001good evening i'd like to call to order our monday june 14 2021 board discussion meeting we will begin with our pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the black 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 our mission is to educate empower and inspire excellence this meeting is a meeting of the school board in public for the purpose of conducting school corporation business it is not to be considered a public community meeting there will be time for public participation as indicated on the agenda all board members were presented with the background information to the various items on the agenda in preparation of this meeting our meeting is being live streamed and we do have public comment forms if
002you would like to address the board at the appropriate time public comment forms are up here at the end of the board table near board attorney elwood please fill one out return it to the board table and you will be recognized at that appropriate time so we're going to start off with some fun tonight we have our unified track presentation coach strom coach o'donnell rich if you want to come up and present to the board uh good evening uh so i wasn't i didn't prepare anything so i didn't know i was talking i'll just introduce the members of our team i'm todd stroum this is sherry androvich uh what i call your name if you could please stand up bryce hufford mcintyre aldrich brooklyn trinidad ava melendez don monet thomas lily haddocks grace fisher mueller
003menchaca and javier gonzalez [Applause] um so this is our inaugural season as you guys are well aware um hoping to add some more sports in the future i guess since i'm up in front of you i can at least bring that to your attention now that is something that um we want to sit down with the athletic department and hopefully be able to add another sport or two in the next few years i thought this year with everything taken into consideration we had 14 members on our team which was just as big as pretty much every team that we went up against this entire season i thought our kids had a heck of a job we got fourth place at regionals out of 12 teams we were one spot off or at sectionals i'm sorry
004we were one spot off of going to the regional we missed out by three points so it was a very good um first season but more than just um i think where we finished having some of our kids have the opportunity to do something that they haven't really had that opportunity to do before was was awesome to watch and be a part of so thank you guys for um i know that was a couple years in the work so i really appreciate you guys uh bringing this to portage and allowing us to have a team this year so thank you for that um i believe there's a video um so i guess we're good to watch that now oh [Music] so unified track and field is uh students with disabilities and without disabilities that come
005together and practice together train together and the best part is if you go to a meet you won't be able to identify it was a partner and who was an athlete there's nothing on the back of the uniform stating this there's nothing on any kind of pamphlet handed out at the meet um it's just a bunch of kids getting together and competing against other schools we start off with we usually meet in one of our classrooms and we go over what we're doing for the day if we have any changes to our meet schedules we review that and then we go out to the field and we do stretches we practice our events we get together and we just have a good time we do the 100 the 400 the 4 by 100 meter relay
006long jump and shot so we work on everything in practice uh shot put luckily we have former state champion an lsu grad tory bliss helping with shotput coach rail the track team itself has really helped us out a lot as far as a individual you know 100 4x100 meter relay long jump perspective i think my ultimate goal for them getting something out of this is just having an experience that they wouldn't have normally had both the partners and the athletes i think it's a great experience for all of them to learn how to work with other people get a get a different idea of what sports are i join unified track because i just love seeing the kids be so happy and do something that they love and i just love helping people out i
007have learned that even when you're at your lowest you just want to give up all your friends are there just to cheer you up and just bring you to the top and it's great to have all those people to support you my team i want monty truck maybe for me fun yeah cause i like to run because i can get my energy out i just usually do cross-country and track and stuff nice guess i like competing i just love how much fun we all have together and how kind and supportive everybody is it's a really nice group of people and we're all just a fun team i joined unified track and field because i just thought it was something different to do so i gave it a try it's fun to just kind of work
008with everyone and like get to know everyone that's probably what i like the most about it well it's yeah i love to because i love you as and as i outside everywhere else it is because um i love it the run cause i like it i got funny football like that i love interacting with them and making new friends and making them laugh i've learned that um friendship is important and i like writing the whole lap of it it's kind of fun i was in peer tutor and i got like the form about it and i thought it'd be cool to do i like being able to like interact with everyone and just have like a good time i learned that it's important to like cheer people on and just be supportive for everyone well
009i was just in health and mr strom gave me this paper and i was like why not i ran my my whole life but i never ever like wanted to go to track before so i wanted to try unified before the actual thing and that's why i'm here i've learned to be encouraging to each other and always pick each other up when we're tired and not feeling like doing stuff i love the teamwork and everyone who's doing it i mean it's it's a family here so i enjoy it a lot of people told me that it was a great opportunity and i was looking forward to it because i didn't have a strength for it i honestly love all the kids because it is a family and it's just super fun and encouraging i've learned
010to be patient and to laugh more and to encourage we could all take a lot from this myself included you know selflessness how to be a leader seeing people maybe that don't have the same opportunities that you may get and and working with them and being friends with them and seeing things from different perspectives uh maybe not taking things so seriously and just enjoying things as they come i think i learn as much as they do every week i laugh at them i laugh with them they usually laugh at me um so just there's they're a big family we're always laughing they're cheering each other on to see the student who was quiet at the beginning of our season now is being one of the loudest and most vocal cheering somebody else on it's just
011a wonderful thing i think it's been a success um considering we got hired about a week before we could start practice in the middle of a pandemic with zero team to having 14 people we can feel the full team for sectionals um haven't missed anything been every meet no rainouts you know we've been hit with a lot of things quarantine injuries but the kids keep just coming back and it's been uh it's been a success and look forward to next year i think if you have the opportunity to come and watch it it's something that you would never regret seeing [Applause] ready [Applause] thank you coaches thank you team it's uh that's a pretty awesome program and uh to start off the inaugural season with 14 members and i'm sure that's going to continue to
012grow and you guys will always be the first so that's pretty cool so congratulations on a great season anybody on the board have any comments i'd also like to thank the parents for supporting their their children and the words that i kept hearing was i heard the words fun leadership interacting with others peer tutoring teamwork laughs family patience and the best word i heard was love i think this is another example of the the opportunities to try to expand what all students have available to them when we talk about equity this is just a prime example of that and now we have the sparkle chair and now we have unified track and as coach strom and coach androvich had stated we are looking to expand that even further same thing with our esports it's another
013opportunity that kids did not have prior to that existing and um you know we we have uh mr thompson and various others and mr g pasquale who really got that off the ground and there are hundreds of kids that are benefiting from having those opportunities they may not be competitive on a field per se in person but they really like the gaming they we had kids who've said they've never participated in any extracurricular co-curricular opportunities um so this is just another great example of how we can invest in our students and see where there are holes in our programming across all levels throughout the district to make certain that we are providing equitable opportunities for kids and access to the things that they enjoy awesome thank you no uh dr alan esto the world's right
014out of my mouth is just a social inclusion through sports and all the other activities and it is so good to see um young people encouraging one another because you know sometimes we do get into situations where it's a lot of negativity so i'm excited to see that there are a lot of positives that are coming out of the esports and and unified track and sparkle and looking forward to what's going to happen for years to come so thank you all for participating in the programs especially with your parental support so great job to the teachers as well thank you anybody else i would just say it's one of the best things i've seen in a long time so thank you to all those involved well normally under normal times we'd shake your hands i
015don't know if you guys would like to come up and maybe your coaches or someone someone to get the families to get an opportunity to take a photo of you all together you're welcome to come do that oh they're all looking now they're like we don't know it's up to you coaches if you would like to have the team do that i had javier at vaguely as a sixth grader oh she's up there that's cool you guys got a lot of fans out there the teachers should have gotten it the teachers they didn't get in it i think that the teachers wanted to get in there they're all gone now [Applause] love it love it love it now i think there's a lot of great stuff on our agenda for the rest of the meeting
016for some of us it might be interesting for others of you it might feel pretty boring so you don't have to stick around if you don't want to but we appreciate you coming thank you okay we'll move on to the next item on our agenda is our recognition of our substitutes dr alanz i wanted to personally thank the the guest teachers that we have grown to love and are part of our portage township schools family over the years and through that i realized that never before has this group of important individuals been brought before the board for any type of recognition and although you know i can look out there and see you and know you by name but again it was not something that pre-pandemic has occurred and and moving forward i want to
017make certain that these individuals are recognized for their hard work and their contributions to our students socially emotionally and of course academically as well you know there's that layer of consistency that can be provided by having these folks on our team the quarantines that took place throughout the school year that were completely unexpected yet they were still a familiar face in that classroom when students had had lost their teacher for the two weeks that he or she may have been out i want to mention to you that throughout this school year and during this pandemic they have covered collectively over 1 classroom assignments it's a huge undertaking it takes a lot of flexibility on their part they may arrive and find out that their placement for the day has changed and they are just always
018willing to do whatever it takes to help us out they truly are a part of what we do and i could not thank them enough if you wouldn't mind coming up and sharing your name with each with us and then i would like to also share just how many uh different assignments you've you've taken on because some of you wow and then again others who maybe only took on a few assignments they took on long term assignments or they picked them up when they had the opportunity or they saw we were in a pinch and then we do have a little just token of appreciation for each of you who is here mr lampton you want to get us started you looked right at me you're welcome dave lampton i am strictly middle school once
019in a while high school never elementary school i tell the kids those kids scare me but the truth of the matter is that an elementary teacher has to be so organized and teaches and flops from one thing to another and that's just not my personality this is my 16th year of subbing only in portage and my 55th year of education yes i will tell you many of these folks also were and i'm looking at mr lampton thinking of how much he loves middle schoolers because during the pandemic when we were partnering with real life community church he was in between all sorts of middle school curriculum and was enjoying every minute of it while my head was just spinning all right mr sherman i'm sharon ray sherman and unlike him i'm in the elementary business
020and i taught for portis for 40 years and i've been subbing now for at least 15. and i had amanda's husband in kindergarten many years ago he was probably my all-time favorite mine too that's good that's good thank you thank you thank you good evening board members my name is joyce sartucci and i've been a substitute in portage for eight years and a substitute overall for 11 years and it's been an unprecedented year for me as well as you guys we just muddled through and did the best that we could and tried to be the places that we were needed i know i'm all over the place from preschool to high school so wherever i was needed is where i go so thank you and we appreciate your hard work thanks choice hi my name
021is judy shearer and i subbed as a secretary for about the last three years but i did sub in 95 no 96 to 98 mostly at willow creek and study hall and um then i left for a while and came back and i still do study hall media clerk and um secretary mostly secretary this year in study hall at willow creek thank you hello my name is bev clee and i've been subbing this is my 15th year i i don't sub a lot but i sub here and there wherever is needed and i enjoy doing it and i hope to do it be able to do it a few more years thank you for being here thank you hello i am nicole podgorski and i've been subbing for about five years now mostly just elementary
022school and because of it i decided to pursue a career in teaching so because i love it thank you so again i can't thank you enough for those of you who are here or those who are watching the live stream or may watch in the near future we do have a substitute recognition small token of our appreciation which could never go as far as what you do for us on a daily basis but we are truly grateful and look forward to continuing to have you as a part of our pts family mrs langren do you happen to know where those are located okay they are on the front table for you to be able to take your little token and remind me i know they had what was in there yes as much as you
023could possibly imagine hand sanitizer and just as president milota had mentioned if you guys need to get going we understand yeah thank you for being here uh thank you for what you did this year obviously this was an unprecedented year and the work that our substitutes did uh was absolutely invaluable to keeping the school corporation going and and our kids being taken care of and thank you dr alanis for thinking and bringing to the board the recognition of our substance because the first time since i've been on the board that that's that's happened and never more deserving than it is now so we appreciate you doing that thank you and as dr alan i said you don't have to stay you're welcome to but you're also welcome to go on and enjoy the rest of
024your evening so thank you and while they're walking out mrs lampton with us a very long time also as a secretary so she was she's been a great help through the years so good to see you too okay next up on our agenda we have our capital project and summer project update from mr maravik miley you look like you've been busy he did ask me if there was going to ever be a summer that we're not doing projects no let's hope not mr president board members dr alan is thank you for allowing me to share this update with you this report is divided in four groups portage high school east renovation project capital projects bond projects building and grounds department internal projects porridge high school east renovation project i'm going to start with uh the
025pool looks amazing if you haven't had the chance to see it i highly recommend it it looks great we're near the end of this project and most importantly within the budget yes currently in the substantial completion stage work schedule for the next couple of weeks include the following pool startup staff training punch list test and balance video display board training deck accessories final cleaning and a final inspection finishing delivery of this project is expected to be on july 7th 2041. we're close capital projects our main focus and goal is to address the critical needs improved safety and security of our schools as well as upkeep of our buildings and grounds as of now 15 projects from our 2020 capital project list have been awarded with the total cost of 3448 these projects range in various
026stages of construction have ordered started delayed and completed additional seven of a capital projects with the estimated cost of 465 000 have been moved to district bond projects bond projects these projects are divided into six groups two of these projects roof replacement and elementary schools chrisman central kyle and mars and the mechanical upgrades at the porch high school rooftop unit replacement leaks dr moore have been recommended and approved by the board last week part of these projects will start later this month next two projects led lighting upgrade at all elementary schools and porridge high school west pool learning center renovation relocation of our high school main offices elementary school media center and improvements and gym floors replacement has been presented to a board last monday for approval to advertise building and grounds internal projects we're
027currently assisting with the relocation of student and employee clinics at the high school addressing fire marshall school inspection reports transportation compound energy efficiency lighting upgrade and applying for nipsco efficiency incentive for related and qualified projects that's all i have do you have any questions no questions but boy that's that's an awful lot and i know milay over the years you've been on top of these projects you've been you've always managed to deliver on time and and on budget as you are doing here so thank you for all your hard work and these are great improvements these are all things that are extremely necessary our buildings are aging and so you know thank you to my fellow board members uh for the leadership and getting and securing the funds and dr alanez and her team for
028presenting that to us and in me like for you've been able to carry these out and and deliver on uh all the promises that we're making to our our taxpayers every day when we spend this money so thank you thank you thank you i have a question will we be able to schedule some chores throughout the summer so my intent was we were looking at trying to get a tour in at least quarterly and then so that is actually on my list we were going to be talking about that um as especially as now some construction will be amping up in other places yeah because we've done was it two tours of the pool since that had started so we'll continue and then we did the tour at south haven so we'll we'll continue those
029yes thank you okay thank you thank you next on our agenda is our good news report good evening tonight we will be celebrating our student achievements over the past month the portage high school choirs were awarded the all music award by the indiana state school music association they are one of 14 high school choir programs in the state to receive this award this year students participated in virtual concerts and solo and ensemble festivals in both the fall and the spring semesters and received gold ratings at each of those events to qualify the high school for this award it speaks to our students passion drive and love of singing even in the most difficult of times we are so proud of our choir students our portage high school junior girls recently competed in the class of
0302022 distinguished young woman scholarship program congratulations to all of the participants and to our award winners the hanley award was presented to madeleine davis the joe stevens award was presented to jovi taylor the spirit of dyw award was presented to caitlin mitchell reagan quinones earned the third runner-up spot alexandra ramon earned second runner-up caitlyn mitchell earned first runner-up and your class of 2022 distinguished young woman is sarah torres congratulations to all portage high school junior logan reese is a top 10 finisher at the business professionals of america national competition reese participated in the virtual national conference on may 8th and took sixth place in business law he previously took first place in the same category at the state competition earlier this school year congratulations to logan on earning this prestigious national award congratulations also goes
031to our class of 2021 athletes who sign their letters of intent to play collegiate sports at their respective schools next year bobby russell will attend mars hill university for acrobatics and tumbling zach leskowski will attend grace college for baseball danny pulplava will attend kankakee community college for baseball tristan wilkie will attend purdue university northwest for baseball jacob gonzalez will attend calumet college of st joseph for baseball mark fosto will also attend calumet college of st joseph for baseball diamond howell will attend lemoyne-owen college for basketball haley chellich will attend purdue university for cheerleading morgan mccullough will attend ball state university for cross country mile cisco will attend marion university for track and field emily kragen will attend valparaiso university for track and field and cross country jayden lowe will attend drury university for track and
032field owen pittman will attend marion university for track and field julius hearns will attend wabash college for track and field tyler herring will attend north central university for wrestling and alex cornejo will attend marion university for wrestling we have three students at ellsworth elementary school who achieved a perfect score on their i read assessment and this is no easy task so a huge congratulations goes out to avery jacy and madison on this huge achievement congratulations to portage high school freshman keana king on earning third place in this year's indiana martin luther king jr essay competition although hesitant to write an essay for school keanu felt inspired by the topic which asked her to react to a quote from dr king we are so proud of her for this outstanding achievement congratulations to all of our
033highlighted students this evening you certainly make us portage proud thank you there's always many great things going on with our students in our buildings next we have our agenda adjustments are there any adjustments to the agenda from the board no okay we'll move on to board development any board reports the education foundation met last week and we will be beginning the planning of the special event that's going to take place in october uh more information will be forthcoming uh the board will now be meeting in july great thank you any other board reports i'll give just a little update on the parks um just a reminder that our market movies and music is happening at founders square every friday from three to nine with the movie at dusk this friday's movie is field of dreams
034and the musical act is slick moss we also have our cruise nights every tuesday night at woodland park from 4 to 8 p.m and we also have four weeks of camps in july that you can check out our website we still have a few spots open there if you want to register great thank you any other reports from the board okay next we'll move on to our superintendent's consent agenda which has the approval of the personnel report for june 14 2021 the donation report from june 14 2021 and a facility use request report we have a motion to approve the superintendent's consent agenda make a motion second you have the motion in a second any discussion are you done call role please trustee finley yes trustee vasquez yes trustee maletta yes trustee william jess trustee
035wilkie yes now we have our board consent agenda which contains our meeting minutes of our regular board meeting for may the 24th and meeting minutes of the special board meeting for the bid awards from june the 7th do you have a motion to approve the board's consent agenda i make a motion to accept the board consent agenda a second you have the motion a second any discussion hearing none call roll please trustee vasquez yes trustee milletta yes trustee williams trustee wilkie yes trustee finley yes we have no old business this meeting but we do have some new business first up we have the approval of the overnight field trip by the portage high school boys and girls straight estate track championships in indianapolis which took place on june 4th through 6th do a motion to
036approve the overnight field trip make a motion to approve second with a motion in a second any discussion how'd we do i can get that to you tomorrow that's a really good question i think i read in the paper i think we did pretty good yeah i don't have the stats on that okay thank you yep you call the role please trustee miletta yes trustee williams trustee wilkie yes trustee finley yes trustee vasquez yes next we have our approval of the mou for marketing do i need to read this mr ellwood no you don't need to read it i can explain it okay this is uh simply transferring the responsibilities for the city side of things because it's a joint venture between pts city of portage and portage township trustees so they're shifting their responsibility
037from the sanitary board to the city of portage general fund which is frankly where it should have been to begin with but because of some things going on between the council and mayor previously um it got set uh set as the utility services board's responsibility so so it really doesn't change anything other than where their funding comes from yep the only other remark i'd make there is that last last year calendar year we did not have the mou in place so we did not receive any of that 15 000 funding from the city that year of course we still did our best to continue to partner as we always should and that's actually when the initiative reported strong came about but moving forward the mayor was very specific in wanting to get this back in
038in order and of course we've worked as you would expect for us to work closely with the city and the township to make sure certain that those things move forward great thank you you have a motion to approve the mou for marketing make a motion second you have the motion in a second any discussion you call a role please trusted william jess trustee wilkie yes trustee finley yes trustee vasquez yes trustee miletta yes now we have the approval of the dual credit spanish course for portage high school yes this is just for the opportunity for our students to receive dual credit for their spanish courses at portage high do school have a motion to approve the dual credit spanish course motion to approve second you have a motion a second any discussion call roll please
039trustee wilkie yes trustee finley yes trustee vasquez yes trustee maletta yes trustee williams yes now we have the acceptance of the project lead the way grant funds um this is the opportunity for us to accept the funds from these grant opportunities baitly middle school received seven hundred dollars to be used for the purchasing of equipment needed for the computer science component of the gateway program and portage high school received a one thousand five hundred dollar um grant for the purchase of equipment at the portage high school computer for excuse me for the portage high school computer science program very good we have a motion to approve the project lead the way grant funds i'll make a motion to approve second get the motion in a second any discussion three nine call roll please trustee finley
040yes trustee vasquez yes trustee meletta yes christie williams jeff trustee wilkie yes uh item 8.05 approval of advisors counselors join the usw group so currently we have four groups we have transportation custodial food service and support staff there are some employees out there particularly these 11 10 school advisors and a social worker social worker i believe at the high school they have gathered and desire to join the united steelworkers and they have obtained a majority of the signatures and i recommend it to the superintendent uh that we uh make that process easier for them which we can contest it or we can simply welcome them in and allow them to bargain just like they do for the other support staff so the idea is if the board approves this then we would begin we bargain
041a new contract with the usw groups this year that we just begin bargaining them as part of the support staff contract there's a different pay so it'll be a different addendum but a lot of the same language issues will be negotiated and i believe we talked about it being effective january 1 2022 because that's when the new contract for the four groups will start very good thank you do you have a motion to approve of advisors and counselors joining the usw group i'll make a motion second you have the motion a second any discussion hearing none call the role please trustee vasquez yes trustee maletta yes trustee william jeff trustee wilkie yes trustee findlay yes great next we have the approval of the resolution for residential placement designee this is a resolution that we bring
042before the board every year and this is so that in the event that there is a need for residential placement for any student within portage township that i have the board's authority as the designee to sign off on that residential placement this is always in cooperation with the porter county education services that we receive and typically we're talking about one or two students who are in this situation and need that type of placement okay you have a motion to approve the resolution for the residential placement designee i'll make a motion to approve second get the motion in a second any discussion hearing none call the role please trust him yes trustee williams trustee wilkie yes trustee finley yes trustee vasquez yes okay next we have our superintendent reports and updates dr alanz um quickly i
043was able to get some information for you regarding track and field gina butts qualified for state and finished 14th so that was that overnight field trip thank you to mrs deverslawy for that quick information i also wanted to extend congratulations to trustee vasquez on her recent retirement um how many years 44 that's what i thought 44 years [Applause] congratulations so congratulations it's been a wonderful journey and i am honored that i will continue my journey serving on this board yes um i also wanted to share a couple of items with you first of all on the personnel report you'll notice there was a lot of hiring that has been taking place we are using some of those esser dollars that you're going to be receiving a presentation about some of those allocations and what we're
044looking to do at that at the next board meeting as i had shared with you in last week's update one of the things we're working to do is class size reduction making certain that we are having manageable class class sizes for teachers so that they can best meet the needs of our students and so a lot of that hiring was also to try to determine where those pockets were at the elementary levels so that we could best address those needs and we are also looking at providing additional supports with certified teaching staff as well as classified staff so that we have remediation assistance so we have had a great deal of success in finding really quality candidates so we are hiring them up so that no one else has that opportunity i also want to
045express my appreciation for the planning and the implementation of the start of summer school as you know session one is taking place at the high school as well as elementary and middle school regular summer school and our pre-k summer school that we have in place so it has been a great start as you can only imagine you're talking about food service plans transportation plans communication which school what it's it's a lot the kids are enjoying themselves the teachers are coming up with not surprisingly amazing opportunities to engage our students and give them the remediation they need i want to acknowledge the entire administration team we had our board retreat i'm sorry not board retreat leadership retreat last thursday i want to thank lori she allowed us to have that through our partnership agreement we were
046able to be at the lakefront it was a beautiful setting for a lot of opportunity to build as a team to streamline and prioritize and we as a group have been reading a book entitled arrows and it's all about aligning process and practice prioritizing people and employees over programs and it's it's been a great opportunity for us to bring some clarity to our vision and i will be sharing some of that with you in the near future the projects and bonds work of course our cfo nick who does a phenomenal job with with making certain that we continue to have that bond rating and and with your oversight as well and miele for his continuous work as you mentioned he truly is just an a a great gentleman who is extremely respected throughout the district
047and rightfully so and someone that i lean on regularly for his his input also we are planning to submit some additional proposals to present again for nsba we've we've been on a roll so that's in the works as well and i'll keep you posted as i shared with you last week the ilearn results we are not seeing comparisons across the state yet those are still embargoed and we are unaware of what those results are going to look like in those comparisons but we are definitely diving into the reports and plan to develop some opportunities to inform instruction based on those areas of of need that we have and how those common assessments can look across the district the back to school plan is going to be coming before you again and fortunately we won't have
048to do a lot of the the pre-education components of that so we will be updating that i've started to receive some word from both the state and local health department on some additional guidance the guidance that will not overstep necessarily the governor's order but that the cdc guidelines if they extend beyond the governor's orders then that is where we we have that local control and determination to decide what we want to do so i will be giving you some suggestions and some some recommendations and i get that to you for your approval excuse me your consideration i also wanted to mention that there was one other item oh i asked i met with mr depasquale today and he was going to give just a very brief update about the stem champ camp that's going on
049it's been a great thing that you know we've done for the last several years and he had some exciting things to share with you mr president mr elwood members of the board dr alanis thank you um i'm blessed every year to be the coordinator of the stem champ stem camp this is our third year first year that we did it was in person then last year we did it virtually and we're back in person and what i wanted to state to you guys is what i think is the most exciting thing we invite 10 students from every elementary school which means we invite 80 4th graders to join us and with great excitement we had 79 participate which i think the most important is thing for you guys to know is the confidence our our
050students our parents have in what porters township schools is doing especially in regards to returning back to normal it has been just a breath of fresh air for myself and the fellow staff members to be participating with these students who are so excited to be getting back to serious hands-on activities we are doing many activities including a bottle rocket challenge where they're making two liter bottles into rockets chair challenge where they're just taking cardboard and having to make a chair that holds up myself and the other staff members which is a lot of fun the kids enjoy we're doing programming along with 3d printing they've been making their own pencil holders where they actually design an autocad and develop those and that's fourth graders which is which uh really is impressive we have a robotics
051programming challenge where the students have to move a maze of course through with rvrs which are kind of like spheros you may have seen spheros before the uh robotic programmable balls but there's a new one that looks more like a tank called rvr uh doing that and so it's been uh so far we're in week two it's going to finish up at the end of this week and uh it's just been a real blessing to have these students part of this program uh on what it leads to in the future and i just wanted to come to tell you guys that it's been um we're just eternally grateful for these opportunities with our students um as i said it was a breath of fresh air and i know that uh the confidence that those parents
052and students have back in portage schools and knowing that we we have their best interests at heart and and making sure that we're doing uh good things for them uh is is very evident so thank you appreciate it thank you awesome [Applause] anything else dr ella knows no that's it okay are there any items not on the agenda that the board would like to bring up at this time if not i do believe we did we get a public comment form we did jason scott wishes to speak on curriculum and school policy he is a resident of portage okay just before we speak i'll go ahead and just kind of lay out briefly some of the guidelines general school board meetings are not public meetings per se they are simply meetings of the school board
053to be held in public the board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on corporation matters to permit fair and orderly public expression by the board may provide a period for public participation at those meetings of the board during which action may be taken and published procedures to govern such participation in board meetings here are some some of the rules for public participation no discussion on personnel legal or executive content will be permitted including collective bargaining public participation shall be permitted at the discretion of the presiding officer attendees must register their intention upon arrival only residents of portage township are permitted to participate each statement by the participation participant shall be limited to three minutes in duration um you cannot speak
054on more than once on the same topic and all statements should be directed to the presiding officer no person may address or question board members or the superintendent individually personal attacks are not pre-permitted uh and a few other things but we'll just move on from that so uh sir please would you go ahead and state your name and address uh for the for the record and then uh trustee williams will start our timer and you can begin speaking i'll raise man when you're about 15 seconds left all right when are you going to start the timer now yes when you finish talking with yourself my name is jason scott my address is 5660 vanessa avenue in portage and i am a portage resident uh the first thing i want to know a few things before
055the start of the next school year first i want to know if our kids are going to have to wear masks next year i think that's something that's fair to know i also want to know why my daughter was forced to run in a color run in 82 degree weather with the mask on when all kinds of doctors at prestigious american universities and hospitals have said this is detrimental to their health i got a stack of studies on my desk and i could print out a thousand more so i want to know if they're going to have to wear masks and why they're wearing masks in the heat and it's funny that i bring this up because my daughter just my wife just took my daughter to the doctor and texted me 20 minutes ago
056what was wrong her eyes been swelling up and the reason never crossed my mind the doctor said it's because she's wearing a mask the only time she wears a mask is that stem camp at portage schools in 90 degree heat that's the only time she wears one i i'm just i can't believe it but anyway moving on another thing that i'd like to know for the next school year is i want to know if ported schools is going to teach critical race theory which teaches that white people are inherently racist and teaches the color of your skin matters and not the content of your character so i want to know if ported schools is going to participate in that next year the second thing i want to talk or the third thing i want to
057talk about is framing curriculum it was told to my daughter this past school year and in her entire class this is what was said republicans want to take money away from schools okay well that's one way to frame it see in my opinion that's framing an opinion for our kids so how are those 25 3rd or 4th graders or 6th graders supposed to react knowing that their parents could possibly be republicans i think what that's crazy why would anybody want to take money away from schools let me reframe it by teaching critical race theory and having our kids wear masks and teaching anti-police curriculum like ported schools did you're defunding yourselves and i'm going to give you two statements in the curriculum imagine a third grader reading this just imagine it in the wake of
058poli police killings ending and demanding an end to police violence without giving specific examples how are kids third graders supposed to react to this i'm telling you guys everybody up there we're going to be undigging ourselves out of this hole for decades we're raising a next generation of kids that are going to be disrespectful to police and everyone else and it's going to create problems for all of us all of us by statements like this so the framing the police in a negative light so let me frame that before you get ahead of it because i know that's what you're going to do does the do these statements paint police in a positive or negative manner and that's it that's the question those are the only questions i want to answer thank you okay does
059anybody have anything else or any other public comments mr ellwood no none others okay with that being said this meeting's adjourned thank you you