001Let's call the meeting to order. Have a moment of silence. Thank you. Pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with and justice for all. I'll call our roll tonight. Mr. Williams is is absent. I am present. Mr. Heater. Present. Ms. Barnes-Griffith, I believe is on her way. En route. Uh Mr. Irwin. Present. Mr. Lowe. Present. Ms. Washburn. Present. All right. Group A. Um Dr. Reynolds. All right. >> You're up. All right. Thank you. Um we'll move uh move quickly tonight. I know we started just a little late, but uh just have a few celebrations I'd like to uh like to mention to everybody. Um first, our high school bands performed this weekend um at New Castle
002at the Indiana State School Music Association um contest. We have a a group two and a group one band, so those are the two highest or highest divisions for our um kids to perform in, and um both received gold with distinction, so that means they performed at some of the highest level and and received the highest um award or rating in the sight-reading division, which is part of part of how they do that. So, very proud of those guys, and they were they were fantastic. Katie Katie was there, and and they were just just wonderful. Um keeping with Central, uh we had the Muncie Relays. Uh I'm still trying to get the history, but I I believe it's the oldest relay oldest track meet continuous track meet in Indiana with um 87 years, I believe,
003um of hosting that event. I met George Taylor. He was Do you Does anybody know Everybody knows George Taylor? So, George Taylor, he was also my um middle school PE teacher. He he was the starter. That's right. I I I I thought he was old when I was in middle school. >> I hope he's not listening. >> However, I think he was probably my age. Um, but he is he um, officiated 60 of the 87 Muncie Relays. >> Wow. Um, I'm going to work with Andy. I want to I want to write a story on him. He started working for the Muncie Community Schools in 1960. Retired in 2002. And it was the starter. I I have with my boys uh, one of my youngest son still running, I see him at all kinds of
004track meets and he turns 90 next month. He is fantastic. Sharp sharp. Does a wonderful job and just walking up and down the track and doing all those pieces. But anyway, he was at the Muncie Relays on Saturday. The the boys had a um, had the racing that day, came in first. We had lots of individual champions and the boys won the Muncie Relays. Just super proud of how hard they're working in the in the progress they're making as a team. Um, which was a the weather was fantastic, which was a whole lot better than last Saturday when we were we the boys were at the Marion Relays, the ladies were at Delta and it was miserable. But again, just a great opportunity to see our kids perform and do it do terrific. Um, I
005got a letter from the Indiana State School Music Association yesterday recognizing the middle Northside Middle School Band and Choir for receiving the All Music Award. So, the All Music Award is only given out when you participate in every um, middle school opportunity, solo and ensemble, concert band and jazz band festival for both both organizations and receive gold ratings at those at those events. So, that did that and they were honored with the All Music Award. So, just a tremendous honor. I don't have the numbers of our middle schools and how many people get that award, but certainly proud of of those students. And our e-sports team at Northside Middle School competed at the arena, the new facility there just off of 69 in Fishers. That's I say Fishers, right? Is that technically Fishers? Fishers area.
006They competed there this weekend in the middle school state uh e-sports meet um participating in Marvel Rivals division, and they ended up winning the state championship. So, just I went over today and congratulated all those teachers at Northside just just tremendous work and have some fun plans for the students coming up. So, just wanted to give them another shout-out. And then lastly, I mentioned it last last meeting, but our enrollments open. So, make sure you're encouraging your family and friends to get enrolled so we can be prepared for um for your student as they show up next year for the um 26-27 school year, but that window's open. Super easy to do online. Um just a a few minutes if you're new to the district and even fewer minutes if you are um a returning
007student. So, just making sure those those forms are up to date, but I I think that is it for me. Thank you. Questions? All right, moving right along. Mr. Graham? Yeah, thanks Dr. O'Neal and thanks uh board members for uh giving me a second to just to kind of highlight and go through some of our summer school opportunities this summer just to keep you informed of what is going on. Uh school doesn't stop uh May 22nd. Keeps on keeps on going pretty much uh all summer until we start again in August. So, um looking first at our elementary programs, uh, we have our annual robotics camp at Southside. Um, it's in our STEM room there, our Project Lead the Way room there at Southside. Uh, it's just a one-week camp. We've hosted that traditionally, uh,
008over the last many many years. Um, I read 2 is a second-grade camp that was started last year, uh, under the state law that required, uh, second-graders that did not pass, uh, I read as a second-grader, they get to take it again, and we're getting ready to do that, uh, here in May. Uh, but if they they don't score on track, they're far below or they're below where they should be as a second-grader, they're required to attend or be offered to attend a summer school program. So, we will have a week, uh, of that after, uh, school is out for our second-graders. Uh, our third-graders are in the same boat. Uh, they have to They actually have to take a third assessment in the summer, getting ready to take our second one in May, but
009our third-graders will have, uh, their summer school out at Camp Adventure, doing something a little different with them this year. Uh, they will go out to Camp Adventure in the morning and, uh, have, uh, literacy instruction, and then the afternoon will be more of, uh, what we've seen a traditional Camp Adventure summer school camp, where there's activities in them. Trying to make that more of an event for them and not just a mandatory you have to come and learn reading and reading kind of skills for half a day and then go home. So, looking to do something different, uh, with that group this year of third-graders, and theirs will be a two-week camp there in June. Uh, that's the traditional length of the the third-grade Camp Adventure. Fourth and fifth grade, uh, will have a
010literacy camp for 2 weeks out at Camp Adventure. Uh, we've traditionally done that in July. Uh, we're going to move that to June and have an entire June camp out at Camp Adventure that'll run basically the entire length of June. Uh, they'll do some literacy activities in the morning but then also have some STEM activities and some different uh, learning activities at Camp Adventure in the afternoon where they they fish and they bring in different speakers and different activities for them as well. And then finally for our elementary program, I just met with our uh, uh, English learning teachers today as we're working on planning out. We're going to do a kickoff camp for them in July that kind of gets them ready to start the school year. That'll be a three-week camp at Westview
011uh, for our elementary uh, kids. That's a half half-day program there. Any questions on elementary programs? Do we bus? We do. We bus We bus all of these students uh, to all of these uh, activities. So, they sure do. So, working with Matt and Auxilio and transportation now on building those lists and getting that all ready cuz it's a fairly quick turnaround for some of them especially when you're looking at the I Read kids. If they they score well, then they drop off our list. If they don't, we will transport them to to the summer activities. Middle school, we just have a few uh, programs for them. We have a English learners program in the afternoons at Westview. Uh, again, kickoff in July. We're working on planning that uh, today. So, I've elementary in the
012morning for the English learners and uh, the secondary students middle school and high school in the afternoon. Uh, middle school kids uh, at least going into sixth grade can participate in robotics camp. So, they'll be in in there with some of the elementary kiddos. Uh, and then we have our orientation camps, our Panther Camp and Titan orientation camp, which is our incoming sixth graders, which get them ready. Uh it's kind of a a one-week half-day jump start at each of our middle schools. Kind of gets them oriented to what middle school is like, and they do some different activities there. Uh and you know, you have several different elementary schools feeding into one middle school, so you get to meet and uh you know, work with new students. So, kids that uh they they probably
013don't know from other elementary schools coming in uh to that middle school, they get to spend a week with them, and that's usually a very well-attended uh camp as they get ready for that. Usually usually have uh even at Northside uh 100 uh you know, half of the elementary kiddos, and even at Southside about half of the kids show up for that that camp, that orientation camp. Those are We've done those for for many years now, so. And then finally, our high school has some uh traditional programs that we've had, and then some new programs. So, the new program is our freshman uh in-person uh summer school core course um offerings. We've not had any in-person uh offerings for summer school for for many, many years. Um so our freshmen that have not as achieved
014their credits in their algebra, biology, English, and geography, history of the world, their social studies course, will have an opportunity to finish those credits in a month-long summer school. So, live-taught uh teachers from those areas will go in and uh teach and try to recover these credits for students that have not earned them either first semester or second semester. Um that's really a strategy that our uh partnership through Freshman Academy with the Center for High School Success has instituted um in a way to keep our freshmen on track because if they are on track at the end of their freshman year, the chances, the research says, for them graduating is is through the roof. So, um, our graduation rates will, I think, greatly, uh, see a benefit of keeping all of our freshmen on track.
015And we're at some of our higher level of freshmen on track than we've had recently, I think, due to the freshman academy now. So, this is a way to even capture even more students and keep them on track at the end of their freshman year. So, pretty excited about that, uh, opportunity at Central this summer. Uh, we have our traditional online academy, which we've had, uh, to recover some credits for our older kids, uh, maybe take a course that they can't fit into their schedule. Um, that will, uh, those are kind of online. They'll come in, but they'll do a lot of their instruction online through, uh, our our, um, credit recovery teachers. Do have our English learners at Westview in the afternoon with the middle school kids. And then, Muncie Central also offers a
016an orientation camp for incoming freshmen. Again, another very well-attended, uh, camp. Uh, they bring those in, uh, for a full-day event on August 3rd, about 6 hours. They do some different, uh, orientation activities for the incoming freshmen, just like we do our sixth graders at our middle school. Any questions on the high school programs? And then, finally, we have lots of community partner programs in our buildings that use our buildings. We have the YMCA that will do a, uh, camp all summer long at Grissom and Northview. Believe the Northview one may be full. I think there still are spots at at Grissom. Uh, Longfellow uh, will host an MP3 program over the summer. Uh, the Boys & Girls Club hosts a, uh, program for all of our Muncie Community School students at East Washington. And
017then we just have a various uh other camps and different church offerings, math camps through Ball State, through different partners. We have a just a variety of other camps that we promote out to our to our students on our website and in our in our principal Sunday messages and just different ways to get that those words out to get our kids signed up for all those different activities over the summer. And so you can go through and check these out online now. They're they're open. They're live. You can click on those. And they're all interactive. You click on what uh what interests you. You can then then go down to the particular camp that interests you and it will give you all the information you need to you need to know to to get enrolled
018or have additional information. Do we send a flyer home with the kiddos the last day of school informing the parents of this opportunity? >> uh we have not sent because there's so many, we usually send them a Parent Square notification. >> It's in Parent Square. Okay. >> Yeah. We'll send Okay. There are some specific >> flyers start to come in. Like the English learners, that's a specific flyer that'll go home because they they need a little That's the only group though, I think, that we send a specific flyer home. They need a little more visual uh assistance in signing up for camp than maybe uh the Parent Square and different things. So, and our EL teachers work directly with those families with that information. Any questions about our summer school offerings? Very good. Thank you.
019All the options very helpful. All right. Area Career Center, Mr. Beasley. Wait. Wait, I thought I thought you were the the bus driver. I think I I saw you yesterday driving >> we >> one of the Mac vehicles. >> Miss Ward wear many hats, don't we, Miss Ward? Yeah, sometimes it's bus driver. Yeah, we were busting uh yesterday we had some kids go down to Ivy Tech for some certification testing. So, yeah, I got to get behind one of the mini buses and everyone made it there safely. So, that was good. We were on time. It was It was a good day. So, >> 10 and 2. I was like, Yeah, we're heading very carefully. Yeah, oh yeah. That's right. Stopping at all the railroad tracks, opening the door, you know, minding the rules. So,
020um well, thank you and and good evening. It's my pleasure to be here to represent the Muncie Area Career Center and give you a brief overview of what we're doing this year, what we're looking forward to next year. Obviously, this first slide just kind of a reminder that at the career center we do have, you know, two sides, two elements to our programming, career and tech ed for our high school juniors and seniors, and then also our adult education programming uh for our adult learners, focusing on high school equivalency, career certifications, and also ELL programming. Um give you kind of a quick snapshot of where we are this year at the career center. So, we do have 15 uh career pathways. Um we do have 10 of those pathways right now lead to certificates or
021technical certificates uh through Ivy Tech Community College. And so, those are post-secondary credentials. So, one of the things that we talk about sometimes is as we especially as we start talking about the new diploma seals, you'll hear us talking about credentials of value, post-secondary credentials like certificates, technical certificates, associate's degrees, of course. Those types of things are considered credentials of value uh by the state. And so, we try to make sure that wherever possible our programming is aligned where students are able to earn those. They earn them by compiling stackable college credits. So in most cases that's through dual credit and in in a number of our programs it's through a combination of dual credit in the first year where our instructors are providing the college credit and then dual enrollment the second year where
022the students are actually enrolled at classes at Ivy Tech most often where they're earning college credit from those instructors. But this year we do have 157 students who are actually eligible to participate in Ivy Tech's graduation ceremony on May 9th. So we're very excited about that. Those numbers have have continued to move up each year as as we've added again these dual enrollment opportunities for our students so that they can complete those college courses to attain CTs and TCs. Also so all pathways right now do include the opportunity to earn at least nine college credits. So in most cases that's three college classes and then also industry recognized certifications. So those industry recognized certifications so for instance for our testing the other day for you know certified nursing assistant AWS welding those types of certs
023those are also on the credentials of value list. So when we start talking again about those diploma seals and how we can help our students here in Muncie and in the other high schools we serve to attain diploma seals we're looking at both certificates and technical certificates but also industry certifications where they typically have to pass a test or a series of tests to earn that that credential. And we have those opportunities in all of our programs. As you may know work-based learning is becoming more and more of an emphasis here in Indiana and so we do we have been working hard to create more internship opportunities for our students. So this year at the Career Center we did have 172 of our students were completing internships with external partners. We have 73 employer partners
024offering those those internships. Uh Muncie Community Schools is actually a host of a number of our interns in different areas, including early childhood education. We've also had some some maintenance in the HVAC and electrical areas, working with our with our folks here in the school system, which has been a great chance for our kids to get out there. But again, really trying to get our kids out in the real world more. That's been a traditional part of some of our programs, including dental careers, again, pre-nursing, things like that. But we're trying Our goal is for every program to offer the opportunity for students to have extended work-based learning opportunities. And we're kind of chipping away at that each year by adding more and more options for students. And then we also have 112 students that
025are that are in what we call embedded internships. That would be our carpentry and our electrical program, where our students go out and and build and wire a house each year. That is That again, that's still an internship, but it's considered an embedded work-based learning experience. Is it possible we'll get a list of those 73 local employers, so if we run into them, we can thank them? Of course. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, very good idea. Actually, yeah. No, yeah. Yeah, Dr. Reynolds and I Dr. Reynolds shared an idea that we were talking about recently for how to highlight those employer partners, because we do really appreciate cuz it's it's a it is a process for them to engage in, right? And and it's work on their end. And so we do want to make sure that
026we're recognizing and appreciating that through various ways. One of the most was Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we've talked about even like a board up here out front, recognizing all our employer partners for the career center as well as for Muncie Central. And we would be all for that, absolutely. Um So enrollment trends. So this just shows you ever since I think 2019-2020, our enrollment we continue to increase enrollment, which is which is great. Our our sending high schools have continued to support our programming and the counseling departments, the administrators at those high schools are continuing to encourage students to pursue career pathways through through the Muncie Area Career Center. Um we do have So right now for next year we have 654 applicants. That number we will lose some of those between now and when
027we start school in August, but we hope to not lose very many. Um and and have been working on figuring out ways where we can serve those those kids who want to come to the career center. Um and so uh couple kind of >> Before you leave the numbers, is there such a thing as capacity limitation? So you got 654? >> Yeah. Yeah. So there is. Yeah. Um and so but we like to push that. We like to really push that. Um and so the ways historically we've been able to do that over the last several years um dual enrollment has been a big help for us where where again where maybe the first year program is here at the career center, the second year is with Ivy Tech. And so working with them to
028provide those additional classes and those additional instructors. Um but I'll talk on the next slide two about a couple things that we're doing right now. Um one of the things that changed this year uh was early childhood. So early childhood used to be in-house here at the career center. This year we actually transitioned that to a dual enrollment program through Ivy Tech. Um and it's also an apprenticeship. So the students in that program get opportunities to have paid work experiences. Um and so uh but again that takes them out of our building, right? And and this year but I will say it doesn't take them out of Muncie Community Schools cuz this year the classroom was actually housed at Southview Elementary. So Dr. Smitherman and her team have been fantastic hosting that group. It's been
029really great for our kids because they can have class there but then they can also work right down the hall. They can go work in the preschool classrooms and the kindergarten classrooms while they're on site there. So, so again, that has that has worked really well, but that's an example of how we've tried to increase that capacity. Another kind of that first bullet point there, we talk about the carpentry and electrical programs. This year have built two houses. We were very fortunate to develop a partnership with Habitat for Humanity here in Muncie to build a house for them this year, and we hope to do that at least two more years with Habitat. So, we have a private builder that we built a house for, and then we also have Habitat. But again, that allows
030us to increase our capacity in carpentry and electrical because we have more work-based learning experiences for those kids to get out and work on. Another option for increasing capacity has to do with what we've done this year with ag, and I think we will do with other programs in the future. Our consortium of superintendents has been very supportive of this, and I think it's a great idea. We started with some agriculture pathways because high schools offer CTE programs, and Delta and Monroe Central specifically offer certain agriculture pathways that we don't offer, and we're really not in a position to just start an ag program, especially if we have you know, really good ag programs at the high schools. But then students from other high schools want to study ag. And you know, historically it might
031be okay, well, that means the career center is going to create an ag program. But instead of doing that, what we're trying to do now is to open up programs that are based at high schools, but open them up to all 12 of our sending schools. And so, in that type of model, the MAC really serves as as a facilitator for that. Um enrollment the application and enrollment process of getting kids, say from a Yorktown, connected to an opportunity at Monroe Central. Um and so, this is our first year doing that, and we've done it again with the agriculture pathways that that are shared here. And we did have not super large numbers, but we did have some students from high schools that don't have these options right now who are going to enroll in
032those next year at another high school. And so we're we're excited about that. Again, it's it's it's in line with our vision of making sure that students are able to pursue the things they're passionate about and we think that this will also be a model for other pathways for for the career center to get involved in some other pathways that we're not in right now. But again, maybe a sending high school or is already operating a program, a high-quality program, but maybe they're not at capacity. Well, if we can find students from other high schools that want to participate in that program at the high school, then then we can make that connection for the students and get them that opportunity. So we're excited to see how that evolves over the next few years, but
033that will be another way that we can increase our capacity to serve students. Also this year, one thing that we're going to we're going to try specifically with our electrical program, we had So we have our first-year electrical program in-house over here. The second years are dual enrolled with Ivy Tech. The first-year program, when we received applications this year, the morning session filled up really fast, the afternoon session filled up really fast, and then applications kept coming in for the afternoon session. Historically, what we would do in that instance is we would then say we would have to work with the high schools and we would essentially waitlist, deny, try to find second choices for those students who couldn't get into our program. What we're trying this year is in partnership with the ABC Training
034Center in Daleville, which you may see when you drive by on I-69 there, which ABC has experience with with operating high school CTE programs. And we've had multiple conversations with them over the years about just opportunities for collaboration, not this specific model. But what we're going to do is we're going to open up a class actually through the ABC Training Center. And so, instead of denying half of those applicants for electrical next year, we're able to enroll those students um into the ABC training program. So, very similar to dual enrollment with Ivy Tech, they'll be max students, but their training will happen at the ABC uh training center in Daleville. And that program actually will be It'll be a bit different than ours. There's some things that we offer that that program won't offer, but
035that program will actually be the first year of ABC's apprenticeship. So, the students who go through that will complete the first year of that apprenticeship track um and be ready to go on if that's what they what they decide to do. So, again, that's a new kind of uh method for us to try to um again increase increase capacity and get kids connected to to training opportunities. And then also HVAC, so we do dual enrollment uh HVAC with Ivy Tech. Um but we share seats with their adult learners. And so, kind of limited capacity there. We got a lot of applications this year. So, what we're going to do is we're going to open up a separate section of HVAC here in the afternoons at the Career Center um and uh and be able to
036do that in partnership and in tandem with Ivy Tech, but um it will create again more more opportunities for kids who want to pursue that. Um so, really all of those things kind of on this slide just indirectly dealt with that capacity question. Um so, yeah. And I think I ask you this every year. Sorry. HVAC, are you pushing now more directed digital analysis and controls and so forth? Are you just getting into basic HVAC? I I would say we're basic HVAC. Yeah. Yeah. >> And And any desire you hear from anybody out there on uh electronics versus electrical? Um yeah, not so much now. Our industrial maintenance track Yeah. they get into a little bit of that. Um yeah, but yeah, but not so not a lot not not at least like from the
037student side necessarily, you know. Um They're very well-paid jobs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um but that may be also again as we talk about programs and things like that to open up whether it's here or through Ivy Tech or through another training provider, those are always conversations we're willing to have. And we also learn from different employer partners uh things that they're doing, you know? And sometimes that's an opportunity for us to say, "Okay, well, we're not in that space and it doesn't really necessarily align with what we're doing right now, but that doesn't mean that we can't see if there's an option for us to to build something there, you know? Um oh, and that just that picture there, uh we were fortunate enough we received uh what's called a Perkins Reserve Grant uh
038this year, so we've been able to uh our our dental operatory equipment was getting it had some age on it um and so we were able to replace our two dental operatories and we actually added a third dental operatory uh in the dental lab there, so we're really excited about that. We also added an intraoral scanner, which is just a more modern piece of equipment that the students are trained on um and so we're we're just really excited about that upgrade uh to the facility that we've been able to to implement um really in very short order. We got the grant December and everything was installed over spring break, so we're really excited about about that. Um also just want to say briefly before I talk about adult education, you know, a couple weeks ago
039going back to the you know, the employer partners, you know, we had dozens of employer partners here. We were all over this building. We were all over Ivy Tech doing mock interviews with our seniors. Uh these employers conducted hundreds of interviews with our kids did a fantastic job. I really have to shout out Miss Ward um for her help in organizing those employers and getting them here on that day. Um that was that was uh again just a it's always a great experience for our seniors. It's always a chance for them to really highlight their skills and abilities as well as um just their their personalities and their individuality um and the employers enjoyed it as well. Um and also too, just want to mention that this year through our work based learning coordinator Dr.
040Long, we have completed career dis- one-on-one career discovery meetings with every single student that we have here at the career center. We will we'll have done that by the end of the year. And those conversations are really important for students who sometimes are not having the discussions that we think they should be having with family members or with their high school counselors and things like that. So, kind of us taking time and setting that that that priority encouraging especially our seniors to think seriously about what are you going to be doing after high school and then how can we help get you connected with those people that you need to talk to to make sure you're able to execute your next step is is super important. Um then yeah, last slide. This is just a
041quick just just snapshot of our adult education programs. Super proud of our adult education team. Two years in a row they were designated as a program of excellence by DWD. Um we I mean I don't want to get cocky. We really hope that we're going to get a third year with that designation from DWD. You see we offer programs in lots of different locations. Um you know, we're we're currently trying to work with some community partners that we think will actually help us have even a a more accessible location and presence for our adult learners that we think will really help help those folks just to access our classes cuz access for those those folks who are who are in adult education often times access and different barriers and things like that are are the
042real issues we have to address and we think we have some things that are in the works that will help us do that and I'll share more on that once we kind of have things set, you know, in the more official manner, but I'm really excited about the future of that program. So. Uh coming up next for the career center. So, we do have our CTE recognition and signing day event. That's on May 20th. So, we do we do a session in the morning, we do a session in the afternoon where all of our students are recognized by their instructors for their achievements over the course of the year. Um, and then we also have employer partners and post-secondary uh partners, colleges, and universities there uh to do signing day with our students uh you
043know, based on wherever they're intending to go uh next year. And then our adult education graduation will be at the Muncie Central High School Auditorium. That's going to be on Thursday, June 4th um at 7:00 and of course we welcome everyone to come celebrate our adult uh graduates uh with us. So. I think that's all I have and I'll gladly answer any questions. Comment and a question. Uh comment is I count 285 students doing some sort of an internship, whether it's internal or external. That's more than 50% of your Mhm. And that's awesome. I think that that is a great thing. And then what percentage of students out of those 505 would you say are MCS students versus the other 11 schools? Probably around 30%. Yeah, probably probably fluctuates between 25% are Muncie our Muncie
044Central students. >> Are Yeah, MCS. >> Yeah, yeah, right. Yep. Yep, yeah. So, and we're in some districts, like if you were to look at a Newcastle or an Anderson in their career centers, they're attached to their high schools. Now, they serve other schools, but being attached to their high schools their percentage is usually higher, but they also have they don't have quite as many sending schools. So, we have 12 sending high schools. So, I mean we've you know, we've got a lot of yeah, kids coming in from these different places. So, yeah, but Muncie and Muncie Central's numbers I will say have increased in recent years. I do want to shout out Mr. Walker in the counseling department over there. I think they've done a great job of talking to kids about the opportunities
045that are here for them and and the numbers show it. That's awesome. Transportation so the maybe a transportation for our students, is there those opportunities there for them who don't have vehicles? Like is there bussing that Yeah, from the It's a good question and we do sometimes run into that for especially for internship opportunities, right? And so the first thing we will try to do is we do try to place students. So when we're talking about okay, where are you going to do your internship? Do you have a vehicle or do you have someone who can give you a ride? We do try to place them if they don't have their own vehicle somewhere where it's nearby bus transportation or even near home or near their high school so that it is easier for them
046to make that to make that Yeah, but that is that is a challenge. I don't think that we've had anyone who hasn't been able to do an internship because of that. We typically do get it figured out. There have been times even when Auxilio has stepped up and has helped us out to to transport a student maybe from the career center to an internship site on a designated schedule which has been awesome. And uh Yeah, typically we try and figure out a solution to that. You know, we don't want that to stop anyone from doing what they're trying to do. Thank you. Awesome. And just great stories that come out of the adult education graduation. Yeah. Yeah. Who get a second chance and Yeah. Yeah. They figured it out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, one of my
047favorite things about the year and and about our our graduation ceremony is we do have student speakers who tell their stories. >> stories. And and it's pretty powerful stuff. The Yeah, the challenges that they've encountered, the barriers they've overcome to to achieve what they achieved. So we're very always very excited about that. Did you give us a number for what your adult education graduation number will be for this year? So right now I think we have So we recognize our people who have completed a career certification class and then also our HSE graduates. I want to say right now our HSE graduate number I think we're at about 45 graduates for the year. I don't think that they'll all necessarily attend that night. And then I know we have I want to say at least
048130 people have completed career certifications. But I don't know who else RSVP for that. >> That's a good number. Yeah, thank you. That is great. It's a great night. Yep, good stuff. Thank you. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. THANK YOU. ALL RIGHT, NO PUBLIC COMMENTS TONIGHT. Um moving on to our consent agenda there. Um just as part of that, I just want to highlight a couple of things with the uh retirements that we have. Um all of them have put in some time, but I do want to highlight uh Mrs. Brockman and also John Clark who is retiring after 39 years. And so we want to say kudos to him and time that he's put on him and wish him well. All of them, of course, wish them well. Uh any
049other comments or questions? Not, I'll entertain a motion. So moved. Second. It's moved and seconded. Any questions? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. All right, thank you. Mr. Gerould. Uh thank you. Uh in your board packets are brief monthly financial update for the month of March. That's obviously just the third month of the 12-month calendar year. So, a few more months to go, but uh a few positive things to report still had over um had a cash balance still over 39 million dollars at the end of March. Um slightly down from where we started the year, but that does include some 9 million of bond proceeds in there. Um we do have our enrollment we finalized those numbers for February. That count was 4844. That's down 50 from the fall count. We
050will expect that to drive down our state basing grant revenue a little over $200,000 over the next uh between now and the end of June. So, we always continue to monitor that and watch that. That's how we receive our funding each month. Um just some other some other highlights um we'll just we just continue to um uh work our way through our appropriations each month, so we're not uh not in any danger yet of being closed on appropriations yet. Uh that usually become issues in the fourth quarter if we need additional appropriations in the various funds where we are doing our spending. Uh if that's the case, we'd come back to the school board during the budget time and say it looks like we might be be short. The reason we talk about appropriations, that's
051what our authority to spend has been granted to us by the uh Department of Local Government Finance. We never usually ask for any much more than what we think we have the revenue to support it or the the balance to support it. So, um sometimes you get closed on the appropriations, it just uh it's better to have a little more authority granted to you. Uh we had no debt payments uh in the month of March. Uh our debt our big debt payments always come in June and December. So, that pretty much uh uh pretty much wraps up the month of March. Um we'll talk a little bit more about the common school loan in just a bit. The next item that that graph there just continues to show clear on the far right, that's a
052little over 39 million. It shows the red there on the bottom that continues to show the payoff of the uh the common the common school loan, the $12 million loan that was granted to us from the state of Indiana. So, we'll talk about that in a moment, but um basically um we're just continuing on um getting ready for the end of the school year. We have a lot of projects going on throughout the district. Um we're in the midst of our $19 million uh renovation uh renovation, remodeling, improvement project at many of our school districts. The primary project, of course, heating and cooling system at the Muncie Fieldhouse. A lot of that work started immediately the week right after the basketball semi-state. Some of that basement area doesn't look like it used to in 1928
053or like it did just a few weeks ago. Because what they're going to do, just to remind you, they'll create a new boiler building at ground level. At ground level, just there on the north side of the Fieldhouse. It's that way it'll be easier to access, easier to get the equipment for that heating uh all the the necessary heating cooling equipment. So trying to look a few more years down the road for all the maintenance of that. So that project like I said, really kicked off right after the semi-state. And that the goal, of course, is to get that all finished up before heating and cooling season, you know, about September, October of this next fall. And we also have many other as part of that same project but yet getting ready to kick off
054over the next few months. You're talking improvements to several roof projects in our district. This includes tennis courts redoing at Muncie Central, tennis court redoing at Muncie Southside, track also remodeling that at Muncie Southside. Exterior doors at Muncie Central, we still had some vintage original doors at Muncie Central. These are now going to be replaced. A lot of floor covering issues will be dealt with at Muncie Central. And also I can't forget Muncie Northside. Muncie Northside will have their boiler room renovated somewhat with new new equipment there. And uh that's a busy time. So it'll be a busy number of months for those projects. And uh you're never really done doing uh construction improvement projects. Uh it never stops. So we'll continue to keep you updated each month on how this is going. And That's
055right. Now yeah, kind of like yeah. We just don't put up orange uh orange cones and barrels, do we? But now we're not really done. Yellow tape. There we go. Thank you. Any questions? Move to approve. Second. Before we go to the next. I move. I'll second. Any questions? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed same sign. All right, Mr. Goron. Okay. Uh the next thing on the board agenda is something we really haven't had to talk about much in the last uh 8 years or so. I always talk about the common school loan paying off the state loan when we put that graph up just like we did. We're paying off that original $12 million loan that we were given in 2019. It was granted to us by the state of Indiana
056and the Distressed Unit Appeals Board clear back in 2018 is when it was signed. And that's we pay that off. We pay that off each month per their original agreement. Um and those payments started back in 2000 um 20, July of 2020. So almost out of the blue, the DUAB board approached us um a number of months ago wanting to talk to us more about how things were going at Muncie schools. And one of the things we talked about um just because we're always concerned about our cash flow and how to make things perhaps better. So that question was posed to them um because originally um the cash flow loan was set up for a payback of 80 years. Uh even though the original statute was for 10. So, we have made the request. That's
057what you have in front of you here tonight that the will ask the board to approve so we then can take that to the State Board of Duab on May 12th to and what this is called is the petition to amend this original agreement. What we're asking for is to extend the payment term 2 years from June 30th, 2028 to June 30, 2030. What that does for us is just stretches out the payment two additional years. And what that really means for us from a practical standpoint, um it lowers that monthly payment of what we have to pay the state of Indiana. Instead of paying $222,000 a month right now, it would lower it starting in July to a little over 96,000 a month. So, effectively, it saves us reduces about half a million dollars,
058a little over half a million dollars in 2026 for our cash flow in the education fund. And what that does for us the next year for 12 full months, that's 1.1 million. It makes our cash flow better in the education fund. So, um up till about 2 months ago, we didn't think we had any opportunity at all to do this. So, we what you have in front of you is to ask the board permission to make this petition to amend this original agreement, which then we will take to um the State of Indiana Board of Finance in the Duab meeting, which we will present in person um on May 12th. So, if the board is so inclined to approve this petition to amend, that's really what this involves. Do you foresee any hesitancy or I
059mean, it's hypothetical, right? Huh? I mean, We've We've had >> good stewards. We >> Yes. Oh. Absolutely. We have done all those things and that's why we've had several meetings with the DUAB When I say DUAB board, it's really one one person on these on the WebEx. Um And he he was not part of the original DUAB process 8 years ago. This is about the second or third person uh to be there and we almost had to remind him why we even were involved with this cuz he didn't have any record of it. So, we've been able to provide that history to him and we've talked a lot about the ramifications of it as well as he's very insightful. He is an attorney. He is a lawyer. So, he has insight with that and can't
060provide us any prediction or estimation of what uh how that particular full board would react to this as they're concerned about maybe setting precedent or what that may be, but they also know it's within the original statute of this original uh uh document that was approved uh that it was allowed to go 10 years. So, no prediction yet, I guess, Watasha how it may go. Um but they are going to make us do a formal presentation and that's what is also included, I think, in your packet is what we were going to present and we were coached very well by uh the the DUAB representative of what we should stick to the facts and stick to >> Uh a very concise presentation. Um and not try to go too far off the rails. So, And
061I I I couple things I I'd add. One is um to your question, I think, Watasha um if DUAB decides that they don't want to do this, um it's okay. I think we have we have uh we have planned and projected that we can pay off the loan in in the next 2 years. Um Uh so, I think that's something of of of note. Secondly, this is a non-interest loan. So, extending the term 2 years does not increase our cost. That's a really important issue, I think, to to all of us. Um it certainly, over the next 2 years, uh it provides some relief to our education fund, which helps ensure that we can transfer some money, uh hopefully, to our to our rainy day fund, which, as we've talked in this meeting before, could
062relieve some pressure on the operations fund. Um and and probably as important as anything, it puts us in a position to be able to deal with SEA 1 uh the Senate Enrolled Act 1 that that hits us much harder in 20 uh 29 uh by having some cash reserve, even though it will increase our our payments at the same time, we will see the full effect of the current SEA 1, but it puts us in a better position uh to be able to handle those increases. So, um I think those are important points and and certainly support make a motion that we um that we uh uh approve the petition to amend the original. Okay. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second. Seconded. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Carries. Thank
063you. All right. Do we have any other dialogue for the board? Just with that petition, so you two, Chuck and Brad, well, and And Jim. And Jim. Jim has volunteered to to lead the presentation. Oh, okay. Keep him Keep him concise. He knows what to do. Yeah, so I guess really to Brad's point, we work closely with Dan to to give us an outline on on how to approach it. Um, I feel pretty good about it. We've been working with Andy. So, he um he too has been trying to keep us on the rails before that presentation. And um Jim Jim has um Jim has those items now that he's reviewing. Thank you. I want I just want to Hopefully, I'm not out of line a little bit. Want to make sure that we didn't
064overlook anybody. We have a young lady here. Um that maybe here. Did you need to say something? We got a couple of people that we hired. I I want to make sure I didn't overlook you if you're here because you got hired. Are you a student? Are you a student in Snyder's class? Well, welcome. We're glad you're here. A future hire. Future hire, that's right. All right. Anything else anybody? Got a motion. So moved. So moved. Moved, seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Thank you.