001to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we start the meeting with any public comment on agenda items and with no public we'll move on um all right consensus items is next up um not a whole lot on the schedule um today we do have one retirement for the end of the year so Mark Johnston joined us to teach criminal justice in 2014 Mark came from us came to us as a retired DNR officer and he had done that his entire career um in this region and so he has been here for just over 10 years 11 years I can tell you that all the kids who take his course love Mark they all
002refer to him as kind of their second grandpa or third Grandpa whatever the case is he's very much a mentor and um really works with kids to try to make good choices and and be a good civil servant so we are going to miss him but do wish him luck on his second retirement hopefully he gets to be retired this time so um that's really the only one I wanted to go over okay I guess for I will stop even though this isn't a consensus item I did want to take a moment just as a staff note um and just say that all of our thoughts and prayers have been with the Fred kungle family Fred is one of our bus drivers tragically lost his son unexpectedly um last week while on a business trip
003and um we have his three children here and so we certainly want to make sure Fred knows and his family and his daughter in-law that all of them are in our thoughts and prayers okay any other questions comments on consensus items or motion to approve I'll make a motion to approve motion by Jo second by Wy motion by Joel Second by Wy to approve the consensus items as presented all those in favor andoun by saying I I I oppose same sign approv 6 to zero next up we have a program updates hi christe here from our Middle School um thanks so much for inviting me in today just wanted to give some brief updates and some numbers um so wrapping up your two and I have loved every minute of being at the middle school
004um this year has gone so much faster than last year I feel like we're flying through this and know after spring break when we come back it'll be so much faster still so um we're in the process right now of scheduling for classes for the middle school kids right now um but some programming updates with some um adjustments with staff and um some of the new pathway information at the high school we are going to be bringing PCC down into the middle school level for high school credit so our eighth graders will be taking PCC for high school credit next year um they actually started that this year at the end of first semester and then this second semester um they've started that like each section has started that so we have had a teacher
005offer to take one of her sections of um social studies and turn that into PCC so her class size will be bigger um but she's really excited about bringing PCC into the classroom which then opens up our PE sections for an extra section of PE so we're excited our teachers have been super flexible and willing to work with us um we're going to continue exploring music this year we are starting a creative Dramatics class for next year which if anybody knows um the Middle School used to have video news and announcements in the morning this creative Dramatics class will kind of be Reinventing um video news and announcements so we're excited about that and excited to see where that will go um gives the students just an extra El class that they can participate in
006um family and consumer Sciences will be coming back down to the Middle School level for our sixth and seventh graders um we are borrowing the high school family consumer science teacher for a couple of sections each semester um so we are super excited to have that focusing on just those daily life skills um that the kids are just not real strong in in sixth and seventh grade so um we also are partnering with with bring change to mind this school year um we just started that which was highlighted by the Indiana Department of Education um in a recent programming update and bring change to mind is essentially a program that um brings mental health awareness to the students in the school and tries to change that stigma of mental health so um talking just about
007Mental Health Services um and and not stigmatizing kids if they are having any of those concerns so again we're just starting that um Mrs Vander culk and myself are the advisers for that um and we have a state um partner that will come in and start running that program um she'll come in about twice a year to do like a kickoff every year and then a wrapup um in the spring so we are super excited to bring that into the school just to to help get that word out to kids um along with that we also through drug free Adams County started the kids against alcohol and drugs group at the middle school level they're also going to be working at the with the high school level um just bringing drug and alcohol awareness to
008the students so um if you're familiar with sad students against destructive decisions this is similar to that um down at the middle school level we have two of our eighth grade teachers Stacy crawl and shice Bowen that are leading that so their first big kickoff event is dress up days next week with messages about drug and alcohol abuse and um staying away from drugs and alcohol making healthy decisions so each day comes with a theme um that we'll be putting out to kids and they'll have a message in the morning on announcements about um just making healthy decisions um with their life the Adams County Health Department Department partnered with us to give us um help us get some new and updated equipment in our wait room and the gy teach are super excited about
009that that we've been able to update some of that along with fundraiser money that we had last year we were able to buy um dodgeballs hockey sticks um pickle ball set for the kids so we're expanding our offerings in our PE classes as well um so we were super thankful that they partnered with us and that um and then we're just wrapping up our fundraiser for this school year and we are looking to use those funds um for field trip expenses and again to like fund our um PBIS rewards for our kids and um allowing us to offer some fun activities for the kids um to participate in next week is our Braves day and we're doing a scavenger hunt and dodgeball tournament so that um money that we raise helps give prices for those
010things um buy the Dodge balls because you will can't imagine how fast we go through those um when we have dodgeball tournaments and every Friday the kids can pick um to go down and participate in DodgeBall for a reward time that I'll get to you in just a couple minutes um and so the PE teachers are like we need more dodgeballs constantly need more dodgeballs because we're going through them so fast so um that fundraiser really helps helps us be able to fund that program and continue to allow us to reward our students with our fundraiser we also have a day of a coming in the middle of May which the kids can participate in they bring Inflatables out and the kids can play games and just hang out um for an hour we're also
011going to have K IES this year for that event so I'm super excited the kids seem um really excited about that as well so those are all the fun things um and now I just wanted to talk about like the great things that we're doing in terms of our academics at the middle school and our test scores so um starting with this is kind of the P this is the couple pages that I gave you starting with the I learn checkpoints um we did pilot the new checkpoint test this year so the students will participate in three smaller checkpoints and then one larger test at the end of the year um which is a little bit different than what we've done in the past with just that one test at the end so this is
012just checkpoint information for checkpoint what you see in the front is just checkpoint two so they took this um in December and you can see um the state average is on the top line and the bottom average um for is our district so you can see our sixth grade language arts students knocked it out of the park um with being 14% above State average for n OFA um and then also our seventh grade language arts was above State average and our eighth grade language arts was very close to State average then also on I learned checkpoint 2 for math um sixth grade was a little bit below State average there is a big difference coming from fifth grade transitioning into sixth grade math um so I expect that number to go up um when we're
013just finishing checkpoint three on Thursday for math so I expect these numbers to go up but then you can see both seventh and eighth grade um also knocked it out of the park compared to to State averages there so again that was a checkpoint taken in December we're just completing our checko three um so I don't have that information yet we're not quite we're not quite done with it um and then on the back of that page it just shows a a bigger breakdown of where our students are at in terms of um on the left hand side you'll see checkpoint one and checkpoint two data and it's broken down like when we get our reports back we can see our students are if they're in the red they're below proficiency if they're in yellow
014they're approaching proficiency green is at proficiency and then blue is above proficiency so it just kind of gives you a breakdown of each grade level and then where they're at the top line of those numbers is the state average and then the bottom line is the district average if you take a look at the bottom um of that where it says average score if you notice the top line is the state average and the bottom line is our district average and we were above or right at State average for um our checkpoint in language arts for one checkpoint one and checkpoint two um for language arts again we were either above or right at um State average and then the math score is the same um checkpoint one is on top and checkpoint two is
015on bottom so you can look through that information um once we got the checkpoint information as well as our NWA information in the fall we started to do some remediation targeted on their deficit so we took the information that we got from our checkpoints and teachers started to build iel remediation plans based on what they're going to be looking at coming up in the next checkpoint but also looking at the NWA scores and their skill deficits so we really started to look at um each week the students were asked to complete two ISL lessons which ISL is a remediation program um and a learning tool that we use um but the students were asked to complete to I Exel Les lessons at 80% accuracy and then if they did that um then they could earn
016ear their reward time on Fridays during their SRT period and that has been going very well um I do accredit that the growth to that um remediation time our teachers are being very intentional in fact our seventh and eth grade um started really meeting with the kids then too um and doing remediation outside of the iel lessons too so they're really focusing on U making sure our students are gaining in those skill deficit and then um withl again we're continuing to move forward with our um skill plans there is an option within that to have our students work on skill plans based on their iearn scores so we are looking at using that for next school year doing this similar thing with remediation um we are also our high ability students are getting pulled out
017one day a week for enrichment programs so that can be art language arts and math activities so stem activities um the first nine weeks they built an amusement park with connects um second nine weeks they were able to build hovercraft um so we will have one of those on display at parent teacher conferences tomorrow night so parents can can you see the fun stuff um and then they also participate with our art teacher in enrichment programs um so again they're our teachers are doing great things for our kids second page just um shows you the growth from fall to winter in NWA we have not taken our spring test yet um and the section that I really like to look at is the top is that same breakdown red orange yellow green and blue but
018you can see in the winter we grew in our scores in those sections so we gained some students in each of those so approaching proficiency and app proficiency we gained students um this first page is for Math and then on the back side of that is language arts um comparing the fall scores to the winter scores some highlights from NWA and we found that for right now um NWA kind of Narrows down our focus a little bit more um than the current I learn so I we really looked at that data and skill deficits um and strengths as well but just some highlights from that um in the winter when we were done with NWA we found that in sixth grade um there were only 10 students in language arts that didn't meet their math
019growth or sorry their language arts growth goal and um there were only five students in math that didn't meet their growth goal for um NWA so to meet growth goal NWA predicts like how many points you should throw between fall and winter so out of those 10 and five some of them were already at or above grade level proficiency when they took the exam so it automatically said no you didn't reach your growth goal which they were already at gred gr level so they didn't need to grow at that point so um and then seventh grade we had 20 students in language arts not meet their growth goal out of those 20 11 students were already at grade level so 70% 76% of them grew in math 22 22 students did not grow but out
020of those 22 13 were already at or above grade level um 8th grade 23 did not grow 13 of them were already at or above grade level in language arts and then math 24 did not grow but 14 of those were already at or above grade level so we have a lot of students who made a great growth from fall to winter and we did a reward for students who did grow in that either language arts or math and we only had 12 students that didn't grow in both of those and when we broke that down some of them grew by one or two points they just didn't meet their growth goal um so we had very few we only had about three students that didn't um meet their growth goal when we looked at
021were they at grade level when they started okay okay so we I was really very impressed with the work that our our teachers put in um for this we had phenomenal results so far so I'm interested to see what checkpoint 3 data looks like and then also our end of year exam um and we're going to continue our work on just making our students well-rounded individuals I think including that family consumer science class helps pick up that daily living that um we we looking for so um we're going to continue just supporting our students as a whole person and making sure that they're growing as individuals and they're reaching success whatever that looks like for them that's it that's I that's awesome I know that was a lot sorry it was a lot of numbers
022but I get really excited when I look at and see the kids growth and they're doing just so awesome you have a great group of kids who are really trying and um really pushing themselves to be just great students I love the classes that they're starting to offer the new On's coming into that's really cool giving more variety and see what they want to focus on as they on in their education checkpoint three that comes out when um so language arts we did today actually so the information we would have but not all of our kids are tested okay um and then checkpoint three for math we're doing on Thursday so information will be pretty much immediate um it'll just be catching those kids that we need to catch for makeup test who might not
023be there so by end of week we should have checkpoint three data um at least started for a lot of them and the window is open for a while yet so we'll have our state comparison um once it you know once that window closes taste a little bit differently um because the windows are really yeah so we'll have our our district data but we won't be able to compare it with the state because those will change um through the end of end of the exam okay and then when is our assuma of assessment because they still have the big test the 14th window opens and then we um spread it out for the kids because it is yeah and I think we're set to start um closer to the middle of May I think the
024N 7th 9th somewhere around there what are your thoughts on on these checkpoints because this is kind of the first year we've gone through what are you thinking yeah um I actually have found like they're pretty short tests um that have gone relatively well the students don't get burned out um with the tests because they're short within 45 minutes most kids are done um in fact it's usually about 20 to 25 minutes so it's a relatively fast test it's very easy to for the teachers to um Proctor doesn't take a lot of it's all done online um so the biggest thing is trying to schedule for our testing coordinator to try to schedule every grade band in there and get everything aligned so um he could do everything but so far um it's been a
025relatively easy test in talking to some of the when we went to the I learn Summit they realized like for the checkpoints some of the checkpoints have the kids reading three or four passages and then only answering like two questions on the passage and that's a a lot for some of our kids to read and then answer the state has recognized that and they're working on less passages but more questions per passage and I think that will be beneficial um for our students especially some of our struggling students who it just takes a long time to get through an entire passage and two questions really skew the outcome right you missed something and right your score is yeah low we are we are a little disint pointed in the I don't want to say quality
026of data but the way it comes back to us so it comes back like this subsection analyzing um the article they're below or proficient what does it say performance varies performance varies so it essentially means like yep they've answered some right they've answered some wrong but it doesn't really break down specifically what skill they're struggling in that because that could in that could um incorporate like three standards so it doesn't really narrow it down on what specific skill the student is struggling on so that's been a little bit frustrating um but it does at least narrow it down to we know that these three standards like at some point the student is struggling in this area so now we've started to look at that data and say okay we need to focus on how we're
027asking our questions so that it matches what they're being asked um on the state tests so naturally as a teacher like we just want want to we ask them this question but then if they don't understand we want to modify how we're talking to them and so we're really working on we're going to incorporate this language and this vocabulary in all of our te or all of our questioning and then we can modify and we can restate and we can reframe a question but so the kids are understanding that vocabulary um so that's kind of what we've been focusing on for the last five six weeks in um our professional development time is really at how are they asking the questions so that we can prepare our students to answer those questions the way they're
028being asked really good thank you thank you any other questions or comments good okay no old business so we will move on to new business with the first items being the approval of the boys volleyball as a Spring sport at bont high school so this is something that Aon and I and I sent you folks some information to have been going back and forth on um so men's volleyball ihsaa did approve it um along with girls flag football and we think lacrosse is coming down the line here soon um as a new sport um we're kind of in that spot with our enrollment that you want and that's one of our goals is to get all our kids as many as possible engaged in some activity at school because I think that that just helps
029keep them in a structured activity makes Foster school spirit and school culture helps keep them again eye on the prize learning some grit and resiliency but at the same time we are concerned about what impact will that have on our current program so I guess it came to kind of a compromise where we said why don't we give it a trial run and we'll keep good data as we go along so the positives to adding another sport like I just said is I want as many of our kids as possible to be involed in something here at school um we did um the coach candidate did have a call out meeting earlier this this early winter and he did have about 10 serious athletes come out for it um several of them were a Spring
030sport athlete already whether it's baseball or track um but again enough to to run a team we are part of the ne8 and every one of the other schools is already adding this has added this and then um no one else in our county is going to have it at this time however some concerns like I said is impact on other sports participation we don't want to add a new sport and then to the detriment of something we already have going um so again what we're going to do in the process is kind of collect data on the number of boys participating especially here in these first few years what other sports have they participated in historically are we seeing are we just drawing off the Rob from Peter to pay Paul is it just
031the same group of athletes that are just shifting in different places or are we pulling in new athletes um going to also do some surveying of coaches and athletes because there's also some real and perceived conflicts about gym time practice time resources um some of the things that involve a new sport as you saw in the proposal are paid for by the district other things are paid for by athletic so it is another expense not exorbitant at this time but it is another expense to have to fundraise for potentially or to try to rely on what may or may not be um strong gate numbers for admissions um I did talk to um isba legal councel Lisa tanel about Title 9 and um a lot of folks don't understand they think that boys and girls
032have to have the same compensation same um pay same resources while that is true in essence it means that everything else has to be the same so right now our boys volleyball season for um the spring would only have 12 events versus our girls volleyball right now has 24 events and that's both with no postseason play um so it's only about half the number of events presently Aaron doesn't have a lot of expectations as far as summer work if that would change again that might change what our conf compensation would be um so we are paying more similar to what some of our other sports in Spring would be as our initial since it is a startup program so the final recommendation we're making is let's give this a good threeyear probationary status measure the
033impact on participation in the boys volleyball team as well as impact on other spring Sports participation um look at how the program in the area is growing or not not um because again what are other schools seeing are they seeing a growth in that or is it are we just not getting the backing in this area and then we'll report to you folks um at the end of three years and re-evaluate as far as is this something we want to add as a permanent option or do we really need to just revert back to focusing on our existing Springs ports any questions on that I think it's evident that there's been a lot of thought study and conversation going on here which okay hard it was hard to come to some conclusions so maybe this
034is more just kind of taking the don't want to say the easy way out but I want the kids and so does Aaron Aaron's very committed to I if my kids our athletes want it and they want that opportunity we want them to have it but at the same time we want to make sure we can keep strong programs to could could we maybe ask that there be a preliminary report out at the end of each season as well that would be no problem um yeah I think how it's set up I think it's been done well but maybe a little a preliminary report of each season absolutely I think that's more than fair and I also know that it's also easier to pull data as you're going try to go back three years right
035right right that that will just help at the end of the third year I thought that you and Aron sent out was really comprehensive and really looked at every angle which is I would great any other thoughts or comments or questions or a motion to approve the addition I'll make a motion motion by seconded by Joel to approve the voice volleyball as a Spring sport at Belmont all those in favor announce by saying I I post same sign approve 6 to Z next is the approval of course additions and changes well there was kind of a subo in that boys volleyball oh um oh with the coaches yes so okay I was waiting to see what your thoughts were on the addition of the sport so since you've okay it and we're at Spring um
036we would also need to to recommend that you approve Craig croll as head coach and Julie McConnell as assistant coach for this initial boys b ball okay I'll make that motion okay second thank you to approve the coaches as presented um all those in favor announce by saying I I oppose same sign approved 6 to zero okay now we will move on to course additions and changes so so you folks have to approve any additions or deletions really from our course guide including when the doe might make course title changes or number changes um so you heard from Christie that the middle school is offering several new electives and that's mostly what you have on here um they are going to be adding some family and consumer science homech is what it used to be
037called um PCC which is preparing for college and careers that's been nth grade offering here with the new high school redesign we are needing to push that back to e8th grade and they've been pushing us to do that for the last couple years we've kind of held on to 9th grade but now it's kind of a we need to do this to keep kids kind of on track to continue um their graduation Pathways with the new high school redesign and just as a note we also I think Christy also and Tiffany worked with our local parochial and they are adding that all of them too so that those kids come in with those courses as well um The Dramatics course exploring music and um computer science I think is a new one that we're offering
038as well do you want to talk about the computer science one because high school has a new now is entering the age of we have a requirement to offer computer science in high school a very specific course so I'm excited to see middle school is going to give a precursor to that yeah so the high school the teacher that's doing the high school computer science class will offer one section of computer science for our eighth grade students what that specifically looks like is to be determined at this point in time she is she's attending some PD that summer and they have curriculum um it's we've heard great things about the the training she's going to uh from several different districts um who are looking into this and worked with the ready so again it's a
039very specific class that counts for the now what's going to be a high school requirement graduation requirement for incoming freshman so this will again just help give those students a preview the focus on this upcoming one I believe is more coding that's in high school so trying to give them a preview of coding which is a different way of thinking for a lot of kids it's not just doing word or PowerPoint um Computer Applications it is learning to to write computer computer language which is a whole different world some kids will love it and navigate to it it's a great exposure to another hugely growing career opportunity for kids so I'm glad to see that we're able to fit that into schedule to give some of those kids a preview who may really really thrive
040in that type of thinking yeah and it's it kind of is supporting so Andrew whirling who taught our Innovative design class last last year had two sections each semester because his program is growing at the high school we lost him for one period so this kind of helps with that too he did a lot of the cad programming with the eighth graders and 3D printing and a little bit of engineering and kind of all those precursors to Project Lead the Way um in in high school so this helps will help like support that as well so gives those kids who are interested in that area um some experience as well yes so for Christy's programs with with the electives it is often we're sharing a lot of high school so there lots of times it
041happens whatever new course graduation changes course numbers for different things we're trying to get a situation built where it can be more consistent so that there is some I guess continuity of building interest and building Pathways for some of those kids we can but that's it so those those are the Middle School you'll have one probably next month from the high school of the new course editions there and course and that's where most of the name changes happen especially in CTE because that's under the Department of Workforce Development and they shift things up every year a little bit okay any other comments or questions or a motion to approve I'll make a motion to approve the courses as submitted motion by Wy there second second motion by Wy second and by Darlene to approve the
042course additions and changes as presented all those in favor announced by saying I I oppose same sign approve 6 to Z next up is the approval of HB 103 flexibility waiver application that's a mouthful yeah so this will be our fourth or fifth year excuse me for applying for this state 5 years ago allowed schools to apply for waivers of different legal codes and one of those is number minimum number of school days so the minimum number of school days is 180 days there's some minutes minimally attached to each of those which we're more than over across the district um really if they measured the year in minutes we wouldn't have to even apply for this but because they measure it in days we have to so we've only asked for three the last four
043years we're going to ask for four waiver days and the reason being we are going to be in implementing a brand new Ela curriculum in the elementary next year to support science of reading based on new state law um so that's going to be a heavy lift we are in our first year of the new I learn and with the checkpoints and we discussed how it would be really helpful if we had time buil into our schedule that we could review those checkpoint data after every checkpoint talk about interventions and kids and build those individual learning plans for some of those kids and then again another time before the summative assessment as well as next year planning and summer school planning um when we look at some of those things um High School's got the
044high school redesign which again it got pulled back a little bit from what the original plan was but there's still going to be a lot of changes happening in the next couple years for that and trying to build Community Partnership to allow more work-based learning opportunities and again just focusing on our data and making sure kids are in the pathway they need to be in middle school as well we're also looking at um still in early planning stages but we're anticipating a trying to make some big gains in our math preparation um in elementary next year um we have been doing a lot of work on literacy and reading which is needed and it's wonderful but we also have to do something to get us further than we are right now teachers have been working
045hard but really when when they're trying to work on new curriculum scope and sequence documents and training for new curriculum it's not going to leave a lot of time for them individually to do math so Tiffany and I have been working on trying to come up with some other ideas that we can help try to get them I don't want to say a plug andplay curriculum it won't be that but work on getting a lot of the leg work done so then we can just focus on instruction and the data analysis that they already understand through what Rene's been doing with literacy but we needed to do something to accelerate that process um because the state keeps Ming the Target and I think we're going to see upcoming the state has new legislation that was
046passed last time we just haven't seen what it's going to look like at focusing on math instruction in elementary middle school so we're trying to get ahead of that and it's also being focused in high or higher are they what's that looking like we don't know yet oh you think it's going to go back to the qualifying exams or something yeah well as a former math teacher I'm all about the math bring it on so anyway for this we are asking for a waiver of the 180 days and have 176 in person the four that would not be happening would be just sta PD days no e-learning required for students Again by minutes we're still over the state requirement on minutes and 1 to six and or k to K to 6 and 7 to
04712 we're over all the minute requirements anyway um so we're still giving a lot more instructional minutes than some schools may be okay any questions or comments or motion to approve I'll make a motion to approve okay motion by Dave is there a second I'll second second by Wy motion by Dave second by Wy to approve um for approval of HB 10003 flexibility waiver application all those in favor announced by saying I I oppose same sign approve approve six to zero and we have several donations we do again very thankful for our generous Community um would you prefer that I go through them singularly or just look at them all collectively together together somebody can text poor thing I could not do okay so the re group has donated $1,500 toward BHS baseball for um
048continuance of the field renovation we're getting close to getting everything done but they're they're working on some things around the power poles out there um kerberg auction and reality has donated $1,500 each to girls soccer and girls softball and our local VFW chapter is donating $750 each to the middle school and Elementary for our PBIS incentives it's awesome is thank you very much yes any other questions comments or motion to approve the donations I'll make a motion to accept Okay motion by Darlene is there a second second and by Jill motion by Darlene second and by Jill to approve the donations as presented all those in favor announce by saying I I oppose same sign approve 6 to zero next up is the superintendent report so I can't believe we're really at this point where
049again it really is about preparing for next year already um it doesn't I don't even know how march got here and we're already Midway almost um so until early April we're We are continuing to have summer school and best sign up options for students so best remember is our daycare option we are offering summer hours for parents who may need it um IAD scores will have returned um and they are starting to be shared with families Tiffany I'll let you update I know things are embargoed still as far as not being able to announce but we were we are happy that is what I I will definitely Echo that and big shout out to our title teachers second grade and third grade well of course everyone plays into it but those folks have been feeling
050the pinch again if you remember this is the first year that potential retention is required in third grade for students who don't pass the IR by the end of summer um so they are all working really hard to try to get as many kids over that Mark as possible um and been putting in their Blood Sweat and Tears and we're still working and and we have just a few more kids to try to get over that Mark and we're we're still going to keep working until the very last second on that one um March 12th tomorrow is parent teacher conferences for the Elementary Middle School March 18th is going to be Kindergarten Roundup and I think they've already sent out something with a QR code on it that you can do some preliminary information same
051thing with preschool Roundup is going to be April 29th the reason preschool Roundup is late again we sent out a an early interest survey but we want parents to be able at preschool Roundup to sign up for on my way prek vouchers or ccdf vouchers because the representative will be there and that portal doesn't open till later in April so it just makes things a lot more seamless for those parents to be able to do it all with the help of somebody there um and then June 2nd to the 27th is when we are offering Sumer school and um again waiting to see what signups look like to see what we need to offer exactly certainly will be um reading intervention for those for those kids who have scored at risk of not passing in
052second grade and third grade is second grade a mandatory intervention in summer or is that just a great need we really would like any student to be there um and we are we had I read parent meetings in February I believe with all of second GR parents and third grade parents um to let them know just the expectation with passing and what our um Pathways would would look like but we're very excited um to continue helping support those kid those who scored at risk and um who did not cross um we already within a day are changing our intervention groups to make sure we're hitting those kids both in the classroom and that they are meeting with um some additional interventionists so High School had their Hunger Games I don't even know what number this
053is anymore um Friday it's always a lot of fun for the kids I know Jill was able to pop in I don't know you have any so fun I just yeah the energy I see pictures yeah well she might have to do the dance off next won't show up well I think the teachers won the lip sync so there you go yeah was really really fun they were it's a good time with the kids and I thought one of the teachers said year 10 I think so it started when I was principal early sometime in there and I don't know how many kids still know the reference to the Hunger Games that movie that's but they still have a fun time and it's just a good school spirit day and time just to kind of
054let loose and remind them that school can be fun too and it's not all work work work you need to remember to play after you work hard very cool I think that's all I have at this time okay any other matters come before the board board member of public comment I distributed U some highlights of legislation um the the first one that on that list uh uh sen a bill 287 this impacts Schoolboard members and those that are interested in being Schoolboard members in making it uh where you would uh declare a party uh those bulleted items would be reasons why this is not supportive of good education for for uh students that second bullet item that's a unique one in mandating partisan election I don't think it would necessarily impact us right now here
055but uh there are school districts in Southern Indiana that are there around the ammunition that big uh military base where many people are employed by them that means these past school board members would not be able to run uh because of that uh so that would be extremely impactful um of course Senate bill one uh property tax relief um it was uh ways of me committee this last Wednesday uh did take testimony uh a positive is that they didn't take a vote in that uh possibility of amendments uh to to that and we would hope those amendments would be favorable for our local government and school districts um so that just kind of highlights that but also Senate bill one does talk about school referendums and it limits the some of the flexibility that we
056currently have and that highlights that um Senate Bill 518 uh this you don't not hearing I don't think a lot about but this is uh favoring increasing revenue for Charter Schools uh locally we really don't have charter schools at this point but um it would uh school districts in certain cases would need to share property tax uh with these Charter Schools I included here closure of US Department of Education uh I took some uh statements from the new Direct director there Linda McMahon um we heard something last end of last week where the president was really talking about eliminating the US Department of Education uh we haven't heard anything this week uh of course we've been hearing a lot about tariffs uh so but she's made some statements of what she sees the department uh
057focusing on here the title one money pel grants uh Public service loan forgiveness uh she does she did suggest that disability rights laws may be better suited in the health and human services department uh so those are some things just to take note of uh they are you know read something today too where they're focused saying well Congress would be the only one to that could eliminate Department of Ed we'll see uh the next that uh chalkbeat Indiana this came today I uh and um interesting and one of the reasons I pulled it is because of the interest we could have uh with virtual Public Schools uh that it's apparently there may be some huge increases uh in in that direction which would also mean less increase for uh face to face face public schools
058and then the last one there is the HB 1500 the teacher grant that we've had the last couple of years where it's going to be changing the process where it becomes a competitive Grant uh but it's also changing the structure of current teacher evaluations in some ways it's leaving it more up to school districts on how the regular evaluation process uh and eliminating those categories that we've had in the past and then these categories would be what you would apply for a teacher Grant the the sticky point with this is you get the grant for a teacher andless and they've got up to $10,000 depending on what category they're in the state will will offer that money two years and after that you have to as a district continue paying that as their base on
059their base I can tell you the the conversation among superintendents is none of us will apply for it because we couldn't so we think this is really a bait and switch move to say well we offered you an ability to increase teacher salary you didn't use it so how we're going to give it to charers um that's what we y yeah really and I would concur with with that I did hear Banning talking about it uh or not Banning bearing um bany bany yeah um he had the he was involved in the original uh change in teacher evaluation it didn't work he said the way he wanted it to so that's why he's come up with this idea I assume he's wanting to see more discernment in evaluations uh he's actually he did give numbers
060he said 57% of teachers right now are highly effective 36 % effective uh and he said you he's wanting to see actually he said a bell curve and a teacher [Laughter] shortage if those were words he said I I am not surprised I also gave you a handout um I'll go through it a little bit with you this is Michelle clauser the super Penrod the superintendent at South Adams and myself met with our County Council um today just and Commissioners excuse me just to kind of give them an idea of what some of this proposed legislation how it may impact our individual school systems and because all local government right now stands to lose a lot of money under the current law so I want wanted them to understand what that might mean kind of
061go over some of the things that might not be very clear and transparent so some of this was to try to be an education piece so I'm not going to go over all of it but we started by talking about the different ways schools receive revenue and then we dove into property taxes so property taxes are what funds our operations and Debt Service and there's two things right now that we are looking at as far as those two funds go with what's related to legislation so in 2023 the last long session um we have house enrolled act 1499 and so if you remember that was just after the year postco that assess valuation exploded here in Adams County we've typically only had like 1.44% average growth in the previous 6 to 10 years before that
062we had 10 and a half% that year again record-breaking numbers that have never happened before and may never we didn't think happen again we'll fast forward in two years and they sort of kind of did but what that means is whenever our assess valuation goes up likely the amount of well definitely the amount of money each of us individually are going to pay for property taxes so all of us and including our constituents felt the pinch of dramatically increased property taxes no doubt about it um and of course people were talking about we need some property tax relief and the legislators wanted to see property tax relief so one of the things really this 1499 accomplished three things number one they increased the homestead deduction pretty significantly which okay that's fine that did decrease our
063Levy um and then it also shifted some some of that tax payment away from homeowners residential taxes to more business probably agriculture I would assume the big thing that was going to impact schools the most though is this thing called maximum level Levy growth quotient which B basically caps by how much schools in particular can increase their property taxes in any given year most of the time for us had been around 4 to 6% we were looking at 5% in 23 it was looking like it was going to come up to be about 5% again in 24 well the legislature wanted to decrease the maximum amount that schools could Levy local tax entities could Levy so they capped it at 4% maximum growth for 24 and 25 so we're in that time so this is
064sunsetting so they needed to do something and again they wanted to cap it at 4% forever schools lobbied really hard to say that's not fair it's not our fault that AV did what it did this usually system works you know usually the as things go up other things go down and it waxes and waines over historical times unfortunately with again the postco economy did some things that have never happened before and hopefully may not happen again um so they but they wanted some relief and some promised to taxpayers that we're we're going to decrease this a little bit over the next two years with it sun setting they also are addressing that piece in in Senate bill one which is the budget bill so instead of capping it at 4% or something along the lines
065of what we were talking two years ago the new proposal that came with the revision of Senate bill one was that you'll get 0% growth in 25 or 26 excuse me 1% growth maximum in 27 and 2% growth maximum in 28 so not only were we already losing money because it was being capped at 4% now they're going to say you can't grow it well I don't know about your homes and you're going to see this here in a moment inflation has been no joke for any of us on goods and services um we still have people we have to pay um who expect a raise of some sort for cost of living um and then as you're going to see here in a moment there's other ways and means that we have had property
066tax money diverted from what we're able to Levy and so again these are kind of layered cuts it's not just one cut they're layered cuts so the accumulation of those cuts becomes extremely significant to us in the long run so if we move on this shows you North Adams projection from Senate bill one so in the blue group of boxes you see kind of what our maximum Levy would be based on the 2023 house enrolled act 1499 with the um excuse me prior to house enroll act 1499 with no maximum growth Levy quotient cap and the middle column in that blue shows you what our increased fund should be the orange cells are with the 2023 14.99 with a 4% cap so you can kind of compare left to right what happens to the amount
067of money we're able to Levy with the different growth quotient so it dropped from what we probably would have been anticipating because it's a formula historically maximum growth Levy quotient have been a formula um versus what we were not able to Levy the green boxes show what it would look like if Senate Bill one went through with the 0% growth in 26 1% in 27 and 2% in 28 long story short over that 5year span North Adams would lose almost $2.6 million in property taxes so our certified Levy right now is only 6.1 maximum not certified our maximum Levy is 6.1 million imagine losing 2.6 of that that's 46% of what our Levy should be right now that's significant um if you look on the next page it get I put together some key points
068of what things cost out of operations so the Personnel we pay for out of operations are the people that work in this office including me bus drivers bus Paras custodians grounds Keepers our operations manager um maintenance staff so over a little over 2 million of that is in salaries of all those people so again keep in mind how much they're saying we'd lose and 2.1 million of that salaries for people just to stay at the level they are presently with no raise our IT services and maintenance and again in operations that's more our infrastructure Network making sure we have Wi-Fi making sure we have cable all those things is about a half a million utilities almost 800,000 and that's up 11% from four years ago because utility skyrocketed especially Gas and Electric our property and
069liability insurance has gone up 46% from 2021 that's because of all the high wind events in Indiana and um so they're just anticipating that there are going to be wind events and they are basically taking their money in the front end because they anticipate they're going to have to spend it in the back end so we're about at a quar million there for capital projects and again keep in mind this is what we use to renovate and build we have been trying to back that down since we've been doing bonds to about a million but typically about a million to a million and a half in one year that's not enough to accomplish all the things that a school system needs to do to keep its buildings just functioning and I can tell you right
070now our capital projects for the most part are about 600,000 to $800,000 a year in doing sections of roof roof is very expensive and you pretty much we'll get a fiveyear break once we get the whole campus re roofed before we have to start all over them because you do it over that many years and then brick pointing is another 300 400,000 a year um just to maintain brick structures that are a 1967 and a 1992 building bus replacement we bought two white buses last year that were $236,000 we bought two white buses in 2021 that went up 80% and fuel went up 75% almost to keep our buses on the road in just four years so again if we would have to find places to cut that much money certainly we can look at
071trying to operate more leanly and we've always taken a fairly Frugal approach but it would be impossible to cut that much without cutting services or cutting staff in that situation if that would go through so it is something that most school all schools in IND and I can tell you are very concerned right now about this if you look at the next page kind of just showed um for our constituents I think some of the narrative that's being told in the state is that schools in particular because we account for the biggest portion of the state budget and I think that's why sometimes the conversation center around us it's just under 50% yeah um the words that are used is a lot of schools are doing these Taj Mahal builds and it's really at the
072expense of taxpayers unnecessarily but at the same time when we talk to our local Representatives they're like well no one Adam county is doing that no but these laws are blanketed for everyone um so showed the folks um on County Commissioners just in case there were questions our tax rate has not varied extensively across the year yeah there's some fluctuation but but nothing exorbitant and certainly the amount of money that folks um feel they're paying I think some folks are are quoting that they're they're tax for taxes have gone up 20 some per that's due to the AV growth because again if you have to pay 5% of $10 is different than 5% of $20 it's going to be more when they say you're worth more you pay more but it's not because we've levied
073a higher tax rate in fact our strategy has been to keep our debt service neutral and we're using tax Cliffs as debt comes off to be able to fund a lot of our capital projects our operations fund is allowed the fluctuate based on what again the formula shows with a um but it's not exorbitant and then I also wanted to point out for us this is another layered cut tax caps for North atoms are fairly extensive in the last three years we've had over 500,000 and they're approaching 570,000 per year um from our certified Levy that we are unable to collect that's a half million dollars off week what we could collect um but because of the tax caps at 1% for residential 2% for business 3% for Farmland again that is a failsafe trigger
074for taxpayers that there is a limit on how much you're going to have to pay so we lose that Levy to protect the taxpayer and again we've learned to budget through that that didn't happen till 2009 2010 I think that went into the Indiana Constitution um but that's another cut that's not being discussed to the larger community that we have been budgeting for and compensating for for years now um I we shared with them kind of what our debt service projects were none of them again are Taj Mahal type buildings there were some questions in the community we were told from Matt Layman about so what did schools do with their Sesser dollars why didn't they use their Sesser dollars for some of these things so we shared with them what we had used our
075Sr dollars for um here at North Adams because a lot of the Esra dollars were were built around poverty index compared to our our neighboring County Schools they received much more in Esser dollars than we did because of the Amish population increasing their complexity index again it just is it's the formula it is what it is a matter of fact it is it just is I don't feel like I know some people bemoan it I say we got what we were supposed to get they may have gotten more because of the formula but we were never going to get more we just got what we were supposed to um so anyway we did do some Capital project things especially with sr2 and Ark we redid our drop off pickup because there was safety issues in
076our community and the C the city asked us to get people off Monroe extended so we redid that so that we no longer have anyone any car stacking on Monroe extended so that First Responders can get in and get through um we did change out an air handler that was going bad um we've replaced the HB at the high school in one part of the building and we we added the zoom Q software which again wasn't a huge amount but it did help keep traffic moving more so again to people off the street so that's our property taex story um and kind of what the untold story is about what's being discussed I know Wy talked about 518 I do want to talk about it for just a moment right now the way 518 is
077written presently it does not impact any Adams County Schools when it was first pinned however it was about sharing your property tax dollars with every school that is in your Geographic District including privates including basically it's Money Follows the child right now it only impacts four districts the way the law is written and a this new law revision I think part of what we were concerned about we were told by one of our legislators whom we trust and he said it in Good Intentions don't worry about it this law is not going to go anywhere it'll be done it came to the final vote he told it's going to it's going to drop they revised it came back for a vote new language now it's a tiered proposal where if you depending upon the number
078of students that you have that live in your District but attend a charter school how much of your property tax levy you have to share with them and again Charter Schools can buy a building and property for $1 from public schools if you have a building or property that is underutilized so they don't have to take on the debt if we want to build a new school or buy property we have to pay the market great um they don't have to provide transportation they have the ability to also private fund raise they are privately funded in addition to state funded whereas we don't necessarily get that you don't get a tax write off for D donating money toward our education fund for example so there's a lot of things that are not necessarily I think
079straightforward Our concern on 518 is if this goes through right now is another stepping stone of Money Follows a child and property tax and we're just going to lose more and more when we're the ones having to provide food service Transportation much larger facilities that take that are older and are taking a lot of money to maintain at this point so then moving on to education there's again I don't I'm sorry to keep belaboring but I think this is important that you understand um so House Bill 101 is the house version of Education funding and we knew there wasn't going to be a lot of extra money this year we were prepared for that um one of the things that concerned us and I think it concerns some some of our Representatives was the narrative
080being told to the community is that schools are going to get anywhere from a half to 2% depending upon enrollment and things like that and new monies it's not going to be a lot but you're getting a little new well when we really dove into the language of the legislation curricular materials fees if you remember this year is the first year we weren't allowed to charge families for curricular fees that has been a separate reimbursement amount from the state as a again we say this much money is what we charged folks or what we had to spend for folks and they will reimburse us up to $159 a student it's just a flat amount that's not enough to cover everything it covers Elementary comes nowhere near for middle school and high school because they did
081not include anything about one to one devices which almost every school in Indiana is one: one now um what happened though and didn't get a lot of fanfare is they rolled that amount into the foundation Grant under this new writing so it made it look like we were getting a 1 to 2% raise but if you deduct what the curricular fee amount would be most of us are you might be $15,000 to the good to having a loss and so if you look at that last chart I provided you it is showing us with losses on the bottom there um in both 26 and 27 if you deduct the curricular fees from what our anticipated from this budget run from this bill would be so we're hopeful and have been hearing we might get I
082think we're going to get some movement on getting that perc amount out and where if there is new money it's a true new money and um because otherwise again we're talking about some Devastation um we are allowed to transfer up to 15% from our education fund to operations we have really dialed that back in North Adams because we want that money in education to help compensate staff better um some schools if we do have the the shortfall and property taxes are going to have to dial that up unfortunately if you look at ours we could be facing a short vol in education too so that could be a double win um I am hopeful after Friday that I think we're going to get we are getting through to some I think some legislators are seeing
083this can't happen it's going to be too devastating for local government entities and and schools um so I'm hopeful that they're going to back the train up on that and um but we still have a governor who has been very forthright in saying I will veto any like sen Bill one that comes up is what I promised taxpayers which was a reversion reversion of property taxes back to preco so we'll see where it ends up again I'm hopeful after Friday but it's important that I think our community understands these these things aren't good for schools because it means Staffing it means Services it means quality that your kids can be educating I don't think anyone wants to sacrifice those things the needs our students have are are not going to go down um the types
084of things that we need to provide for kids are not going to decrease um and unfortunately the cost of most things are increasing so um it is something that luckily we do have a very strong and organized lobbying system for several of schools here in Northeast Indiana banded together about four years ago and that is a very organized and Loud lobbying group we have someone down at the state house every day and all of these meetings and they are communicating with different members of that group sometimes minute by minute um I do know that representative Layman and Senator Holdman are going to be at Layman's feeds Saturday morning or Thursday Thursday they have I think it's Saturday is it um if anyone has questions for them again they have been very responsive to our group
085and I think they get it um I would just encourage folks not to attack them they have been I feel very responsive and understand our concerns but to just Echo to them please stand firm please hold solid please continue to advocate for our local communities any questions was good information it's depressing a little bit Yeah Yeah but it helps to understand I think and for people to to hear it it's it's important yes the thing too with the property tax and how it's set up with assessed valuation it's it's working the way legislators set it up to do it is now they're not saying that today U but it is working the way they have uh Pro orchestrated the AV growth is the trigger and again we all understand as Property Owners it's it's not
086yeah fun but we also feel from what economists are telling us this will work itself out if you give it a few years this was a postco no one knew to anticipate this um and again we have they put some stop gaps in there already let them do their job do their job anything else all right I'll join the meeting thank you