001Thank you. >> Get started. To the flag of the United States of America and to the stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Good evening everyone. Get started. Spotlight do not have one in August. >> All right, we're going through conflict of interest statements. >> Mr. Brown, I believe we took care of those in January. We didn't move on past that. >> All right. Any public comments? >> There were no formal requests to speak. No one signed up this evening to do so. >> Move on to routine matters. Can I get a motion to approve the regular school board meeting July 14th, 2025 and the executive session July 14th, 2025? >> I move that we approve the minutes from the regular meeting in the executive session. >> Second. Second.
002All in favor say I. opposed to claims. Mr. Day, >> in your board packet are the regular payroll claims for this month. I am happy to answer any questions you have. Otherwise, I ask the board approve the claims as presented. >> Yeah. No questions, comments. Can I get a motion to approve the claim docets as presented? >> We approve the claims as submitted. >> Second. >> All favor say I. >> I. I. >> Same. Let's go into financial matters. uh in your forward packet this month, our actual June and July reports and some updates uh for for the year 2025 moving forward. Um we we started in the fiscal 2026 payments as you know we got our first one in July and those are based on estimates of ADM that the state has done for
003us and that we have looked at as you'll see later in the board packet ADM is is tracking just a tick below what the state estimated. So, as that number comes into sharper focus, um we will update the projections as it goes. Um I'd like to talk a little bit about the state aid. Um and note that, you know, now starting in July, it encompasses two line items. There's a state aid line item, which is typically what we've had in the past, but we've also had a curricular resource um set of revenue. In the 2025 legislative session, the state folded the curricular resource reimbursement process, no longer allowed us to charge fees to our students, um, and folded the curricular reimbursement resource process into state aid. Um, when they when they went down this road
004in 2023, they were adamant and promising that they would not ever do that and that lasted about two years. Um, but it's important to know that in the projections the state is giving out to everybody, the projections that they're talking about publicly, they talk about a 3% increase to to public school funding. It's not really a 3% increase. There's there's a large portion of that that's going to private schools in form of voucher. And they are counting what used to be a separate funding stream, curricular resource, which was specifically for curricular items that you were purchasing. into our per student state. So for us, they're predicting approximately $1.2 million of increase to our state aid in total. However, about $630,000 of that or nearly 60% of the increase is supposed to be set aside to
005pay for textbooks, iPads, those items. Um so just I split it out because it's easier for us to track. um it used to be in a totally separate fund altogether. We used to have a a textbook rental fund that then got turned into a curricular resource rental fund um where all of that stuff flowed kind of outside of the system. You know, obviously we we accounted for it. We kept track of it. We we got fees. We got some money from the state for our free reduced kids, but it was all separate from the education. Now, since it's lumped in there together, I think it's important to to note that while it looks like our revenue goes up and while it looks like our expenses go up, you can see that there's a big chunk
006of that which that increase which is attributable to that. And it's not money that's going to be available to to hire teachers or give teachers raises or increase the IIA count or or anything like that. It's it's it's set aside specifically for the purchase of of textbooks and Um, you know, we've talked a lot over the last couple of months. The impacts of SEA1 property tax reform, the the the budget um from from the state has impacted us. It just continues to be that story. We are healthy. We are going to have the resources we need in the education fund to continue to educate kids, educate them at a high level, provide lots of opportunities, compensate our teachers fairly and all of that. We're going to continue to need to find ways to be creative
007in in supporting our operations fund. It's going to take the brunt of the property tax reform um in the budget that we'll talk about later. We we're going to increase the amount of money that we're transferring from education to operations in that budget. It's needed in order to get that budget to tote. If not, you know, we we will go into the red in operations. So, We'll talk about that a little bit more in in that piece. I'm happy to talk about the charts that I've included for education operations through the first seven months of the year answering questions. Otherwise, this is information only. >> Nate, I will point out, excuse me, Mr. Day, this is one of the few years that you'll notice our beginning of year balance to the end of year will
008actually be decreasing the education fund. You're not seeing a larger transfer to cover some expenses. We typically have been transferring about 6% out of education to cover things in the operations fund. We're going to boost that to probably about seven and a half by projected. Still well below what the threshold the state says is excessive, which is 15%. But that is fewer dollars that we would have in that education fund. And and I would also like to note that the the the decrease of of about a million dollars is attributable almost exactly to the new revenue or sorry the new expense stream that we have had to take on the education fund to purchase curricular resources. That's an expense that was not on anybody's radar a year ago when we built this budget. So >>
009because the amount they appropriated for that didn't actually cover the cost. >> No. No. They they appropriated enough money that and that's what I'm using because they surprisingly don't split it out when they tell you how much money they're giving you. They tell you how much money you're getting for special ed and for career technical and for your academic achievement, but they don't split out the curricular resource. So, we're using their estimate, which is about $150 per student. Um, comes pretty close on our on our on our K6 needs. uh 78 is a deficit in high school particularly depending on on some of our more um expensive classes that kids are are really excited to take. It does not cover all the high school needs. >> Thank you budget. >> Yeah, >> my computer my
010I want to make sure we're on the budget part. I keep on going in and out for some reason. Yeah. Mine mine's a little slow coming up sometimes, >> right? Yeah. >> Yeah. So, um on the budget, I'm giving you very similar forms to what we've looked at in the past. The budget form one, which is a summary of all our budgeted expenditures. Uh budget form two, which is a a revenue other than property tax. Budget form three, which is the advertising or meeting dates for the hearing and the adoption, as well as some very basic explanation of potential tax levies. And then budget form 4B, which is a detailed listing of the 18-month budget by fund, and that is what we use to estimate our tax levies and rates. Um, after I review this
011with you tonight, I'm going to continue to work with our adviserss at Steve Policy Analytics to ensure that we're appropriate advertising our AV and resulting tax rates, particularly for the debt service fund. As you know, next year is the first year we're going to start to see some of those impacts, and I want to make sure that we're doing the right things to to to raise the money needed to pay our debt and obviously maximize the money that we can raise for operations fund. Um very this is this is out of the ordinary for the last four or five six years we do not have a certified 2026 A typically by this time of year we would have next year's AV in hand there are some counties that do there's a number of counties that
012don't we're one of last year we were we were about $2.45 four five billion dollars. Um I always lower whatever they tell us a little bit to make sure that you know as you know we advertise high because we can always cut back. I went ahead and lowered that an extra amount probably double what I normally would to account for the impacts of sea. Hopefully between now and the time I have to advertise this we get a better feel for what that AB is going to look like from from the state. Is that the amount that folks are typically kind of using that that guesstimate of the in >> So it's it's difficult because if you are a highly residential school corporation Mount Vernon vast majority of their property tax comes from from owner occupied
013homes they're going to take a bigger hit than we are. Um, so for for a school like us who is probably a higher mix of commercial properties that aren't going to be impacted quite as much by propert is probably typical. Um, I will also tell you that there's a there's a lot of, you know, kind of shooting into the dark on this. One of the reasons that that we're going to work policy analytics, they they actually have the resources to come in and do a partial bypartial review of our taxpayers and do some estimates based off of that. There will still be some curve balls because because there's nothing in the property tax card that says you're a veteran. There's nothing in the property tax card that necessarily has your age. Um, but there's estimates
014that we can use based upon some demographic information to help us get there. Um, those are the the veteran piece, the the the age piece, those are smaller impacts than the just kind of the right off the top, we're going to cut x% out of everybody's assessment. And that's the most important part to do. I just The board approves uh the request to advertise the 2026 budget notice of hearings and form three notice to taxpayers once we have it. >> Yeah. Can I get a motion to advertise the 2026 budget and notice of the hearing form of three notice to taxpayers? >> Make a motion we approve the request to advertise the 2026 budget notice of hearings and the form three notice to taxpayers once finalized. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >>
015All thank you. do that structural report. >> Got three different things for you today and actually Mr. Kerry's going to take the first one a little bit of a celebration. >> Yeah, happy to be presenting some good news. Our first item in the instruction report is our graduation rate. Talked about this number last month. Uh unofficially, the class of 242 for Greenfield Central High School is going to sit around 93.24%. you do know that we have a little over a month and a half to get some of those other students who are trying to cross the finish line. So, the number could go up, but that's preliminary where we are right now. Um, one point I want to mention, if you'll remember last year, it shows 89.05 for our graduation rate. It wasn't actually the
016true number, but this was the first year of the ascending waiver caps that the state put on our graduation rate. And so, I think that's what makes the number this past year for Mr. wall bomb in his his building so much more special because a number actually went up and he was still able to increase the graduation rate. So very proud of the work they're doing. I know he will uh be humble and say that it's a K12 success and it is but uh very proud of the work the high school is doing and it's a great great number to celebrate. >> The second item in that report is just a little bit of an update on the fourth grade transition. Mr. Marie. >> Yes. So, our uh teachers and principles worked very very hard
017beginning April of last school year to uh prepare for the transition uh for this school year for our fourth grade students. And um it was a lot of work and a lot of of of uh preparing for the change uh and getting all the little pieces that you didn't really think about, you know, uh ready to go for this school year. So uh the good news is I believe all of our uh dust has settled. The transition has gone very well. Uh our students are um have seen really no difference in fourth grade. So our teachers have adjusted well and we are moving in the right direction. So we still have some things that we are still working through. Uh just this differences between the tier 2 buildings and the tier one buildings, how we've
018done those in the past, but uh we're going to work through those as well. There's some minor things like on the report card as we put a score on there for citizenship. It looked different in our elementary schools versus what it looked like in our intermediate school. So just a little things like that to make sure that we're on the same page and Mr. Murray and the principles will quickly work through that. >> Thanks. The last thing we put in the instruction report is really an opportunity for us related to veterans and the way that we try to honor and take care of them here in our community. And I believe Robin can tell us about the Purple Star recognition. >> We would like to apply each of our schools to receive the Purple Star
019designation from the Indiana Department of Education. um they've been handing this designation out for about five years and it recognizes schools who show a significant commitment to um veterans and military families. The requirement for us is that we do have a celebration of veterans each year, which we are already doing. That there is a point of contact at each school who will have some virtual training about 90 minutes of training on um working with families of veterans and trying to help make sure that they have all the resources they need. U Mr. Thompson will create a website that will have resources for veterans and their families and and mil current active military families as well. Um, and part of the requirement in order for each of our schools to receive this would be that our
020school board adopt a resolution um, which has been included in your packet that um, shows a commitment to veterans and military families. Uh, finally in when we're looking people to fill jobs. If anybody indicates that they are a military or veteran that and they have the qualifica that meet the qualifications for the job that they would be guaranteed an interview if they do meet the qualifications of the job. Um we're willing to make all the commitments that we need to make and so we're asking and recommending tonight that you would approve that resolution so that we can move forward to um receive that designation. This really fits right in line with one of our four goals on community engagement. We're doing many of these things already. Some of these extra things we can do to
021to reach out to those in our community who have served. >> Right. Well, sounds good. Can I get a motion to pass the resolution publicize the support and commitment to the military military students and families? >> Move that we pass the resolution to publicize our support and commitment for military students. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. say thank you. >> Thank you >> to board policy recommendation second reading. >> Um I did have a a quick construction report back to that one. >> I didn't throw a bunch of pictures in there this month. Really the only thing that we've had we've had a little bit of dirt that we continue to move on the Frost property. There was a nice article that Mary Beth Vaughn did that we've attached here that
022actually went out throughout the state on the ISBA website this morning. So, just giving you an idea of what that update looks like. We're we're still moving along and the goal was to have most of that wrapped up before the end of the year. >> All right. Now, on to board policy recommendation, second >> and these are a second reading. So, there have been no changes to what you would have seen last month. A 100 non-discrimination and anti-harassment. B 100 board authority and philosophy. B150 board organization. B200 membership, C125 student attendance, academic engagement, truency prevention policy, and the C200 anti-bullying. Same uh notations underneath each of those as to why those were recommended by our team from Church Hill and Mantra. We uh there was a question that came up about the A100 on the
023the non-discrimination anti-harassment Yeah, I I think that the question I raised last month um after first reading on these was whether we had to adopt fully the language that's been added to A100 or whether we can simply indicate um you know we'll follow applicable law which is there's been a new law um passed this last session that has um a lot of rhetoric in for lack of a better term. Um it's not not the typical kind of legal language that we see um that we used to see coming out of our legislature. Um and I just I can't get behind the language as it's pulled into this policy. I don't have a problem with our policies generally following applicable law. Um understand the need for that. I I have struggled with this language since it
024was first presented to us. I don't see um I don't see a benefit to adding it to this policy and I can see potential for detriment and so I'm just I'm not in favor of the language as not just the language that was added but um there's language stricken um under the title n language again I understand where that is coming from uh on recommendation of our council but um personally I I just don't think the language is appropriate in our school board policies. >> Can I ask a a clarifying question for the board? >> In the first paragraph where it specifically says in accordance with Indiana code 22-9.3, if the language stopped right there, would that be more could you be more agreeable with that? >> I could. Yeah. I will just say that
025the other changes like the the title N language that I mentioned, I understand that those changes have been proposed, you know, even at the federal level. When I look at, for example, the strikeout of certain groups of people from protection against harassment, I just can't see a benefit to I I don't think that our our school corporation supports harassment of any type against any persons in our community. I don't see a benefit in um in narrowing, I guess, the language. These are your policies. We get recommendations from our legal team at church church hill trying to implement changes that come out of the courts or the general assembly or even federal law. Certainly it needs to be a policy that the five of you are okay with. So I've presented the recommendation there. I guess
026I will leave that to the board on how you move forward. I tend to agree. I mean, I think we probably need that language of in accordance with the code site, but I think I can get behind that no one should be harassed or discriminated against. >> Those are actually two separate sections of this. So, the and so maybe I'll just lay it out more clearly. So there is a portion of the changes presented here in A100 which is titled our non-discrimination and anti-harassment policy. Um the bulk of the changes on the first page relate to this um Indiana code 22-9.3 which is a new article that was passed this last uh legislative session um that uh defines what discrimination is um in terms of all kinds of context within um within our labor laws
027in the state. So it, as I understand it, it's just laying out what you can and cannot do from employment action, training, those sorts of things. I my issue with it is I think it's wholly unnecessary the language that they pulled into the law. I understand it was pulled into the law. I just don't see a need for this school board to reiterate that. I I think that over time we may see I don't know, we may see a shift, we may not. I think from a legal perspective, I would look to church and handle a mantrum, but I think that we would be covered if we said we were going to comply with that new article. Full stop. The other piece though is that the Title N um changes uh essentially, and I'm I'm
028not speaking from a lawyer lens because I don't know legally how these were enacted, but essentially carves out of groups that are protected under Title N groups uh related to gender identity and and u sexual orientation. And so that's the language that we're seeing stricken from our policy on our Title N procedures is to change the definition of what constitutes sexual harassment to not include those individuals that might be um might have previously been deemed to have been sexually harassed because they're in those groups and this conduct has happened. Now we're saying that that that they're not included within these protections. I don't see personally a benefit to to carving that group of protected people down. >> Is that specific to page seven? >> Um, yes. I mean, I'm not a scholar on this by
029any means, but you're saying if we undid the strike, essentially we are offering more protections than what the state or the federal level is doing, which I assume is okay. We as a school corporation provide more groups protection. Correct. Am I understanding correct? >> That would be my position. I I I don't know on the legality of that question, but that that's the position. Yes. But I'm trying to articulate. Thank you. >> I'm pretty good at trying to make tough things in few words. >> I don't believe it's the intent of church church hit on mantrum to >> exclude >> to exclude specific groups of people. I I don't they're their goal generally is to align policy with law. >> Completely understand that. And I'm not ascribing any motive or anything to them. I understand
030that that is almost certainly what drove that strike out. >> I guess is is there a motion someone wants to make in terms of editing that? I mean, I I would make a motion that we limit the changes in A100 on page one to simply indicate compliance with the new article Indiana code 22-9.3 and that we at page seven of this whole PDF, which I'm not sure what page of the policy is, >> um, that we not make the strike indicated there and otherwise adopt the policy as present. >> Well, we have a motion. Can I get us >> second? >> Can I get a second? All in favor say I. >> I. All post. >> Thanks. >> We will make those adjustments before they're posted. >> On to business information. Mr. D, >> we're
031actually, if you don't mind, go back to recommendation to restructure B6. >> Sorry. >> Are you going to run that, Nate? >> Pause for just a moment here. I do want to throw some slides up. to the screen benefit know how to do that there. >> Okay, I'm going to go through some some talking points. Craig, go ahead and move to the the next slide, please. Cory, we've been talking about the possibility of restructuring our great organization going back to the spring of 2024. You know, as one who's been here for 25 years, I've seen a lot of changes in our enrollment. We went through a a huge spike in enrollment through the 1990s and the first part of the new millennium, but starting in 2011, we've actually gone backward on our enrollment. Greenfield's not
032different from a lot of growing communities. You look at places like Fisers that are still growing, uh, but yet their school enrollment is declining a little bit. Greenfield's that same way. There's a lot of new housing around here. It just doesn't equal that same level of student enrollment. So, we were noticing that. We had done some demographic studies on the light level, some things that we could do that were really inexpensive. We thought it was time to bring in Dr. McKibben to give us his perspective. If you remember, he did present to the board and really gave his projections looking out into the next 10 years. And basically, he told us we're likely going to be pretty level with where we are right now. Since his projection, we've had ADM last year was spot on
033with what he told us it was going to be. This year's ADM's also in line with that. So, following the work that Dr. McKimman did and the administrator assistance group that came in looked at our facilities and gave us some ideas for how we might be a little bit more uh efficient, how we might be a little bit more effective with our programming. That kind of led to a work session we had in January of 2025 where we began to to to really brainstorm how we might move forward to meet some goals that we had related to efficiency achievement uh specifically some achievement at the intermediate level and uh creating more space for preschool. I I remind this group that we've gone from two classrooms in 2014 to 10 classrooms currently about 40 students to
034196 students as of today. After that work session, we did hire uh Jim Snap from Higher Achievement to look at some of the proposals we had talked about in terms of restructuring. We overlaid those with some input from Terry Lancer and his team about some some basic costs. Greg, go ahead and move up from there. Clearly, last spring we took a big step because everything that we had looked at moving forward had us putting our fourth grade students back into the elementary schools. You know, we certainly looked at ideas of moving two intermediate schools together. We had looked at the idea of putting sixth grade at the junior high school. We had taken an idea of different facilities to use as the loan preschool for the corporation. Again, moving fourth graders seemed like the right
035thing to do for us in any of those steps. And I would tell you, as Mr. Marine mentioned just about 10 minutes ago, that's actually gone very well for us. Unbeknownst to us, as we were were having those conversations, the general assembly made a number of changes that really impact schools. School funding on the education fund side. we're going to have less dollars coming in on the operation side that we're going to have to find ways to to cover those costs. And the third piece of that for school construction, there are a lot more steps to follow, a lot more constraints in school construction now versus what we've done in the past. So, Greg, go back just a little bit. We do still have authority to borrow. Last year in the fall, we had borrowed
036$19 million. Um, we had spent have we're in the process of spending about five million of that for some upgrades to the the Frost property with the the tennis courts, getting utilities over there, parking lot. Uh, we still have some authority to do some of these changes that that we're considering right now. You go ahead and move. I go back to those three big ideas we've been looking at for the last year and a half. Creating more effective and efficient space for preschool specific looking at our students in grades four, five, and six. Are there some things we can do to better serve them? For those who've been at Greenfield Center for a long time, prior to 2010, when we moved to intermediate schools, our sixth grade students had a lot more opportunities than they
037have today, specifically with co-curricular opportunities, extracurricular opportunities, high ability classrooms, and we had the numbers to do some things a little bit differently for our students with uh disabilities. That third goal there, clearly we need to find operational efficiencies as Mr. gave you in the finance report report earlier today. Education fund dollars are tighter than they've they've ever been. We find ourselves in a a good place because we've made a lot of good decisions over the last couple of decades to put us there. You don't want to be deficit spending out of the education fund year after year though as we look to our future. So, we need to find some efficiencies there. At the same time, uh, liability insurance, utility costs are going to be there. We've got to keep our facilities safe and
038clean. So, finding efficiencies very important to us compared to our peers in the state at about 4,200 students. We have a lot more facilities than most places. Case in point, let's use the round number 4,200 students. South Madison to the north of us has almost the same number of students we have in five buildings. We have eight. Our peers at Mount Vernon have about 500 more students than we have. They do that in six buildings. We do that in eight. And for places that are doing that in eight facilities, you look at places like Zansville or Westfield that do that in eight or nine that have eight or 10 thousand students. So we're quite the outlier there. So we don't get to realize a lot of those operational efficiencies. Greg, go ahead and go to
039the next one. So where do we go from here? I already referenced we've taken a look at different ways to to gain some efficiencies, whether that's combining intermediate schools, putting sixth grade at uh the junior high school. The idea of repurposing some of our facilities, uh where we put those that early childhood center. Right now we're we're hopping between three different sites in addition to a child care center making that a fourth site. It's tough to to spread our staff and lose a lot of efficiencies there. So So where do we go from here? Craig, go ahead. Well, I think you're going to hear from me this evening as we've talked about this over the last 18 months and we've gathered all this information. I do think we need to take a strong look at
040going down to three K4 schools. We have four currently. I believe moving our two intermediate schools from one to two sites certainly helps us in gaining some efficiencies uh while keeping our junior high and high school as they are for now. Seems like Harris by also utilizing portions of GIS could become a larger elementary school. Instead of having two schools that are 310 370, having one large elementary school on that site would allow us to gain a lot of efficiencies with staffing. Uh particular on the related art side of things. You also wouldn't have some really small class sizes or some really large class sizes in that setting. Certainly the studies we've looked at, we looked at both um GIS and MIS for the intermediate school. GIS certainly could have been used could be used
041for that. It just doesn't allow us to have that larger elementary school in town to gain that efficiency and lose that site. Walking the halls of Maxwell right now, I can tell you we have 24 classrooms that are 900 square feet that have windows to the outside. Right now we have 12 classrooms in sixth grade, 12 classrooms in fifth grade. Technically, we could have all of our students up there right now uh making no adjustments to that building. However, if we were to grow at all, we would not have 900 foot classrooms that have windows. We have some rooms in the interior part of the building that could be used shortterm, but that's why you've heard a recommendation from you to consider adding a few classrooms up there. We believe by doing that um we
042could then convert by moving the Weston students to Harris, we could convert the current Weston site to an early childhood center. So instead of having preschool at three different sites, we could have it at one site and at some point even uh move the child care to that site. Not something we would look forward to doing right away, but some point in the future again to minimize our footprint and gain some efficiencies. I think we've talked a lot about this. Uh we continue to look at the most updated numbers on that in terms of enrollment and cost space that's available. I think it's it's the next right step for us. There's some things that we could do with the authority we already have to borrow. Uh we would certainly need some input from our our
043partners at Stifel and ICE Miller to ensure that we meet all the new criteria for taking out a loan through either a bond or a lease agreement and just following the steps for construction in general. We're go and move to the next one. The most recent cost we've looked at with Terry Lancer and his team for construction. This is on three different sites. This would be adding a few classrooms, actually four classrooms at at Maxwell. This would be renovating the West site to meet the needs of preschool students, i.e. having restrooms in those classrooms while also uh making some adjustments at the Harris GIS site to ensure that we have enough kindergarten spaces there. Classrooms with restrooms in them and some light uh renovation to some spaces that would no longer be needed, things such
044as science rooms that were there for seventh and eighth grade students. That hard construction cost at the last estimate was right just a little bit over $6 million. And typically speaking, we look at about 25% for soft cost and that cost of issuance. Taking that to seven and three4 million to make that happen. Greg, if you'd move on to that last slide. Clearly, I said we have the authority for for more than that. 13 and a half million. We have a number of of needs that we can't meet out of our operations fund alone. things that we have typically taken money out in general obligation bonds. This is a list of things that we compiled for you back in the spring, things that still need to be done. You know, the parking lots, the roofs,
045boilers, chillers to maintain those, those all have really large price tags to them. As well as, as we found out at the high school last year, even upgrades to to restrooms, quite a big cost to that. And then lastly, there certainly is a a want on there that at some point in the future, we would like to to do some things to that frost property as we look to to the future. In summary, we have a lot more needs than we're going to be able to take care of with what we have the authority to borrow. So really, as I'm thinking about those next steps, really asking the board to to kind of speak into this in terms of if if you'd like us to continue to move forward in that direction. I believe we
046we need to move forward too. >> I think you know when you look at our I don't want to call it a wish list because there a need there a lot of needs >> um and while you know taking good care of our our HVAC systems etc does have benefits in terms of not having catastrophic costs later. This plan is the one is the one place where we're really actually trying to capture efficiency. So, we're really trying to be smart about an intentional investment. Yes. But it's an investment in efficiency and potential savings down the road. So, I think it makes sense. when you commented on the class sizes and we look at a senior class that's around 377 and kindergarten class that's 230. I >> I think that we have to do something to
047be more efficient with guard spaces. >> Yeah, our smallest two cohorts are kindergarten and first grade class, the 230 and the the 270. Though our cohorts do tend to grow over time with us, we've never started, I shouldn't say never. It's been 30 years since we've had a kindergarten that low. Greg, I think there's one more slide on there. Terms of of a construction, a timeline. Clearly, the board gave us authority to enter into a relationship with Terry Lancer from Lancer and Associates in the July board meeting. And it typically takes about six months to to create the those designs for for the multiple settings. Typical takes a month. Uh and then construction a year to a year and a half. We could complete construction on all three of those sites three4 whatever consider the
048GIS Harris site by the fall of 2027. That being said, we could certainly make a move with the intermediate school sooner than that. I would like to bring more information back to you uh after speaking with our our intermediate school staff. I can tell you they're already having conversations about a day in the future when we would likely be together anyway, but we would love to come back with some more information about what that that likelihood would be to make that happen even quicker. So, so I guess what I'm asking for here is is the board okay with us continuing this trek having conversation with Steel Ice Miller about those next steps >> as well as Mr. Straw helping us with some of that. >> We need to make a motion and motion. >> Yes,
049please. >> Can I get a motion to approve the board grants permission to administration team work with and I smell Further identify and outline necessary steps. >> Ready? I move the board administrative team work with seful and ice miller to further identify necessary steps to complete the research. [Laughter] >> There was a first and second. >> Thanks, John. >> Whatever. It's my hearing. >> Yeah, it's your hearing. All right. >> What? >> Thanks, Dr. Yeah. All right. Now, on to business information. >> Uh, yes. I have one item under business information. Um, business style on the food service team has asked to revisit F1 176, which is a food service policy, unpaid meals. I know this is kind of out of the rotation with some of our other policies, but seeing this as a federal
050policy that's that kind of comes through different authorization um that's why it's coming here. Um really we want to look at one pretty simple one which is renaming um the group of students from a K12 school to a districtwide. We we are prek now and as we heard earlier pretty sizable prek operation where we have kids participating in our meals. Um, so we want to move to districtwide there. Um, and I know this is an area that we've talked about, gosh, off and on now for a a couple years about our past to do bills, unpaid meal bills. We're finding with with a lot of the efforts we've made around the feed future fund and making sure that we have people um, you know, assisting people if they do qualify, getting proper forms filled out,
051stuff like that. Our unpaid meal um, piece has gone has gone down. And so instead of doing this monthly, which incurs a fair amount of manpower, you know, people power and and time, just doing it quarterly. And that would allow us to continue to stay on top of, you know, the most egregious out, you know, past due bills, but really in recognition of the fact that there's not that many of them anymore. This is a first reading. We'll come back to you next month. There's anything that you'd like to see changed or updated, let me know. Thank you. >> I just want to say I think it it's a real testament to to the efforts of um of Miss Stout and and others and our community that those numbers have dropped the way that they
052have. I think when we talked about some of the policy changes, we were worried that they might actually go the other direction and it's really not been that. So, I'm really excited to see that. >> Absolutely. some great proactive work for our food service department, our kitchen managers, our schools, but also our community has been very supportive of what's going on there and making sure that the kids who are in need who sometimes fall through the cracks get the support they need. >> On to the preliminary enrollments. kind of referenced this a little bit earlier that what I put in your board packet on Thursday when we load that would have been a little higher than what I gave you a hard copy of earlier as we clean up those numbers from the the high
053school I feel like I say this every year but just so it doesn't get lost we can clean up our numbers K8 pretty quickly it takes us a while to clean our high school numbers because we're not going to drop students out of our cohort until we know where they've gone that that would drastically impact our graduation rate if we had a number of people just hanging out there that we dropped out of uh out of our system. But uh many thanks to Mr. Graham and Mr. Wbomb and their team for for taking care of that. Obviously, we hate to see a drop like that, but three to four classes drop a little bit, but for whatever reason, we actually picked up a number of of seniors this year. So, they want to be here
054to be a part of something great that's happening at our high school. >> But those are preliminary at this point. Of course, the state does our education fund funding based on on this number and technically that's not the official number till October 3rd. So, we'll have more information for you about that September meeting. >> We move on to the service agreement recommendation. >> This is one of those annual things that the board needs to to approve. Within special education, we often have what you would call excessive cost. For some students, that could be sending a student to an outofstate facility because their needs are are really high. Or it could be something that's even more local, but those costs are are excessive. The state allows us to apply for funds. We can't do that without
055the board's permission to to seek that. That form has only changed in that uh we did update the logo in the upper right hand corner. Not the same as what you seen last year. >> Yeah. I have no questions or comments. Can I get a motion to approve the special education access costs service agreement as presented? >> I move that we approve the SBC service agreement as presented. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. oppos. >> Thank you. >> To board policy recommendations for >> Okay. And again, these are the five that came out of our partnership with church church head on Nantrum based on some changes in laws at the state and federal level. You have C225, parental access to instructional materials and surveys. C425, student suicide prevention and awareness. D200, standard of
056care and supervision of students. D250, teacher appreciation grant. Notice that is a deletion since that no longer exists. And then D325, personal background checks and mandatory reporting. Similar to our normal case, I've listed why that recommendation is in place there. And of course, you would see the the language stricken or a different color. We plan to bring that back to you next month for a second rating, but I'm happy to take any questions you have after your first glimpse at it. >> Can you explain the the removal of the teacher appreciation grant? I know your explanation said it would now be handled like a traditional grant with a competitive application process. Is that >> that sounds quite >> that is a loaded question right now because uh for years uh probably close to a decade
057the state has given us money in what they call a teacher appreciation grant and it's been equivalent to about $500 for our teachers who are returning from last year and they were effective in their rating. Those that were highly effective, the state said it had to be at least 25% more than that. So that the state tweaked that quite a bit over the years, but Nate, you're gonna have to help me. Is that was roughly about is under $200,000. >> Yeah. Yeah, it was right around $200,000 for us the last last few years. >> Okay. The state has totally done away with that as we know it. Now, it is a competitive grant and a school corporation cannot submit more than 20% of their teachers for it. There are three different categories associated with it.
058One of those is a $7,500. Help me here. What are the other two? >> 5,000 or 3500. >> So, this is an interesting topic because we're hearing from some of our peers that they don't want to apply for it because they feel like it is pitting teachers against one another. We have more than 20% of our teachers that are rated as highly effective. >> Sure. So, how you go about selecting which ones you're applying for, but at the same point, nobody wants to be that corporation that tells the state, "We don't want your money." >> So, we're all trying to figure out how how to make that work. Um, I don't have a a good answer for you right now. I do I will tell you we're working on that in terms of who we're
059going to how we're going to determine what that process looks like. What this is doing is just wiping out the tag as we know it. because about this time of year we had to submit our policy to the state. So we've got some time to work on that. >> Some guidance. >> COE will have guidance by September 1st. So >> I wish I had a better answer for you on that what it's going to look like, but we are waiting on that guidance. >> We'll move on to overnight out of state field trips. We just have one in here and that is from our cheering coach Christy Kerry requesting to take the team to Walt Disney World February 4th through the 9th to the cheerleading nationals. Mrs. Kerry understands what expectations we would have for
060an overnight state field trip. I have no qualms in making that recommendation. Get a motion to approve the overnight field trip. >> I move that we approve the overnight trip. >> Second. >> All second. All in favor say I. >> I. >> To employment recommendation resations. >> Okay. Me of absences. Jody Haywood, Taylor Stout, Logan Web. Certified recommendations. I believe we have a few of them here today. So don't let me forget those. We have Noah Barnes, Rhonda Hawquist, Heather Cookie, Marilyn Tiffany Johnson, Olivia L, Nathan Letterman, Mara Oiler, and Courtney Robinson. Certified resignations, Kim Distl, Don Joselyn, Carrie McLaren, Laura Parker, Rodonna Warner, and Josh Welch. And then the ECA recommendation, Zack Archbold, and Lisa Bham, Kirk Davenport, Emily Dickerson, Matt Dickerson Jr., Emily Deer, Reed Dietrich, Taylor Forner, Shirley Fox, Mikey Gerie, Nicole
061Queen, Shelby Goal, Max Holtz, Courtney Majors, Matt McConnell, Caleb Mandelle, Derek Owen, Bob Scriber, Jason Scriber, and on that last page, Amanda Shinoski, Chris Tatum, Eric Todd, and Brandon Winkle ask that the board approve the recommendation as presented. And of course, we would bring anyone that we hired back to you at the next regular schedule board meeting. >> I got a motion to approve the personnel report as presented. >> Make a motion we approve the personnel report as presented as well as give permission to hire as needed for the 2526 school year. >> All in favor say I. >> I say >> I do have a um yes. >> Good evening. I'm excited to introduce you to Mr. Noah Barnes. He comes to us um after teaching sixth grade at Connorsville and will be starting
062later this month to teach a fifth grade math and science class at Maxwell. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. I'm Sarah Gurley, principal at Harris Elementary, and I'm pleased to present to you Miss Sophie Duncan. Sophie is currently teaching third grade with us at Harris. She was hired over the summer. She um has taught in Indiana third grade and she most recently taught in the state of Utah, also taught third grade. She's in her third year and she's off to a great start and we're lucky to have her here. Thanks for welcoming her. >> Okay, let's go on to 25 coach reviews out of state. >> These would be your out of unit coaches. the same that you would have had last month. So, this is second reading for baseball. Mitch Gibson, softball, Gary Roberts,
063men's track, Aaron Smith, women's track, Michael Foster, men's golf, William Henderson, and women's tennis, Michael Turpin. These are all coaches from last year. You would have seen the reports from Mr. Manning last month. Recommend approval. >> No questions, comments. Can I get a motion to approve the approve the recommendations as presented? I move that we approve the coaching recommendations as presented. >> Second. All in favor say I. >> Anything else? >> Nothing else this evening. >> We'll move right along to important dates. Uh Labor Day September 1st 20.5. No school regular school board meeting Monday September the 8th. Uh e-learning day will be September the 9th. Uh annual fall conference is September the 15th through the 16th. Future topics will be the 26 uh public hearing uh school improvement plans. October school board meeting will
064be October the 20th collective bargaining agreement. If we don't have anything else, can I get a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> So move second. >> All in favor say I. >> Thank you.