promise Road, Stony Creek, and White River, as well as LMP or Little Miller's Preschool with those community placements at six of our elementary schools. And then, you know, when Amy talked about the continuum of services that the resource support that 50 is available at all 10 of our schools and then depending on the um area of need of the of the child and in their services that they need kind of goes up and down on that continuum. Any other specifics about programming? All right, we did have one question. This slide's a little bit smaller on restraint and seclusion. Um, we do have a board policy at C400. It's coming from Indiana code 2020413. Um and so we have um our statement then within our handbook and then um definitions within um special education uh procedures

154on what is a seclusion um and what is a physical restraint. So seclusion is the confinement of a student alone in a room or area which the student physically is prevented from leaving. So it does not uh include the supervision of a timeout, a scheduled break, which an adult is continuously present in the room. A physical restraint is um both of these are used as a last resort. So I think that that's really important to recognize that um unless there is harm to self or harm to others, we are not uh engaging in seclusion or restraint. Um uh physical restraint is a contact between a school employee and the student um unwillingly participates and that involves um the use of a manual hold to restrict the freedom of movement. So we can have a a

155physical um transport and a physical escort. Um a physical escort is not considered um a physical restraint. So if it's like I'm kind of my hands behind you, I'm leading you kind of getting you out of the classroom or moving you to another location. But if I have to um physically restrain you, that's a physical restraint. So then from there, those um we have our own seclusion restraint, but this does come from the DOE's website, commission on seclusion and restraint law that then we have to have our own board policies and then our own procedures. Um so once a seclusion or restraint takes place then our procedures um are that they have to um uh contact their building administrator and describe the events. We have a seclusion restraint log. Um the notice of seclusion restraint

156and report goes home to the parent within 24 hours as well as debriefing with the rest of the team um within 24 hours of the incident and we are also notified within 24 hours um as well as our behavior specialists. So we were pretty solid um streamlined plan moving forward on seclusion restraint. I will say our data um um as we have taken uh seclusion restraint data and we look at this over the last five years. I think it is a celebration for last school year. You can see our numbers were trending um up in the areas of restraints and seclusions and totals. And so um what did that look like? We do have four behavior specialists for the district in which they are reviewing that data and information that comes to them directly. Um

157so they were looking at trends as well. From looking at those trends, we knew that we needed to go in and do some additional training with our staff. Some CPI, we have crisis prevention intervention is um what we are using for our seclusion restraint um uh protocols. And so then we go in and do some little debriefs with the team. Maybe it was on a particular student or a particular building. going in and doing some additional training with that particular staff and or building um through all of that. And then just education, right? Um making sure that anyone who's working with students with special needs um are trained with um seclusion restraint and making sure that we are using deescalation strategies first before any um seclusion restraint. So you can see those numbers did decrease.

158One other question was on child find obligations. So this comes exactly from article 7. It basically summarizes um that it is our responsibility to um identify students age three to no less than 22 who may be in need of special education. So, um we have many processes within our um school buildings um to identify students, but um um that comes right from article 7. >> Any questions on child find? >> We we've been able to identify actually what students are homeless. I I know I've talked to the trustes office and that that's kind of a um tough number to always nail down. >> You have any idea right now? >> So we don't have that's runs through student services. So um student services is really looking at this McKenna Venetto or um the homeless students,

159right? And so they do have good tracking of all that information, but we could ask Julie Packer what those. Thank you. >> Another question um that came up was regarding dyslexia. So dyslexia is not one of the 13 eligibility categories that we look at um for special education. Dyslexia falls under a specific learning disability. So SLD um when we look at um the assessment of that that means that our school sites complete the Ctop typically. It's a comprehensive test of phonological processing in which they are looking at phonological awareness, phonological memory and rapid naming. So those are all going to be deficits that we'll see in dyslexia. We also have our mandated dyslexia screeners. Um that we use um those for benchmarks as well. So um but as far as dyslexia being one of the

16013 eligibility categories, it is not. It does fall under specific learning disability in the area of reading. So would that get them a 504 if they have dyslexia or what how do they get help if it's not actually identified as one? >> Yeah. So so if dyslexia is not a 13 eligibility category but specific learning disability in the area of reading is we're going to do all of our school psych evaluation, right? And so if we have concerns about their reading or reading deficits and they're not making appropriate gains, our team may refer them for special education or they may have outside testing that was done that the parent brings in. Right? And so we're going to use our school team, our school psych um to do a full evaluation and determine eligibility in special

161education. And so once there it's determined uh their eligibility within special education, it might be specific learning disability in the area of reading. It will not be specific learning disability for dyslexia, right? But what areas of reading are affecting their ability to um progress as their gened peers. And so that's really what special ed special education is looking at. And so while dyslexia isn't a category, um it does fall under a specific learning disability in which we provide services and supports. >> Yeah, dyslexia is more of a medical term, >> okay, >> than educational term. So we have students that have the medical diagnosis of dyslexia on an IEP, but it's under a specific learning disability, >> which is odd because it does have an educational impact. >> Yeah, it just falls under specific learning

162disability. Okay. Yeah. >> Okay. We think we covered the questions >> that you guys question. >> We're experts now. >> Nailed it. >> Yeah. >> Nailed it. >> Yeah. I mean, it's amazing what you guys do. I mean, there's so much to it. It's It's a lot. >> Agreed. Yes. >> Anybody have questions? >> I'm just thankful you two are in that, >> right? you know, because you guys do >> phenomenal work. >> Yep. >> Thanks. >> And and we have we have a reputation of of >> of you guys because you do such an amazing job with >> those students. >> And Dan, you said you'll send you'll share. >> I've already got the email ready to go. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> Check a couple things and I'll send it before I leave

163today. Okay. >> With all the slides from today and David sent me the budget book he was referencing. So I you'll have one email with a whole bunch of fun stuff to read. >> Perfect. Okay. All right. Anybody have anything else? >> Okay. Uh public comment is next next on the agenda. Seeing none, uh we can >> They've all commented. >> They're all They've all commented. Yes.