001to form a public opinion that is ready >> to call meeting order. First start out with the pledge of allegiance and moment of silence. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Well, Madame President, good afternoon. How are you today? I hope you're having a good day so far. >> Good, thank you. How are you? >> I'm doing very well. Without further ado, I'll turn this over to you and our lease hearing. Madam President, >> at this time, we will be having a lease hearing and I will turn it over to Mr. Wilson to conduct this hearing. >> Thank you. Um, ladies and gentlemen, the school corporation is funding this
002project through a lease financing as it has done with past construction and renovation projects. uh lease financings are used in Indiana by school corporations in order to borrow for renovation and for construction. And actually what happens is that the we have a building corporation that will purchase a portion of the building uh this particular case happens to be the band room and the chorus room uh which they're purchasing and uh the building corporation will then lease that back to the school corporation. The lease rental amount due from the school corporation will be paid by property taxes and will be for the lease of the building during the term of the lease. The lease rental will be sufficient then to pay the principal and the interest on the bonds that will be sold to finance the
003project. And then at the end of the project and after the bonds are paid off then the building corporation deeds the uh build that portion of the building back to the school corporation. So, uh, the law requires that we publish notice of a hearing. We have done that in both the Versailles and Brookville papers. And so, at this time, if there's anybody in the public that would like to comment about the lease, please feel free to do so. >> I have one question, Mr. Wilson. >> Yes, sir. >> What's our annual lease cost? >> The annual lease rental? >> Yes. >> Um, it is Let me look. That lease is uh about 20 pages and I didn't memorize it. Lesie agrees to pay rental during renovation in the amount of up to $570,000 per payment
004payable on June 30 and December 31. Now, it said up to that amount. That's because we drafted this beforehand and um the uh actual amount will be very quickly figured out based on how the bids came in and what the interest rate will be and so forth. >> So, we don't really know today. It won't be more than that. It'll probably be a lot less than that. >> Okay. >> But since we're a little fur farther out than >> I understand. >> Yeah. We don't know. And the second question is what budget area does that come out of? >> The debt. >> Correct. Mr. >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah. >> We actually have a construction fund that's set up when the money comes in from the bonds to pay for everything and then those payments funnel
005through come out of the debt fund. >> Okay. Thank you very much for that. >> Okay. Okay. Well, at this time then, um, we will go into what's called the additional appropriation hearing. Uh, since the school corporation will receive money for the sale of the real estate, uh, from the building corporation, this money was not initially listed in the budget of the school corporation. Therefore, we're required to hold a hearing for the additional appropriation of those funds. So, at this time, uh, I'll open it up if there's anybody in the public that would like to ask any questions or comment on this additional appropriation. Hearing none, then that will conclude both of those hearings as required by law. There are four resolutions that I have prepared for you to consider today. The first one which
006was is uh exhibit A to the to our minutes is a resolution authorizing the execution of the lease. The statute provides that you must pass this resolution authorize the president and the secretary to sign the lease. And I should say that the building corporation met yesterday and they uh adopted a similar resolution. They signed the lease yesterday uh as well. So, I need a uh action on this resolution. >> Can I seek a motion for someone to approve the authorization execution of the lease? >> I will make that motion. >> Thank you, Larry. Do I have a second? >> I will second. >> Thank you, Blaine. All those in favor say I. I. >> I. All those opposed, same side. Motion carries. >> Thank you. Second resolution is the additional appropriation resolution and u we
007need to adopt this resolution to uh since it wasn't originally in our budget. The resolution also spec uh specifies that the funds will be put into the construction account uh to pay for the construction. So we need action on this resolution. >> Stephanie, I'll make a motion that we approve the additional appropriation resolution. >> Thank you, Jeremy. Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Thank you, Sean. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. >> Third resolution is a resolution called approving the fifth supplement to the master continuing disclosure undertaking. Uh what that mouthful means is it's the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States requires that we have this disclosure agreement approved by the board. uh anytime you sell securities, bonds, uh we
008have to comply with the SEC rules. This requires that uh the school corporation timely provide information to the SEC through their database called EMA. Uh and uh they have to report anytime there's any material events. So if half the business at Batesville left town and we weren't going to have taxes coming from that, we'd have to report that to the SEC and say we've got an issue here. So need authorization of this resolution. >> So who submits it to this Emma database? >> Uh the school corporation does in in conjunction with >> Baker advisors. They help us with that. But maybe we're doing Mr. Na'vi and Mr. Ketchum and myself. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Can I seek >> Did we vote on that one? I can't. >> No, we haven't. Okay. >> Can I
009seek a motion to approve the supplemental of continuing disclosure undertaking? >> I will move. >> Thank you, Blaine. >> Second. Thank you, Jeremy. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. The final resolution is a resolution assigning uh construction bids and contracts to the building corporation. It's the school corporation that takes these bids from contractors for the jobs to be done. But since the money from the sale of the bonds goes into the building corporation, we have to assign those contracts to the building corporation. That's the purpose of this resolution. Can I seek a motion to approve the contracts to the building corporation? >> I'll make that motion. >> Thank you, Sean. Can I get a second? >> I'll second it. >> Thank you, Larry. All those
010in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. >> Thank you. That concludes my business. >> Thank you, Mr. Olsson. >> Very much. >> Madam President, if I may take a personal privilege to to thank Doug Wilson for his 45 years of service to the school corporation. He has worked for four superintendents. I don't want to rank the superintendents, but I feel like I'm in the top four. Thank you. We begin every meeting with our portrait of a graduate, our northstar, our mission. Together with our community, BCSSE is committed to providing an engaging and relevant learning environment based on a strong foundation of academic knowledge, transferable skills, and real world experiences. Batesville Bulldogs embody confidence, empathy, and resiliency to ensure 21st century success. With that, Madam President, we will roll
011right into our agenda. My first recommendation for your consideration is the approval of minutes from our July 16th meeting. >> Does anybody have any questions about the minutes? >> No. >> Can I see a motion to approve the minutes from July's meeting? >> I'll make a motion. >> Thank you, Larry. Do I have a second? I'll second. >> Thank you, Sean. All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. >> Thank you, Madam President. The next item for your consideration are the payroll journals and registered claims. You did receive an additional five pages of claims for Mr. Nami today. Those claims total $13,000. the two largest portions of that are our Kurt's lawn care care maintenance for maintaining our grounds and also cook mechanical for the work they they've
012done you can see on the back page I'm sorry page 505 that's about $92,000 from the operations construction fund only just under $9,000 from the education fund give you a moment to look over that happy to answer any questions you have seek a motion to approve those as presented Todd, thank you for those answers. >> Stephanie, I'll make a motion that we approve the payroll journals and registered claims. >> Thank you, Jeremy. Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Thank you, Sean. All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. >> Thank you, Madam President. The next item for your consideration is list of personnel. It is an extensive list. As we start the school year, we have a lot of moving parts. Half of Andy, answer
013any questions you may have, but I'll see a motion to approve that list as presented. >> Paul, just a point of clarification. I know there was like you said fairly lengthy, especially in that kind of classified section. Are those like most of those are those like additional responsibilities that people are taking on? Not necessarily a completely new position. Correct. That would be accurate for some of those classified staff as we have attorney leaves. I believe they have stepped up and filled those roles. Yeah. >> So that's accurate. >> You have extended leave or for attorney >> could be for any request attorney being one. Extended leave simply is a term that allows this board to understand that employee will be off for an extended period of time. >> We don't get real specific Mr. Merkel
014for HIP violations and all the other reasons. So is Megan Bogs is she extended leave or resignation? >> She she was both. She was hired here for extended leave. She found a full-time position in she's now a resignation. >> Appreciate that. >> Yes, sir. >> Do and I know this may be more for some of our coaches to fall. Do we have like a policy for because some of these the names on here are younger folks that recent graduates of the high school which is great but do we have like a policy where we don't have recent graduates coaching their former teammates? I know when I was coaching at the middle school that was kind of a concern that has been expressed but I don't know if that's a general policy. >> That's a great
015question. Cole can capture that. Is it a background check? I don't know if we have a specific policy about the age of our coaches what student athletes they work with. We'll do some research on Yeah, I I think it's great that we have alumni or recent graduates helping out with the program. I just didn't know if there was a policy in place to for whatever reason. So, we'll do that research. >> Yeah, >> I would think the age of 21 would be a program. >> It could be depending on what level you're working for, Mr. Purple, an individual who's doing the coaching, right? There's a lot of different factors that we've considered before allowing student former student coach for coaching campus. And if it's a volunteer coach, do they still have to sign some type
016of contract? >> Go through the same processes as a paid coach. The only difference is they're unpaid positions, but they still go through the approval process to be a coach. >> Okay. Thank you. And they take trainings and things of that sort all the same as as the paid coaches for interacting with athletes and things. That's right. >> That's correct. Just there. Mr. Hy has a list of videos you have to go through and watch. Come check those boxes. So yeah, CPR, first aid, Yeah, everybody does the same things. >> Any other questions? >> Can I seek a motion to approve the personnel list? >> I will make a motion. >> Thank you, Bla. >> I'll second. >> Thank you, Jeremy. All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed, same sign. >>
017Motion carries. >> Thank you, Madam President. If you may, I'd like to take a point of personal privilege and introduce Mr. Sever no stranger to Batesville, Indiana. Mr. Sever's been kind enough to come back and fill as our interim high school principal for exactly 93 days. Maybe we're tricking in 94 95. I didn't tell Kyle this, but after this meeting, he's going to line Kyle up the baseline to have him do some wind sprints. So, full circle. Yeah. >> Yeah. Full circle. So, I do want to thank Mr. Seer. He was the only individual I reached out to. Uh he's he's the perfect fit. I say that going to keep both hands on the wheel. There's high expectations for Batesville High School and he's prepared to leave that building. Mr. Seed, anything you like to
018add that sir beginning of the month this wasn't on my card I was actually excited and and the closer I get. I do miss the interaction with kids, teachers after being out for five years. Looking forward to get back into the the game. >> So, are you retired now? >> Start my right. So, yeah, we uh you know there's a lot of things that that Planefield and Facebook are like the the IvyTech program here. We started that at Planefield used their model And they took it to another level which they do and built building which houses and several corporations infield area their corporation training in that facility right across the street from high school. So we swing a lot from I'd like to come back. So students at the high school can take college classes
019at Indiana State Roseman and also I right walk across the parking lot. Great. You know, and I know you guys here, they drive, we had some property there that wasn't being utilized and we felt like it was nice to walk across the parking lot. Great. Look forward to starting Jan. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Appreciate that. Madam President, we'll continue on the agenda. Next agenda item for your consideration is travel requests. Let me do a little uh set the table for you. So you see Erica Burks request to travel to Los Angeles, California, which they typically employ to do that. So in conjunction with IvyTech about five years ago, we started a process and NAC is a organization that accredits colleges. Uh they we put in a proposal in conjunction with IvyTech to present at their
020conference. So Miss Eric Burke will be presenting with Miss Sammy Cardbec about our dual credit experience and how much we leverage that, how important that is to us. So Eric Eric will be part of that presentation in Los Angeles, California, but obviously we need the board to approve the travel and attend that conference. >> It's a motion to approve that as presented. >> I'll make a motion to approve the travel request. >> Thank you, Larry. Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Thank you, Jeremy. All those in favor say I. >> I. All those opposed, say. Motion carries. >> Thank you, Madam President. We'll transition on our agenda to the financial report and I'll turn it over to Mr. Tim Hunter. >> The the financial report is on the screen for the end
021of July. Um coming off the summer months um we have lighter payroll out of the education fund for some of our classified um nine-month positions. Um so we started the the month in the education fund with just a little under $2 million. We had over $1.5 million in revenue, but just about $1.3 million in in expenditure. So that balance climbed by $200,000 to finish the month at 2,188,155, which represents 12.3% of the of the full year appropriation. So that's kind of a high water mark. that will come come back down considerably um next month with our August report um because we have it's a three payroll month right off the bat here to start the school year um but almost $2.2 million balance in the education fund. The debt service fund had um just about
022$20,000 in miscellaneous revenue in and no expenses. So it climbed from about one and 1.375 million to almost $1.4 million balance. Um the operations fund started with with about $4.7 million. Um a little over $90,000 in revenue and and still the expenditures at about $360,000 for the month of life. We actually have a lot of um summer project um invoices and things that were approved with your um that were approved at this board meeting payments for things that we did. So that was a pretty light month in the operations fund, but that balance dropped by about a quarter of a million dollars to finish the month at $4,442,827. the um the rainy day fund the rainy day fund actually had $50,000 of expenditures. I think that may be incorrect um on the screen. So we
023I know we haven't had any changes for a long time, but we did pay um $50,000 was what we had budgeted for for 2025 and for the purpose of paying um severance and retirement benefits to employees. And we had several um retirements in some later um in May and June decisions that um some of those expenses were paid out of the rainy day fund. So that that balance is dropped to about $9,000. Overall the across those four funds the balance um at the end of July was 8 million $34,19 about $30,000 more than the end of July of 2024. Any any questions from board members? >> Okay. Thank you, M. >> Thank you. We'll transition on our agenda. And before we do that, I just want to take there's that we take a great deal
024of pride at Batesville to grow our staff members and we challenge our staff members to take leadership positions and do more and Mr. Cow Laker as our Bal Ready coordinator has absolutely done that to the best of his ability. Very proud of Kyle and what he's done. Uh so one of the benefits of having these meetings at noon is we're going to have access to our staff. So Kyle's going to take some time and kind of help you understand where we're at in the master plan and specifically what our bull ready calendar looks like calendar events. So without further ado, Kyle, the floor is yours. >> Thank you, Mr. Ketchum. Uh board, uh good afternoon to you all. Thankful that that that air handler just shut off. I know you guys are probably freezing like
025I am, but uh I just want to touch base real quick on just our our bulldog ready calendar. And if you guys if you guys want one of these as well, you can pass one of those down. Um, I really just want to paint the picture for you all that as Paul said, like a lot of times people thought Bulldog Ready was Kyle Lakers initiative. And what I'm most proud of or most uh looking forward to this year is just seeing the number of people that are involved in football ready initiatives as you see it. You know, we hired uh well, we we made some room in um Rose Wild's schedule here to help with the the freshman community and the sophomore communities. So you'll start to see really her role change as a high
026school teacher as well uh to really start to take some of that ownership for our freshman community and our sophomore communities while I can still oversee from the corporation side and then also working K through eight on our experiences there. What I want to do for one of my visions were last year April and May became like a zoo for me because everything waited till after testing. We had our second grade guaranteed experience. We had our fifth grade guarantee experience. We had our eighth grade guarantee experience. And we also had a workbased learning fair all the last couple weeks of April and into May. And my vision last year was like, I cannot do that again. Needs to be spread out. And so one of my initiatives here early on this summer and the start
027of the school year was to get a date for everything that we're doing um and be able to spread out these guaranteed experiences. So there's one per month. And so at the top of this document that you have in front of you was those guaranteed experiences. And as as you remember last year we did two, five, and grades eight. Whereas this year we're adding three more. So how do we continue to make this a sustainable model that we can build year in and year out. As you see down there in the monthly planner in September, it says year two of the master plan begins. We kind of use that calendar year to work from September to September. Let's get the rolling start started. Let's let's roll into the school. Let's get a a a process
028and a routine down and then we can really start to roll into a lot of our guaranteed experiences and a lot of our community connected uh opportunities that we have K through 12 with our uh Bulldog Ready events. And um so I just want to paint that picture for you all. In in year three or year two of the master plan, we're adding experiences for kindergarten. We're adding experiences for third grade. And then we're we're adding an experience for sixth grade. So those are our our new experiences, kindergarten, third grade, and sixth grade. Um kindergarten and third grade, we I'm working with those grade levels currently to build out those um experiences. And remember the root of our guaranteed experiences is are how are we tying uh these experiences to our pathways at Batesville High
029School. So when we talk about our two different communities at Batesville High School, we have eight different pathways. We're trying to expose our students K through eight to those eight different pathways so they can see what it means to be in the agriculture pathway or what see what it means to be in the engineering pathway um just to have that real world experience in those different pathways. So you'll see that pathway listed at the top of those guaranteed experiences and then a date there at the bottom. You'll see kindergarten and eighth grade. I have a question mark. I'm still waiting to nail down that date. But what I have done so far, this is a draft. Consider this a draft. I'm trying to finish this up uh as we speak. I want to nail down
030those last two dates for those guaranteed experiences. Beyond the guaranteed experiences, we also have a lot of other opportunities that we we're bringing in community members into the classrooms or into the schools as a whole. And so that's kind of this monthly planner. I then wanted to just break it down for my own sake. what does uh the month of September look like for me and what do I need to start planning now to be able to happen in in um September there? So, you'll see some points of interest in September as you know the the Ripley County Community Foundation and Genesis Pathways create a career exploration expo. So, we're hosting that this year. That happens on our schedule September 16th, the sixth grade nonprofit day. Um and if you guys can advance to the
031next slides there, I'll I'll talk about our vision for Batesville Middle School. based on middle school, sixth grade, you'll see that it hits nonprofit. We don't have a nonprofit pathway at the high school. But what we want to do is when we when we are constantly asking our community members to come in and help out with events or come be a presenter or let us come see your your space, we we may wear wear out a lot of businesses if we keep asking the same businesses over and over and over again. And so what a model that we have stolen from the Ford and Gail uh process is to make the middle school area about like service learning and nonprofits and giving and and being able to understand like I can give them my own
032time. I can give them my own resources and make kind of take pride in your community. So you'll see this nonprofit vision for for the middle school. And we use a mantra of see do evolve. Again, we're in year one or year two of the middle school, sorry, year two of the master plan, but year one of our uh kind of our plan for this C to evolve model in sixth grade. They want to see as many nonprofits and learn about that foundation of giving so they can understand what it what it means. We had a lesson the other day about pizza and they said the lesson was about the difference between a for-profit and a nonprofit and the kids could not figure out this is this is where we have to really educate our
033our sixth graders the difference between like family pizza was a for-profit because you could go in there and eat pizza but they said Domino's was a was a nonprofit because they don't have a store you can't go in there. So those are type opportunities where our advisory teachers are then taking these mini lessons and teaching them. Um you guys all are familiar with our convening council, right? Where we have this organization outside of the school who's who's building these resources. They've created some vocab that they wanted to us to upfront kind of teach our students so that they were prepared for that September the 16th date. words like philanthropist. Our sixth graders should know that word before that nonprofit day on the 16th. So those that's kind of how we're working these guaranteed experiences. There's
034opportunities beforehand on September 16th. They're going to see five different non nonprofits and we're just going to create a rotation uh in the school where we have five different nonprofits in what we call the inspire and impact series. They have 10 minutes to inspire. They have 10 minutes to give their elevator speech to our kids. And then for 30 minutes, how can our sixth graders actually like partake in an activity that might be example of their nonprofit? So that elevator speech should talk about like what problem did they solve in the community and why is it important to their passion? Uh because that's part of our portrait for graduate is find your passion like what's your why? All these nonprofit directors and nonprofit workers have a passion for this and what what passion is that
035solving? And so that's that middle school model. When you look at C and then in seventh grade next year as we start to plan on that, what how can we then donate a day of our of our time to a nonprofit to help them find their passion and they'll get to choose that nonprofit of their choice after they're exposed to a lot of different nonprofits, their sixth graders. So that's I want to paint that picture. I keep want to give you guys bite-sized chunks of what we're trying to do at Bulldog Ready without overwhelming you in the the roots of the master plan, but as that master plan's coming to uh fruition, I want to just paint that picture for the board here today of what we're really trying to do with the bull ready
036calendar and then our our nonprofit kind of focus there at Bates and Middle School. So, with that, I'll take any questions from you all. Mr. Merkel, >> two questions. Uh, can you provide those slides to us? >> Second question. What nonprofits do you have? >> You're done right now. >> Yeah. Uh, I don't add that to the slide, did I? That's my last slide. >> That's the last slide. >> So, um, so in September 16th and in, uh, January, I think it's January 13th, we invited a group of 10 nonprofits that we felt could connect well with our students. We don't want to have all the same opportunities for our students. So, for instance, like the Carson Hughes photo with Carson Hughes, you all probably remember the story, the South student um that that passed
037away at at Forale State Park. >> Oh, okay. >> That's a that that kind of draws some of those heartstrings for people that one can connect with that student, but two, photography is a big passion for from students. So taking that that role of outdoors and uh photography for that uh youth the Yellowstone's another example uh we have green acres in in just for the agriculture cultural piece. >> Um we have basic community education foundation because it's important to keep them rooted in our schools as well. >> I'll provide the board I'll provide Laura uh and Mr. Ketcher if we we want to um share those resources out. share those and say this is the list that we've reached out to. >> Great. >> And we'll continue to open that door up for from others
038as well. >> Great. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions related today? >> Great job. >> Yeah, fantastic work. >> Appreciate support from from all these initiatives and we'll continue to look for more community involvement as we go. >> Thank you, K. Appreciate that. >> Thank you. Madam President, we'll transition on our agenda to patron comments. And I think you heard from both our patrons, unless you want to hear again. >> I think we're good. Unless you got something you want to add. >> Okay. We'll roll right to our action items. Madam President, members of the board, the first item for your consideration is the approval of the change of the October board meeting. Due to fall break, some other conflicts, we'll need to approve our budget in October. So, I'll seek a motion to
039move our board meeting to October, Wednesday, October 8th, noon here in this board room. >> Paul, it's likely that I will be unable to attend on that date. So, I just wanted to verify that we do have at least three other board members able to attend. Does anyone else have a conflict on the >> I'll be here? >> I have a conflict. >> I will be here. >> So, it sounds like you have three. >> We have three, but no one can get sick from this. and I will I will be in town. I just have a commitment that I really can't step out of, but if there was an emergency, I I could be here if for some reason somebody else was ill or something happened. So, >> thank you, Mr. For that information,
040Mr. Townley. Thank you. >> I'll make a motion to move the October board meeting to Wednesday, October the 8th. >> Thank you, Larry. Do I have a second? >> I will second. >> Thank you, Bla. All those in favor say I. I. >> I. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. >> Thank you, Madam President. The next item for your consideration is approval of anou memorandum of understanding and agreement association of Indiana counties tax refund exchange compliance system. That's a lot of work to say this organization will replace small things. There are times when we have patrons who are unable to pay for ore unable they don't pay lunch balances or fees and we go through every layer of opportunity to help them either do monthly payments payments but at some point if there's no
041further road forward we have to try to collect those fees. This is Mr. Na'vi's initiative. I appreciate him taking this initiative forward. Todd, is there anything you want to share with the board about what this is and what this does? Um it's called the trucks program is used by several schools and cities and towns from around us and throughout the whole state of Nevada. It's where um we upload information to the system and it goes to their um tax returns. You know, when they file a tax return, if you're giving money back, you owe an entity money, they will garnish it from your tax return. >> So like how far back? So, like if you have somebody that you're still dealing with from a couple of years ago, does that still go into this or
042are we just forgiven that at that point? >> No, we we it will go into it because right now we're down to cafeteria balances and um some of our daycare systems and technology. Those are all current. Um technology we forgive. Daycare bounces we forgive. School lunch is not forgivable. But if we were to forgive it, it would have to come out the oper the operations or the education fund to replenish that money to that account. It's federal dollars. So we don't really we do our best not to have you know to forget that money. >> How much of a sum are we talking about? >> Um uh for cafeteria we are at um about four grand um total. It's uh about a dozen students. There's a couple in our dayare system and I'm not sure
043on how much on the IT fees. Um I don't know that I don't have that dollar. >> Stephanie, I thought maybe this is where you were going. >> According to Mike, it's about $10,000. >> I guess a similar question. I thought maybe this is where Stephanie was going, but like if you've currently got something in the current small claims process, can you then move it over to this process? um on the um this is another reason why we're using to the small things process is not working currently. So none of the none of the cafeteria or the um other fees that are have been put in I know it has worked on that but I do not believe that small claims has moved forward on anything that's been sent to them several years. >> So
044you can move it over >> but they move it over. >> Okay. Yeah, that's kind of where I was. And it's a no charge to the school corporation and it's a less sort of charge to the individual than small cla believe small things is I believe 75 to $100 per court and then this pro this process is $25 is only $25 per >> it's great mad president I want to reiterate this corporation's committed to work with every family this is the last right >> yeah I mean we have this haven't done anything since co just because we've been trying to work on >> right >> in other ways Is is there an assessment for individual accounts for the the debtors like whether they even have the ability to pay? I mean, I'm guessing that some
045of these folks may not even file tax returns potentially. >> We'll find out for whatever they do. This we're just starting it, but they'll let us know. And then we do then that's when they go to unclaimed. And then for cafeteria balances, we every year we do a transfer of money from the ed um education fund to cover those fees. Like this year we didn't have I didn't bring them to you because we we had enough to cover those those small amounts that were due were covered by surpluses that no one requested. Mr. Chim and I have a quick history lesson. We no longer the state of Indiana covers textbook rental fees. But prior to that we did we were able to raise a property tax under debt service under unclaimed textbook rental. We no
046longer have access to that. So again this is again there's no textbook fees just mostly it cap balances trying to reclaim that. Todd mentioned it because any unclaimed fees or any unpaid balances we have to take out the education fun. We can't run a negative balance in caf. Do we know like are some of the cafeteria things are those like students that already receive like reduced lunch and maybe they need to be like more on the free lunch program or >> No, that is also done through our food service director. She reaches out monthly. If you if it's more than $25, she sends a if it's at $25 less, she sends a just a statement home to the student. Once it gets between 285 or above, she calls once a month. If it's over $50,
047she send she tries to call she calls um 25 to50 is about once a quarter because sometimes you know you just forget and if it's over 50 then she call tries to call them monthly. Um she sends me a list of whether or not they've answered the phone, whether or not they um give a response saying, "Hey, we'll try to pay." And she keeps track of that. And so she's that's all been done for a while. This is so the amount I'm going to send is people who she's tried for almost a year to get payments and she does suggest that you know if you you know free reduce you can't pay talks someone will say oh I'm gonna do that and then they never do because they >> so the options >> it's an
048exhausting process before before I get to the point where I'm send them to >> what was the high point of balance Now, as several years ago, >> we're total probably in the bread right now is about five grand, you know, I'm only looking at the ones that are $50 or more, which is, believe it or not, is actually 3500 of that five grand. So, most of it is bigger balances, but whenever um it was taken over before COVID, we were close to like 13,000 in the negative accounts. And uh we worked very hard to get that between um the deputy treasur at the time and our food service director has worked tirelessly on trying to get it when it was when we had free lunches. They worked really hard on get people okay well you're
049not it's not going to grow so you pay you know make some payments that we we worked a lot on that process. So five grand sounds like a lot still but I mean it's a very working workable number. >> It's better than 13. >> Yes. >> Todd, do we accept like payment plans? Yes, we you know we used to accept payment plans. Um I for like when we had text the world I used to do formal payment plans with certain parents because you know that's how how we did it. The cafeteria it's always you know you can always make a payment. We don't you know we try to get them to do it. Most of them don't. But we just try to call and communicate that you know if you if they start making a
050payment then we then Verna stops you know she stops calling because they know they're in the red but if it starts shrinking she knows they're trying to make a payment. Usually the ones she's calling are the ones that >> don't make don't attempt any payment and are still just wrecking the bill because it's basically >> right. >> Any other questions? >> No, I think great great work being done and I think this is a good improvement. So, thanks for bringing it forward. I'll make a motion to approve the uh change and adopt the memorandum of understanding. >> Thank you, Jeremy. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Sean, all those in favor say I. >> I. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. >> Thank you, Madam President. The last item for consideration are
051the approval of the old policy updates 371372 special July update. Happy to answer any additional questions you may have with the motion those policies as presented. This would be considered our second read. Mr. catch them. The only question I have is the AI we we currently currently is banned in our school. It's not banned. Not banned. We have to have a policy. So what two things Mr. Merkel one we have to update our what's called a responsible use policy a rough policy that now includes AI and then we do have a policy on the proper utilization of AI in the classroom. It's not banned. In fact, we encourage students to leverage AI at times for prompts or starters or things like that. So, it's not banned, but we do have specific policies about what is
052usable and what is not usable with AI. >> So, if they're doing a a a paper, we don't want them to go out and search AI and create this paper for them. >> There's no educational value in plagiarism. Just basically have AI create your paper. There is value in leveraging AI to do research document yes thesis statements and then leverage those tools. So again it's similar to the calculator a few years ago. You know the calculator was probably not encouraged early in math but you know what you use on a daily basis now. >> Okay. Thank you >> Paul. I have one question. Um, on the expulsion appeals process, how I guess from a relevancy standpoint, has there ever been an expulsion appeal tried or brought to the board in one in my nine years?
053There's been one. >> I just had questions about skipping the board and sending it directly to a circuit court. You know, good friend Judge Dudley, I don't know if he necessarily wants to hear those um without us having vetted it first, things of that nature. But if it's only been one of the last years >> worth aart, >> is that something that you're in support of is just sending it straight to circuit court that you think it's something that the board should hear? >> I I I think it's always local control first. I think it should go with the chamber of man obviously building level superintendent's office as a board. That way every parent has the opportunity to go through three levels. I think the circuit court is excessive in my opinion but I don't
054make the statutes. I would prefer that the this school board would have the final authority whether to hold or return that concern. So I agree with you. I think that we should hear those before they end up in front of Judge Dudley, Judge Taylor or wherever. and and so I don't know do we have an ability to reject that amendment in itself and we retain those that would be my opinion I don't know if anybody else has the opinion >> that's a great so my recommendation may be that you approve this as slated with the exception of that policy and we can table that policy Mr. and error do some further research and come back next month to approve that policy or amend that policy based on our conversation. >> I would be in favor
055of that with that. >> I just need a recommendation to approve the policy list as presented with the exception of that. Yeah, I will move to approve and adopt the new policies as presented with the exception of the revised version of volume 3 number one November 2024 suspension and expulsion of students um to be revisited in the future. >> Thank you, Bla. >> I'll second that. >> Thank you, Jeremy. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. >> Thank you, Madam President. That's concludes our action items rolls right into our super superintendent report. And I think you probably seen us or saw an email. But again, I I want to take every opportunity to celebrate the extremely hard work of our elementary schools. I know our primary
056school and intermediate school are separated by Highway 46, but Mrs. Cassie and Mr. Stum King have done a tremendous job aligning those elementary schools to accomplish the fifth highest pass rate in Ire in the state of Indiana. So again, kudos to to not only our principles, but our teachers, our support staff, and maybe most importantly, our families who understand the importance of literacy. So I I'd be remiss not to again celebrate in the public forum the hard work our elementary schools K3 prek3 has done and that's a very amazing accomplishment. Very proud of that team. So I just wanted to again share that in the public forum. Any questions about iate or anything like that? >> I think it's great. Yeah, I'm very again humbled that our team works so hard and and proud of
057our community. >> Well, I think it is a testament to both buildings, right? Because we are doing some of that testing now in second grade and they have to pass it in third grade, right? So, it really is both buildings. >> It really is. You know, we talk about a K12 continuum vertical alignment. Our principles do an amazing job at those gaps between middle school and high school and the elementary schools and and again, credit to the team and how are they working. >> Correct me if I'm wrong. It was like 98.8% 8% passage rate. >> Correct. >> And I think when you bring the numbers down to that, it's only like two to four kids or something like that that ultimately didn't pass. And so we're awfully close to the 100% mark. >> We're
058trying to get there basis. >> Yeah, we're trying to get there. Miss Cassie gets a loan grabby. I said, why don't we get to 100? But that's >> let me know about that. Yeah, >> we'll continue on. Again, one of my favorite events is our annual staff ticket picnic. retirees and current family members at Liberty Park on the Wednesday after uh Labor Day. So again, want to invite you as board members to participate in that staff picnic. We have upwards of 400 attendees every year and current employees bring their children to play Liberty Park and the retirees love to come back and catch up and there's a group of three young ladies who are always the first ones there and the last ones out. So they they keep me on my toes. So looking forward
059to that event in September. did want to bring to your attention a handbook change and it will be across all four buildings, but our new middle school assistant principal, Austin Glow, brought it to my attention, Senate Enrolled Act 482 no longer permits schools to suspend or expel students as a a consequence of student attendance issues. Our current handbook say that we can suspend or expel students based on attendance issues. We're no longer able to do that. So we have to amend our per the statute we have to amend our handbooks that basically will change those students will then be assigned our cats which is an alternative suspension. So again no action item for this board. I just wanted you to be aware that our handbooks by statute have to change to reflect that law. Any
060questions I can answer on that? I'm happy to do that. >> If is there ongoing work in Franklin County to reinvigorate an arcat program on that side of the county line? >> Mr. Mr. Tim, I do not think there's been a recent conversation about that. Uh, and that's been a little bit of a barrier for a school corporation that spans two counties. >> Right. Right. >> But yeah, if there's an opportunity to have that conversation, I would welcome that. >> I'll put a word in. >> Thank you. Thank you. I think there's a few people. >> Yeah. >> Just going down our events in September. Again, no school on Labor Day. September 1st. September 2nd is a professional development day for our staff. There will be no students. September 8th through 12th is a school
061as vote fair at BIS. And then again, our next school board meeting is here in this room on September 17th at noon. That concludes my report. I'll turn to you, Madam President. Any board member comments? >> Does any board members have any comments? >> Uh Mr. Ketchum, I think in some of your emails, you said we would have a executive session at the next prior to the next board meeting. Yes. Is that going to happen? >> We're I'm going to confer again with Madam President about that. I just wanted to you there could be an opportunity for that as we make some transitions. My question for you is if that should be before the meeting or after the meeting based on schedules. So we'll talk offline about what that looks like. Mr. Merkel, >> I'm
062available before and after. >> Thank you. >> Any other comments or questions? >> Nothing for me. Uh there was a Senate bill that was passed that was going to do away with the grading system of ADF. I think that's been reinstated. I don't know what they're doing going forward. >> No, great question. So for years, schools were on an accountability system and they were rated A through F. and for many years obviously being an A-rated school. They hit pause on that accountability model in COVID in 2020 and they haven't reenacted that model since. The state board of education is currently working on with the rules power to create a new accountability model. So I would anticipate for the 26 27th school year there will be a new accountability model in place. >> So we'll be
063at the high level proficient or something like that. There is a dashboard and what will happen is based on I'll get way in the weeds here. So there'll be an opportunity for local boards to pick what portions of the dashboard they value and based on how the school performs on that dashboard that would become their accountability rank. Okay. >> I like it. >> Anything else?