11-9-2021 MCS Board Meeting

001you're busy in two yeah [Music] foreign [Music] um [Music] oh um [Music] oh ugh um [Music] okay [Music] i'm sorry yeah oh [Music] how are you thank you [Music] please rise do we have a video pledge today if you'll join me for the pledge of allegiance please join fifth grader jeremiah pounds fourth grader sam kinzel third grader gretchen gunter second grader braxton juarez first grader lola davis and kindergartner glenn ingram in the pledge of allegiance and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible [Music] please be seated we'll call our role i am present dr o'neill is absent this evening mr heater present mrs bales mr barnes griffin mr irvin president mr lowe president thank you all um we have westview elementary here mr ambler yes good evening uh president williams

002members of the board dr k central office staff my name is eric ambler and i'm the principal at west view elementary and i have to apologize for the expedient nature of the pledge today i will i'll tell our kids to slow it down next time but it is a an absolute pleasure to be here as it always is if we could go ahead to the first slide there just have a lot of things to share and i know my time is limited our master teacher tamara bell she was actually going to be here as a co-presenter but she had a family emergency to attend to and so i had to assure her that her place is with her family and not here so i'm going to i'm going to share what she would have shared

003here in her stead but i just want to give an overview about west view here starting with our student numbers as they sat about a week ago we have 424 students at westview which is which is a very nice increase from what we've had in years past we have seven students who are virtual we have 310 regular education and 114 of those kiddos are in our dual language program with 13 native speakers so to that end we are what's called a one-way dual language spanish immersion program because we have less than 50 percent of our students that are native speakers so while i would love for us to to be a two-way which is good and advantageous not only for those native speakers but also for our students who are non-native speakers we do have

004a ways to go but if we go to the next slide here breaking that down our pre our pre-k kiddos consists of 20 students and if you take a look at the other numbers by grade level starting with kindergarten that's the total number of students that includes our dual language kiddos who are denoted in green so you can see our numbers when you get down to fourth grade are pretty robust uh 25 is the general cap that we have for a classroom for dual language this is our first or our fifth year for our first cohort of our dual language program who are now fourth graders but we do have some pretty large numbers in fourth grade and then rounding out fifth grade just in the mid-20s or so if we can go to the

005next slide please we have been able to enjoy community partners consisting of ball state university it's great to have those students back in our buildings offering supports we have ed reading 430 adele 300 at ed reading 430 is they are there in a capacity of after school reading club literacy club and we actually use data to determine who we wanted to get into that for some additional help and exposure to literature and reading at all 300 those are practicum students that come in and they they do a lot of observations they do small group work with our students and then we have math 391 which is really akin to what the ed reading 430 students do we have a math club that meets twice a week and back to the ed reading 4 30 they

006actually meet twice a week as well on offset days just to keep our numbers down and we also have some special education students that are coming in uh 361 and 417 and we're looking to get some more of those ball state folks in second harvest we are coming up on our second anniversary which i'm very proud of of our food pantries the next one is tomorrow evening we're still doing a drive-through format just so we can keep our our students and families safe they've also helped us out with books for students which we're doing in coordination with second harvest and they've also supplied some flowers for our teachers on occasion i'm going to take this off because it's getting a little hot behind the mic here westminster presbyterian church they come in we have volunteers

007very sparingly but they provide cafeteria help they also help with our food pantry and other events and we have a new relationship and a new partnership with anthony northside neighborhood association and i was approached by them and we now have six raised garden beds so we're looking to really get some community gardening going and i provided everyone with a folder that just that's in front of you but the october newsletter kind of has a recap on the back side of it of um the the fruits and vegetables of our labors after getting that implemented this past year that's just some food for thought it's not necessarily part of my presentation i'll stop with the puns the last one was not on purpose i promise it wasn't but moving on to our community partners wvca that's

008our west view community association it's our parent-teacher organization but they have helped with um fundraisers volunteers teacher appreciation special projects and i put a little mh down there and um but uh sorry about that it's still broken a little strobing there but one of the special projects that i'm very proud of that we were able to do that's uh in line with social emotional learning we have a a ninja path it's multi-sensory and we have a lot of students and maybe a couple staff members that would benefit from doing that just to kind of reset reboot and uh this little guy we called he was they called us down the office just for some support so he could take a break but uh that is something that is really cool the kids love to do

009it the older they get uh the more that we can really start to implement things along that path which takes up a nice little sized hallway that we have that doesn't get a lot of traffic just so that they can reboot and get back to class and back to business in the classroom we go to the next slide please so celebrating students so we have a student of the month we just wrapped up with our with our students from the past month in october for student of the month and recognized them they get a certificate we call their name on the announcements and we get pictures and i will tweet that out they also get something from our treasure chest that we have in the cafeteria but you see that up there we also have

010pbis that's positive behavior interventions and supports we have green and blue cards and those are used to reinforce the positive behaviors that we want to see from our students and then we also have the martin luther king citizenship awards we have altrusa that i didn't list up there as well we have i ready learning pathway goals which is an academic celebration that we have in fact this is from last year we have a new one this year that we're going to start announcing our students that are engaged in their learning pathway which is produced after they take the beginning of the year i ready assessment and it puts them on their own differentiated learning path for their success and so the students that meet their weekly goal of getting 80 or higher and they have

01160 to 75 minutes for a week for reading and math on their learning pathway they actually become the i and i ready we take pictures i make a really big deal about it i tell multiple dad jokes to get them excited to be out of class for a couple seconds and they actually sign their names as they go along and they meet those goals just to to really incentivize that and then we'll also be doing semester honor rolls as well celebrating teachers if i had more than more than the time allotted for this evening i would celebrate our teachers more so than one slide it does not do them justice i i can't say enough about the culture that we have at west view and it's it's by and large because of our teachers and

012their buy-in to not only supporting the culture that's already been established but feeding that culture as well so a couple of the things and this is in particular with our dual language teachers our program was just recognized as a distinguished dual language immersion program by the indiana foreign language teachers association and that celebration took place saturday evening in indianapolis that's our current uh teaching crew there our team for dual language and also last year towards the end of the year we are we were identified as an imagined learning school of excellence and that's also our dual language award winners and then our dual language teachers who were awarded that for our program and then also our teacher of the year kelly agnew who she she wanted to be here this evening she went to the

013wrong mac though but uh if she's watching hi kelly you are here in spirit thank you for all you do i said you can tune in on the on the internet but then also i thought it important to share a just a quick picture that's the sign-in sheet for like before and after hours where teachers when they come in um they hopefully i don't get a call from them saying i forgot my alarm code but they're coming in after hours they sign in in a central location so that they know which colleagues may or may not be in the building still so that they don't arm the alarm before they're done taking care of all the additional business that they that they have taken the initiative to spend extra time away from their families to

014to make sure that they've satisfied everything to meet their class expectations for their students and themselves so i i'd be remiss if i didn't put that in there the next slide please we have an instructional leadership team ilt consists of tammy bell which is our master teacher she's there on the right kelly agnew she's a mentor teacher she's new and new to that role this year katie morales she's also a mentor teacher she's new to that role this year amy leitzy is our pds liaison and i've known amy since i was the principal at store elementary and so we have a we have a really good working relationship and it's been it's been really it's been really advantageous to have that relationship for as long as we've had it and then of course myself but

015what we do is an instructional leadership team we discuss and we interpret data and next steps that's not only iready data but we're looking at benchmark data with f and p which is our reading our reading framework and curriculum we collaborate with all colleagues provide feedback and guidance via weekly plc's which are professional learning clusters those meet once a week for every grade level during a prep time and those are led by tammy bell and or amy leitzy from time to time we'll do learning walks where we're doing informal informal observations uh co-teaching lesson modeling and field testing one of the nice things about having an instructional leadership team with master and mentor teachers is that we can get more more feet in the ground more more people in the classrooms to start connecting a

016lot of those dots that we may not be able to otherwise so we get more bang for our buck as far as instructional leadership particularly within the scope of different things that i do as a school manager that might occupy my time or command my time to depending upon the situation this is something that it seems kind of kind of oxymoronic in a sense and i started my first staff meeting this year and i said you know what we're going to be consistent with change and there were some sideways glances uh there was maybe a mumble or two with where's he going with this uh but if you take a look at these uh these pictures of our classrooms these are first grade through fifth grade uh these kiddos were have been westview all-stars since

017kindergarten okay and this doesn't include our dual language students because they are their own cohort that goes the same class from year to year and so these are our english classrooms so first grade 36 18 out of 50 we had as kindergarteners and this is this is a little straw poll that i did and our second graders only 17 of 48 at the time and gen ed were there at westview since kindergarten third grade 32 percent fourth grade 30 percent fifth grade 12 percent and so when making the point with consistency with change we have a lot of change in our district we have a lot of change as far as teaching staff we have a lot of change as far as our students are concerned but one of the things that's been consistent throughout

018that change and this is something i keep going back to with our staff if you just click off not to the next one but we're meeting our students where they are each year and then we move them forward from where we get them and so that's that's been a challenge and it's been a challenge that we meet head on and it's a really it's a testament to our teachers whether they've been there for um almost three eighths of the year when we got the midterm coming up this thursday or if they've been there for 30 plus years and so we're always being consistent in the face of change the next slide please so this is tammy tammy bell wanted to share this but uh as far as and i wanted her to share that but

019since she's not here i'm to share it for her and i said tammy we're going to have to keep it brief and succinct so i'm going to i'm going to follow my advice that i gave for tammy here but our plan for growth for this year in the face of that consistency and the change reading we're going to focus and we have been focusing on phonics and close reading math solving real real world problems you click again please in writing performance task writing we used to call it a writing prompt back in the day when i was still in the classroom but now it's a performance task hit the next slide please in the next slide please so when we met with ball state back in june i believe was june 14th we had a

020meeting we took a lot took a a look at a lot of student data that we got from iready and other sources and so we started to prioritize what we're doing and how we're doing it at westview so as far as writing is concerned we're analyzing our current data we're taking benchmark data and creating informal benchmark assessments using that data writing maps we've taken we've taken basically a calendar and we have grade level teachers that have developed a long-range plan for writing standards and when we are teaching those throughout the year plcs those professional learning clusters where we're not letting something go just because we mention it once it's going to be consistent speaking of consistency but professional development of instructional writing strategies and amy leitzy has been instrumental at the k2 grade levels and

021then tammy bell at the third and fifth grade and then a lot of modeling modeling writing lessons mini lessons for power standards and k through five you hit the next slide so uh amy lightsey i had asked asked her if she would be interested in sharing she said no thank you but uh to to that end uh this is something that she had put together i'll just read it briefly here very quickly she says that working with tammy she's our master teacher has provided her with additional insight into the demands of elementary students and an overview of the instructional professional development goals of our school and through this partnership she's been strengthened instructionally through being able to take her knowledge of the curriculum of students and the school to use it to better prepare her

022practicum students for their experiences and i think that's very important that we're not doing things in isolation with our ball state practicum students or with different initiatives that are coming we're doing it in concert for example one of our pds focus that was led by our summer examination of the data is on writing and she's referring to that june that june 14th or 16th day i forget which it was the work that the teachers have been doing in plcs have been building a framework for writing instruction she's then able to take each grade level's instructional focus into consideration as she prepares some professional development for plc's and finally this partnership is value edu valuable educationally for our west view students because she's also able to use that same instructional focus for teachers selected to prepare

023for teacher candidates to go out into the classrooms and write on write and work on writing instruction in the with the elementary students she goes on to say that she's proud of our teachers our instructional team and all we've been able to accomplish and she's excited to see what is ahead for this all-star staff and our students you hit the next slide that's just uh that we are partners chirp chirp does anyone have any questions questions from mr ambler so are you at 400 students plus are you nearing capacity we are we are at capacity it's a good problem i'm glad we have that problem and i would frame it as a challenge we last year we knew that we were going to grow the program for dual language one grade level at a time

024and add a fourth grade classroom so to that end we actually had a a an additional program for our students with emotional disabilities affectionately known as room five and so room five basically had to give way to be a classroom so that we could afford to continue growing our program because yes we are at capacity i recall a time where i think some board members were over in our library and the same question was posed and i said you are effectively see sitting in our spare classroom well room five that program was able to go over to longfellow elementary and uh i'm not gonna do it i was talking with dr k and you know just because i miss those kids some of those kiddos were able to stay here uh to stay at west

025view but others depend upon their needs they went with uh to that program with um or at longfellow so yes we are at capacity excellent you know what i tell many people when they ask about westview i said well let me help you understand the capacity their teachers lounge is a couple tables sitting in one of their hallways because they they really are are out of room at west view yeah we sure wish we could add we wish we could add some rooms at westview yeah i'll tell you the that sensory path takes up that hallway part of that hallway and so provided teachers aren't grabbing a quick bite over there in the hall at those tables and there's no one utilizing the century path i mean it could be lunchtime entertainment but we are

026we are at capacity it's very it's very cramped it's manageable at the moment at the present but yeah we need we need more room uh particularly since we're adding uh fifth grade dual language next year the the other comment is a comment i ran into parents consistently who sing your praises so you're doing an excellent job i appreciate it thank you yes yeah mr ambler uh tell us a little more about the award i saw you saturday evening the award that you received uh down in indianapolis sure so um we were nominated by vesna uh and she is with indiana university she's been instrumental from the get-go with the development of our program as has dr bell i remember when dr bell and thank you thank you thank you when dr bell was interviewing to

027be the director of elementary that was the platform in which she presented to myself and my counterparts at the time and so there's been a partnership with vesna and she actually is part of the dual language grant which comes to offer some feedback and do some like informal assessments of our program provide feedback to the teachers then debrief with me to see how we can make things better last year she was not afforded the opportunity to come into the building to be able to do that this year she was and she she was she was teary-eyed she was very emotional because of the leaps and bounds that our program has made and so she actually put it put our program up for that award and evidently we just we just found this out it's the

02853rd annual meeting of that organization and we're like there were um you know part of the awards ceremony there were student entries for posters and i'm like we could have won some of those you know we could have gotten our kids involved in that and so you know it's it's really nice to be able to get that recognition but then through that recognition be able to get to get more avenues for our students more avenues for our teachers just to to celebrate them and what was the award called again so it was the distinguished dual language let me i don't want to misquote it here distinguished dual language immersion program okay good well that's remarkable and and job well done any other questions for mr ambler will you talk about what the pbs green blue

029cards are absolutely yep absolutely so uh the green card that's tier one that's for all kids uh so when we see kids not f but when we see kids that are making good choices uh they're being respectful responsible or safe in whatever capacity whatever area we give them a green card we reinforce the behavior we tell them what they did why it's great or i i tend to turn the tables on the kids a little bit and i will identify a student that's making great choices and this is an awesome awesome thing for lunch coverage in the cafeteria when i'm in there covering by myself i'll say okay i've got a pocket full of green cards i'll put a stamp of mr ambler stamp on one i'll say that's worth five so i'm integrating math

030you know there's you know there's a there's an exchange rate uh but one of the things that i'll also do is uh particularly the kids that need that reinforcement if they earn it i'm i'm i'm not making it up but i'm finding those reasons to hit them up with a green card i'll give them a second one and i'll say now i want you to find one of your classmates or someone else in the cafeteria who's being respectful just like you and i want you to give it to them between here in your classroom that way and the teacher's like thank you but that way you know they're they're not only being reinforced for their behavior but they're looking for those examples of behaviors that we want to see and it's empowering them so that

031maybe sometime when i do that with another student they'll be the ones that earn it from a pier the blue cards are classroom cards and they have several we've got a big display in the main hallway so all the kids are going to see it and so when they get to it this so that's a classroom incentive so any adult can give those teachers a blue card to to brag on their class but then also make sure that they're explaining why they earned it they're a little bit more difficult to earn by design but after a class in fact our friends over east washington who just defeated us in our first basketball game today after school they are going to loan us their um their cotton candy machine because that's the incentive the first the

032first of four tiered incentives for the um the threshold of it's like a sideways bar graph of the blue cards there's a class uh senorita all-amon's class they earned that and they're like we want fresh cotton candy and i'm like what so they're gonna get fresh cotton candy yeah yeah absolutely make sure that you let the people from the district office know when oh yeah absolutely yeah i'll just i'll just hit you up with some blue cards and you'll meet it and come on over i have a question it's not really for mr ambler but it's really the facilities committee like for two years we've heard him talk about capacity um but as we grow the dual language program are we is that in our scope of work to figure out how we make space

033for west view i i would think anything is still possible at this point because nothing's been ruled off the table on that so i mean uh that's that's not been ruled out with tasha so i'm not loving the hallway there are some teachers that will actually go to the library provided we don't have like small group instruction in there we're trying to increase our capacity for students in tier tier two for academics and in order to do that with social distancing our intervention room is very small i do have some ideas that i'll probably run by dr bell uh dr k just some ideas that i have and it's as far as regaining a classroom and uh waving the banner of innovation but it's in doing that it's it's probably going to displace some teachers

034that don't have a regular classroom and i don't want that to happen either but you know if if we're putting kids first not if but since you know that's i mean it's it's it's not going to be necessarily popular however it is going to be able to accommodate a classroom of kids that's why we're here so if you happen to be around thursday night when more okay yeah absolutely i'll do that mr ambler is there anything that you need from the board over the administration for the benefit of your students you know i could give you a list a mile long but really continued support is is super important i was like coming back from the awards ceremony i dropped off some stuff uh to one of my friends that lives in the castleton area

035said hey how's work going i said what it's going going really well it's been a challenging year etc etc and i said they're like um you know you know anything big coming up as well yeah as a matter of fact i have a board presentation tuesday they're like oh boy i was like no i i love talking to this board and to our central office administration because you all are so supportive and you know that's that's a common question that's asked but really continued support come by anytime that you that you can that you'd like to i know that would mean a lot to our teachers and staff it'd mean a lot to our parents uh but just just being able to to come in even if it's you know taking taking control of lunch

036duty if you want to but in all seriousness hey you know what it's it's amazing it's absolutely amazing um but really continued support uh i really like hearing what our what our teachers say when they echo the the things that the things that are being done here the decisions that you're all making that affect everyone and really i know i know brittany's has reached out about a wish list and so our our teachers are they're they're supplying a lot of ideas and so we're we're trying to connect all those dots but um really i i really appreciate all the support and our teachers do as well and i think that's one of the things that i continually go back to when i have conversations with prospective teachers and then also the relationship that we have

037with ball state with uh tuition the the whole tuition award for muncie community school employees and so there are so many so many steps in the right direction that it makes what is sometimes a daunting job as a building principle uh not only palatable but so much more enjoyable because i i can always bring those things up okay any further questions thank you mr amber thank you dr bryakowski well as you know last week we brought our first afghan we welcomed our first afghan family into our schools it's a family of seven sons ages six to eighteen and i just want to thank the entire community they have wrapped their arms around this family and they're supporting the family not only in their home but also finding ways for us to be able to support

038the students as well are i have to also commend our teachers who quickly responded to provide good support to the to the students so we started by having a registration in this building so we were able to also bring meridian health to be able to to register for counseling services at the same time we were able but the teacher store was able to provide book bags with supplies for our students and they they got to know a few familiar faces so that the next day when they came on a school bus jim and i greeted them and took them into north side where we had a at what we call a newcomers classroom so all six full or seven boys were there for the week while we had our two english learner teachers and our

039school psychologists try to learn their english proficiency their their level of reading ability their math ability and to understand where they were with their social and emotional learning and we were able on friday the high school boys started at central schools did a great job with getting peers to be with the students and walking working with them throughout the day and then north side and northview on monday that the students driving classrooms i know britney's son is one that welcomed three of the kids into the fourth grade classroom we purchased books to be able to read about what it is to be a refugee and the kids and teachers just want to make sure they're doing the very best to welcome the students and to help them as they try to learn their their way

040around our american schools my understanding is in the next week or two we'll be getting our next family and we're we're ready to go we're we're ready to welcome more more students into our our schools you know it's a way for all of us to me you know i said thanksgiving's coming and with thanksgiving it's always time to you know reflect and what are we thankful for you know it's another way for us to think about the gratitude when we see what some other people are going through boy i made me go home and really count my blessings and so uh i you know that that's good for everybody to reflect on on you know all the many good things we have in our lives and i know the family is very grateful for a

041safe place to live and for a good school for their their boys to be educated and so that's where we are with our afghan families um friday gemini and i think is a gym you'll also be participating in dave as well right with the ball state university foundation we'll be sharing about lindsay community schools and and more about our partnership today i met with a couple members of the indiana state board they are developing a new dashboard that is a way for people to understand how schools are doing and they were wanting some feedback based on that model from a practitioner so i appreciated being able to offer some suggestions about that and we had shaka griffin was named by the east central indiana athlete of the year always proud to see our students get

042that recognition we also had some students you'll recognize some of these names as well compete in cross country they made it to semi-state so one is dave reynolds and the other was hayden bradford or bradford correct and then the entire team made it to regionals which was great we were very proud of them for that [Applause] anything further i think that's good for now any questions from the board for dr fiakowski i would say echo we submitted the corporation's statutory annual report on october 31st to the governor's office to the legislature and to the department of education that report along with the dashboard has been made publicly available we have received through dr kwakowski significant positive and affirming feedback from the governor's office and doe i have received significant feedback from the senate and the

043house and members of the education committees down there and the general assembly have been very pleased with our progress and specifically the content of our report so i want to take a moment and thank uh dr kwakowski and her team you were called we put together the semi-annual report earlier this summer in an effort to be prepared for the annual reporting and that has been submitted to those agencies of the state pursuant to pardon me the requirements of the statute any questions concerning that and we have a presentation tonight with about our strategic plan report yes okay uh with that mr arnold hello hello my name is jim arnold first let me clarify that i am not a domestic terrorist i am not a conspiracy theorist and am not a racist i am here today

044because i am concerned that critical race theory is being taught under the guise of social emotional learning teaching white children that they are oppressors guilty of participating in systemic racism and teaching children of color that they are oppressed victims unable to achieve the american dream you say that you don't teach critical race theory but a muncie community school teacher has told me that you do who is that teacher please uh i'm sorry i'm not going to give you his or her name so do you have a specific complaint regarding crt being taught in one of our schools if so we'll address it because we very clearly do not want to teach crt if you have a complaint about a specific school where it is being taught we need to know that okay that's not why

045i'm here today so that that's what you just started with was that complaint so what is this what's the specificity of that complaint specificity is that this teacher told us that they are teaching critical race jurisdiction in school what's cool i'm not going to reveal his name then we're not going to entertain it well then you don't have to entertain it but please let me continue do you have anything else that you're going to speak about concerning what's on the agenda yes i do what's on the agenda i'm going to continue what i have three minutes to give you uh sir our policy provides that you speak to what's on the agenda if you have something specific to provide something specific i have a specific request because you stated in the meeting dated 9 28

04621 you said the curriculum used at mts's second step success that's correct if anyone wishes to see it we will happily get you a copy so consequently i am here requesting complete copies of your k-12 curriculums and i do not want bullet points i want actual copies we will make those available for you dr k we actually have we already have like links where you'll be able we so make sure do i have your email address it's right here it's on my request we'll get that to you tomorrow okay all right i appreciate it and then if you have further questions after you look at it i'd be happy to address that with you well i'm sure if i have questions i'll be back here to address those questions and we are very and you

047can you won't have a three-minute limit if you do it with dr k and if we have somebody who is specifying that crt is being taught in one of our schools we want to know that now you might go back to this person and say are you willing to go public with this if so we want to hear it because that is not what we're intending okay well i'm glad you're not intending that my concern is i know there have been other teachers in public schools in indiana who expressed their concerns with crt and they were they were relieved of their position so i governing and preventing retaliation this board will not retaliate against an individual teacher who has a specific complaint about crt we will evaluate it and investigate it and we will hold

048ourselves to our oath that we will not retaliate against a teacher who brings that concern forward that is our oath and that's on our obligation so if it isn't being taught in a way that is truly critical race theory and teaching children to feel bad about themselves we want to know that i absolutely and nobody on this board wants a child of any race color ethnicity religious background or gender to feel bad about themselves as a result of any of those factors that's unacceptable to us well i'm glad you feel that way i live on the south side of muncie i moved into modest neighborhood after i retired when my dad was ill and i see children of all colors boys girls black white brown playing together and having a good time together and they

049just don't need to be taught how to not like each other that is absolutely correct and that's why you have my attention if somebody says it's occurring we want to know it i've talked to dr k about it and she says the same thing we are alert to that possibility we're not we watch the news we understand that that is a concern we have been very specific in what we are doing we are trying to teach children about this nation's history in all of its grandeur you know benjamin o davis tuskegee airman first black air force general larry doby integrated the cleveland indian at the same time we talk about people like eisenhower and lincoln and washington and their grandeur and the grandeur of the constitution in spite of its compromises what we will not

050accept under any circumstances is one of our faculty or assistants or administrators making a student feel bad about themselves as a result of race gender religious upbringing or ethnicity that is unacceptable well that's actually excellent and for the record uh when your previous meeting that i missed i think for about 20 or 30 minutes you went think through things that we can and should teach in school and for the record i agree with what you said we need to teach all of our history to the students so they know the good the bad and the ugly but they understand that they still that they live in the greatest country in the in the world this our american experiment is magnificent and the beauty of this experiment is we have we have this arc of justice

051now we haven't always been in the right direction but the goal is to bend it in that direction and if under i mean i served on in the judicial role and one of the things that will get my attention quicker than anything else is somebody making a child feel bad about themselves under any circumstances but especially because of some trait like race or gender or religious upbringing or ethnicity that will get my attention in a hurry and that's why i stopped you and asked that question because if that's occurring we need to know it okay and i understand your situation i'm wanting to protect your friend but you can assure her that or him whatev whoever it is that this board is bound by the laws of state of indiana and the laws of the

052united states and those laws include anti-retaliation provisions that i take very seriously because ultimately that's where folks get in trouble is on those retaliation provisions okay thank you do you have anything else i'm sorry mr arnold i interrupted you i'll give you however much longer you want here well i i i think we pretty much addressed it i mean i was told that it is being taught in the school so i was concerned about that that's why i've asked to see your k-12 curriculum we'll give you every piece of curriculum uh on sel we'll get you the social studies curriculum is within standards the second steps curriculum second step success uh was named an exemplary program by the bush administration white house in 2002 it goes through such things as empathy kindness sharing uh we'll

053show you our goals and everything else if you have concerns about that come see us we're happy to articulate those there's no hiding here well the part we missed when you interrupted me is that as ronald reagan said trust but verify i understand so that's why i'm here is to verify i understand and i think the curriculums will stand on their own and let us know what's being taught and they'll address like examples the curriculum is one thing but if teachers are going outside the bounds of that we need to know that no my understanding of the conversation was not that there's teachers going outside the bounds is that that it is being taught on the curriculum okay but that's we need to know that if that's the case and so i would encourage your

054friend to come forward okay okay thank you thank you mr arnold mr hyatt you're up chris hyatt 2812 birchwood muncie i got a hand to the principal of western school i came up here and uh set forth the precedent that we don't have to wear a mask when we're speaking to the board that's fine keep your mask off thank you i'm glad that's cleared out um i guess i'm glad that that has been cleared up thank you when you're speaking if you want to not wear a mask that's fine um i guess the first order of business for me would be i stopped by the office earlier which was uh closed is to deliver upon the board a foia request you can leave it with miss phelps there thanks thank you and i'm going to

055give you a little significant feedback and maybe it's not going to be all that good but i'm going to speak briefly to the muncie community school system success or lack thereof achieving their primary objective and that that they're tasked with with and that's the educating of our children ensuring the proficiency in the most basic of primary subjects reading writing arithmetic and the best source that i have to go to is the very sources that you've spoken to relevant to the indiana department of education to the to the uh istep uh test results uh we're aware of those results for me we're aware of those results well i think it's important to note that we are at 18.5 percent uh a success on that passing grade on that that's not which is entirely true well that's

056what the state you're cherry picking there but uh okay well that's the results themselves speak for themselves reading literacy about 43rd from the bottom of the list on 366 school corporations and maybe that explains why in a room full of muncie school children one out of every three are being educated outside the school corporation 35 percent 2500 students parents that have decided they want what's best for their children to the extent of the economic impact of that if the numbers still stand true in indiana that equates to nearly 17 million dollars where the revenues so i'm not here to debate the issues with you i'm only here to report what the indiana department of communications reporting how many students do you say 2500 students out of 7 100 available school actually the number's about 1800

057chris well that's i'm telling you what the school is reporting i have the reports right here jim no the number's 1800 i just looked at them okay well they report then you're looking at numbers that are not available to the public as all i can tell you i've just pulled the numbers off and i have the reports okay so 12 million that's not chump change isn't that what the indiana state reigned upon you and and uh alone uh when you first took over well we did receive a loan which we're paying back you call that some sort of success well i don't know give me 12 million dollars and see what i can do with it uh we don't want to do that your time's up i don't imagine you do i thank you very

058much and chris have a great thanksgiving okay we're on to the consent agenda the personnel report uh mr knuckles has withdrawn his name from participation or from the position in sro so he is off the consent agenda any questions concerning the consent agenda okay we have a motion a second i want to take a moment and recognize anna spencer for her 20 years of service with south side middle school she has received an administrator's position at winchester community schools so good for her any other questions concerning the consent agenda okay uh all those and we need we have a motion second all those in favor signify by aye aye opposed same sign okay uh thank you uh we'll show the consent agenda passes we will go on at this point then uh to the district

059calendars dr reynolds yes good evening thank you i'm asking for uh re approval tonight for the 2020 2022 2023 and 20 23 20 24. i can't tell you how many times i've screwed that up typing it and reading it so um a two-year calendar uh i'm asking for approval tonight very similar to what we've approved the past few years with 180 student days 185 teacher work days the five-day fall break the two-week winter break and the five-day spring break just a couple of quick things that corresponding start dates to the last few years teacher work day to that friday prior to to the students return a one day innovation summit the continuation of the two hour early release days on that fourth tuesday of each month with the exception of march and december and then

060um one addition this year we've added another two hour early release day to to have more parent teacher conferences while we had some successes with that this year we thought another day would would really um be very very beneficial to getting folks into those days we had some uh we've sent some parent surveys out and some some parent student teacher community member surveys and had a had about 450 15 respondents to those surveys i think that's it and if if there's no questions i would like to thank the folks that served on that committee aj bradley denise gars eric graham heidi white eric ambler caleb beasley jordan parsons board member mr irvin rachel spearman served on that as well dr bell and then mrs bells all those folks for their work we started meeting back

061in september to to begin to look at a two-year calendar to try to give folks just a little more time to to to plan out vacations and family time so parents everybody you guys okay with the calendar any questions for dr reynolds okay already answered okay because i remember the first year that was i wasn't in charge of that calendar you're running from it aren't you that's right i did that one need a motion to approve okay i didn't realize for those who were here i did not realize how absolutely controversial calendars could be yeah so um this is such a collaborative group you got going there with the students and the parents and that yeah i mean this is excellent yeah so and i'll be sure that um we we've been communicating with the

062area superintendents as well so i think that they will have similar breaks yeah yeah so anybody that has any questions dr reynolds is your man um with that uh would entertain a motion so moved second been moved and seconded all those in favor signify by aye aye aye opposed same sign thank you financial report uh brad jerome yep uh thank you included in your board packet is our financial notes uh for the results of october 2021 of course just a reminder we're on a calendar year uh process uh on a 12 month process so in two more months we'll have the end of the year 12 months results for 2021. just a few highlights for october obviously as we come down to the end of uh december and come down to the end of 2021

063i always like to report that we did receive our state basic grant as promised to us that was a little over 3.3 million in the month of just in the month of october uh it has yet to be reflected or changed or revised for the state basic grant based on our new uh updated adm enrollment back in september uh we were up 166 students that should be reflected on the uh the rev the state basic revenue we would get in either the month of november or december so that'll be obviously that'll be a big change that'll be a big increase so we look forward to that we're tracking just about right on for payroll the same as a year ago uh just up a little bit based on raises that were given plus the pandemic

064stipend always liked to report that uh you know we had a little over uh 31 million dollars in our total checkbook if you will for the for the school corporation so we're still tracking a positive surplus balance for the education fund at the end of this calendar year and still projecting to be in a surplus position uh still once again still tracking um positive results uh we're still paying our state basic grant are still paying our school loan back at the 50 000 per month that balance is down to 11.2 million and we that um still expecting to receive property taxes in the month of november and december so as i always like to mention as we get close to the end of the year this is when you know appropriations get a little tighter

065in the operation fund so we're we're paying attention to that uh we'll be spending uh probably just around a little over 13 million in that fund uh for 2021 but we'll stay under the the budget approved appropriations um that concludes my uh some of my brief comments for the um the the cash report or the financial report for the financial report for uh the month of october okay thank you mr jerome any questions for mr jerome okay hearing no questions would entertain a motion to approve the financial report absolutely been moved in second and all those in favor signify by aye aye aye opposed same sign okay we'll show that past uh we have the medical insurance plan renewal for 2022 brad this is you sure thank you this is the time of year that

066we like to do our open enrollment for the upcoming calendar year for insurance we are going to recommend to stay with our current carrier that's called unified group services ugs for medical dental and vision insurance certainly very pleased to stay with them with a very small increase on premium on the current plan a uh that goes up about one and a half percent for the employee and one and a half percent for the school corporation um so that's not not a huge increase there uh that works out for a single plan uh employee about 13 for an annual increase on their premium what we're also doing is adding an additional plan we're going to call that an additional plan b that additional plan b is considered a high deductible health care plan and that will

067be linked to a debit card through a hsa account and that provides some additional benefits for the potential employees who might choose to go with that an hsa is linked to your employee that you can carry that money with you forever uh in your current plan a it's an hra you cannot carry that money with you forever if you leave employment so there's a slight a slight difference between an hra and an hsa so in any event the premiums are a little bit higher for the plan b but the deductibles are lower for the plan b so it does at least give some of our employees a choice on what they would like to do and it may help when we have new employees to make that choice if they want a plan that has

068higher deductibles or lower deductibles at least they can make a choice with that from my understanding we did have an hsa plan uh three or four years ago it was my understanding when i talked to the folks in my business office in any event we would start this process basically with an open enrollment period for 30 days and uh starting with these plans in january of 2022. so we're just looking for a motion to approve for these particular plan renewals for for next year any questions for mr jerome regarding the insurance issue which is quick question about the hsa do we contribute towards that or is it all yes yes we do for the hsa we do we would seed 500 for a single plan we would see it a thousand dollars for anything above

069single plus one or family excellent thank you oh okay in terms of just them as our current carrier right now they're um they're they are the current carrier that we have um and we certainly kept them as our current carrier based on on premium price on price we still are able to use our local health clinic that is a collaboration between city county and schools so we whether a person chose plan a or plan b they can still use the local health clinic that we have that helps keep their costs down uh against their deductible um so as as far as uh you know going into the marketplace uh changing to a different carrier different insurance company that's always an option in future years certainly that just wasn't an option this particular year what does

070it look like if a current employee wants to switch to the plan b okay if we had a current if we had a current employee uh who had plan a the the ppo plan uh and they wanted to switch to the new plan b any money they would have set aside in their current uh plan a under that um hra agreement that would that would end as of december 31st so if they had any outstanding claims they'd want to submit that by december 31st because all those funds would then be forfeited and you'd start you'd start over brand new with the new plan uh january 1st on the plan b we heard from teachers that you know insurance is costly and you know that's why we we took that information back to brad and we

071said brad do we have any other options for our teachers and so that's where he worked to be able to come up with you know two different types of plans you know insurance is expensive for everybody and we know that even with offering two plans there's still a cost associated with it that it at least gives more than one option so they they can have a choice to try to determine which which would be the best best selection for them okay any additional questions it continues to be a significant issue for not only schools but for everybody involved in purchasing health insurance um it looks like that our expenses are going to be about 145 000 greater than they were before that's that's what we had calculated based on uh you're trying to guess how

072many people may switch to the new plan i mean that that that was part of it too but that particular calculation to say it would be about an additional 140 000 is based on if every if right now we have about 400 people uh that are currently in the insurance plans and if they if they stayed in their same plans and adopted plan a and took the additional increase that's about what it would look like for us as an additional cost to the school corporation and those cost increases were built into our 2022 budget so that's that's pretty modest uh increase of only about a percent and a half um we're very fortunate that our claims have run just under the expected for the past year uh our our claim and our claim reserves a

073little over a million six so that was very positive for us and uh so that's it's it's always a dilemma when you get to the end of the year with your consultants on whether or not you take no increase or do you take a slight increase and gamble that you're going to have a good year the next year the next year the next year and sometimes they always recommend if you take a slight increase each year that's better than a getting whacked with a big one unexpectedly four or five years down the road so fortunately we've had a pretty good history uh the last uh really the last the last two years since we made the switch uh in 2018. okay any additional questions would entertain a motion so luke second been moved and seconded

074all those in favor signify by aye aye opposed same sign okay uh brad uh food service yeah the food service here what we have in front of you is really the first wave of some permission to advertise on spending some money out of our food service account and what we're wanting to do here because uh it sounds so counter-intuitive but with the with our audits that we've had and with our uh department of ed school nutrition we have too much money in our food service account and uh they cite us for that so the the way you handle that with too much money in your food service account they recommend you need to upgrade your food service facilities and your food service equipment and this is a plan that we put in place with our

075food service company with the doe school school nutrition department uh to start uh spending down some of that money uh so this is the first phase of it this this uh what we're gonna do here is try to upgrade some of the equipment it happens to be at north side obviously north side owned by ball state but that's equipment that could still go with us to another building regardless on who owns the facility we'll be making upgrades at other facilities too this is just the start of it okay any questions regarding the food service equipment mr heater uh i think we had an issue with nature sorry no no that's fine that's fine the uh there's all sorts of room for jokes there but i'm gonna refrain which was in your board packets mr jerome

076effectively were addressing as we promised we did it sequentially as a board we uh granted or we dealt with teacher wages at in april or may i believe then in staff in july and administrators now and percentage-wise the percentages are basically uh in the range of the same that were given across the board for teachers is that correct that's correct we're a little over three percent on those uh increases and the reason of course we waited uh for the fall we were trying to see where the where the student enrollment looked like it was headed obviously it came in much higher than we had forecast and higher than what we had even uh predicted even then in our school budget for 2022. so you've all had a chance to review that any questions move approval

077just other than i think the comment we made um as we were talking about this is this now puts us in a market that's very competitive with which is great for our administrators and so forth yeah so i'm sorry go ahead one second is motion yeah and this might and this would be retroactive to july 1st right yeah it's right it's right it's retroactive for when the normal administrator would start their their their school year for the 2021-22 school year so the motion is the wage increase is retroactive to the normal date when that particular administrator would be commencing his or her services for mcs right that's correct with that do i have a motion so in a second moved in a second all those in favor signify by aye aye for the same sign

078we have uh the strategic plan yearly dash i'll strike that i'm i'm skipping ahead um [Music] we have a policy review that you had undertaken correct yes and we are going to random suspicion not random suspicion we're going to reasonable suspicion randomly suspicious uh random suspicion drug testing yes i'm going to get this right reasonable suspicion drug testing there we go we've got it correct at this point reasonable suspicion of drug testing which is consistent with employers and particularly schools around the staff around the state and is also been recommended by the indiana chapter of american society for public administration which i assume is the parent group that oversees this is that accurate it actually i'm a member and it's a group of hr directors assistant superintendents in charge of hr across the state okay

079so did i capture it right once i got from random to reasonable uh okay any and we are going to wave a second reading on this so we're going to go straight to emotion in a vote and anybody i have any questions concerns okay jim there is an exception to our preschool right there's an exception to our preschool there is and they have their own set of guidelines and rules that they have to adhere to i just want to i think absolutely i did talk to sarah price about that yes thank you move approval second been moved and seconded uh all those in favor signify hi hi sign okay we have our strategic plan yearly report and dashboard um dr k is that you okay we worked on our strategic plan for the audience to

080give you a little background and we were charged with creating an innovation plan which we submitted to the general assembly and many groups from at the state the department of ed commission for higher ed duab etc and um with that we took that innovation plan which was a higher level and we we made it um more specific in a strategic plan and this is really our our guide post for what we're doing to move our district forward and with that each year we provide an update to the state and so our first pillar is high quality pre-kindergarten education this is one of our goals we know the importance of getting our earliest learners into our schools and the value for those students our goal was to have the number of pre-k classrooms if you've noticed

081starting in 2018-19 we had a few classrooms in a few of our schools last year we were able to have pre-k in every single one of our elementary schools this also shows our enrollment numbers and we were able each year we continue to grow enrollment in our pre-k classrooms not only do we believe it's important to have a high quality pre-paid classroom but we believe this will also help us retain students at muncie community schools once they get in you saw mr ambler tonight and the great things that are happening at west view once parents have that in pre-k they are having to get them enrolled and kindergarten and then we also know the importance of having on my way pre-k students this is a funding source this is through the state where if families

082qualify that they will provide funding for those students so all of our schools are at a level of three in by the end of the year we hope to be at four and this will help us generate funds to support the teachers and the classroom assistants this i just alluded to our quality ratings and because it's a it takes a year process to get through this we had to start it starts from a level one all the way to level four we now have all of our schools at level three and by the end of this year we anticipate they'll all be at level four okay pillar two recruitment development and retention of educational leaders actually mr hamler did a wonderful job explaining this first slide uh regarding our master and mentor teacher training and

083support our master and middle teachers are outstanding um we are constantly receiving accolades from niet reps who go to schools throughout the state and nation about how great our master and major teachers are and that we have the right people in the right positions just also note that the training here which is really uh quite a few days quite a few hours this is not it this is the formal plan training and what happens as soon as that school year is over we give the master mentor teachers one day to relax and we start on tuesday with our training and they are all in with that our bsu pds liaisons have actually done training in cooperation collaboration with our master and mentor teachers and they too have uh received a lot of accolades i've i

084talked with melissa blossom who is our um facilitator um maybe a couple of times a week and so we're just really thrilled with what is happening with our master and mentor teachers culture competency i really just have to really uh give thanks to rhonda ward who has taken on the baton to continue the work uh when it comes to uh cc uh it was take uh for cultural competency but now it's take take time because the principals the teachers said they wanted more time to go to discuss a lot of the um issues that's occurring throughout our nation if you look at that the sct is the school equity teams and each school has an set and these are folks who have volunteered to work with other staff members in order to go over topics

085there's a booklet with articles that is presented in in a school year the sets get those articles they read them ahead of time and they're able to discuss what is going on uh in the articles with collaborations with the other teachers um if you look at the implicit bias we've had um our teachers administrators board members be involved in that we've also had that with our school resource officers bus drivers ball state has helped us with that with some of their personnel to uh present this information and um it's just uh something that we just need to continue and if you look at the participant rates that's that's pretty good 100 94 95 rate of attendance salary increases uh really speaks for itself these are the raises that we have had you see 2018-19 and

0862019-20 the totals and of course uh i can't give enough accolades to our boards to our board for making this happen i've been here 20 to 23 years and there was a drought for quite some time and when you guys came up you know bored is i don't know it's just really awesome and i it's just not me saying that it's lots of folks saying that okay our teacher retention rate we're proud of that if you look at the numbers um between 16 17 17 and 18 there was an increase about 8 and then 18 17 18 18 19 about seven percent uh we've increased the last couple of years um by one percent and right now we're kind of steady but that's good we're not bleeding and that's what we want to do we

087have people who are wanting to stay here and you know that has all kinds of repercussions meaning positive repercussions meaning that you know you invest in teachers with pd and all kinds of training and you don't want them to leave you want them to stay and so that is showing that we are retaining our teachers ron and i are very very proud of this slide if you look at the green numbers um you can look at the increases uh percentage of minority employment it has started off 2013-14 at 5.5 percent all the way to 12.5 percent i just read an article from chalkbeat indiana and it says that only five percent of black teachers of color who enter educational programs actually go into indiana classrooms and so if you're talking five percent and we're at

088you know 12.5 percent um you know that that's doing well just know that the teacher rate is about 9.5 but that really beats the state average um by several percentage points all right if i could just talk briefly about our student-centered teaching and active learning this is i would call this my passion pillar so this is this is where i live in most of my days and and um i would make the argument that that that pillar reaches out and touches the other pillars and our in our and also our foundational beliefs as well so our our first need was technology and being sure that our kids and our staff and our parents really had what they need to be engaged in learning kovan put us into warp drive with that so we really had

089to move fast to get uh devices take-home devices in everybody's hands so we had we had devices in all students hand by uh by march of 2020 but they weren't technically assigned to take home and we knew we had some coming off or needed to be rotated out just have extended their life expectancy so um tony and his team along with brad dia and grants have had worked hard to make sure we earmarked some funds to get devices in all students hands that were were working and and efficient and could be sent home with students um again kova driving that not knowing what the 2020 2021 school year would look like um we wanted to make sure that folks had those in their hands and their backpacks going home on day one and we met

090that challenge additionally we knew that connectivity in our homes could be an issue but we wanted to make sure we did everything we could to remove that barrier so we worked again with grants local and federal to to ensure that we had hot spots to um to give to those families that needed connectivity again on day one of the 20 20 20 20 21 school year to ensure that if if we had to shut down at a moment's notice we could do that finally we knew that we were good with the vehicle we were good with the car but we didn't quite know where we were going to go yet so we had to make sure that that our teachers were trained and and how to leverage schoology to provide rich blended learning so both

091in person and online learning blended good blended learning opportunities for our students um if we ever had to transition to um at-home learning and uh we had a plan to do that building up to covet shutdown we were going to do a cadre approach and have representatives and teacher leaders from each schools come each school come together and and have cadre work monthly and go back and deliver um that to our buildings uh monthly um and then kova caused us to rethink that so we we had to do a full man press to to uh get all teachers versed in schoology as quickly as we could steve spradlin um tony and again the central office and building leaders really worked hard to find dates and get the teachers in teachers sacrificing their summer time to

092to take advantage of some of those opportunities um and i don't have the percentage of those folks that participated in the summer opportunities while they were not um on the clock for us was i i would have to say in the 90s and then those folks that that could not do that over the summer during the times we offered we made sure we caught them up on the first day first teacher work day and continued to work with them throughout the school year so to that end uh we we really quickly and and efficiently leveraged we were able to leverage schoology to be ensure that we could deliver blended instruction on a moment's notice if we had to or part two is how can we now leverage that to to have your in-person instruction even

093better so fonus and panel goes right along with that um so in the uh january of 20 i believe that they started that adoption process we're really spent a lot of time with a team of teachers looking at thonas and pinell our a new reading and literacy series for our elementary actually they reviewed a number of them um and fauna spinel came to the top as as the the resource of choice but we we weren't quite ready yet at the end of that 1920 school year so we paused until the to the beginning of the 20 school year to to really again review those resources and have a good implementation plan for fonus and pinell with dia's leadership and the principal's leadership we um we started to roll that out in in january of 20

094just a piece at a time right so do not overwhelm because it's a different it's a different approach to literacy um so we began to roll that out and and january with the intent of full implement implementation by um the 21 the 2021 school year um and i felt good about that we were ready to go of course kovitt put the kibosh on that but a benefit from that so again preparing to transition immediately into at home learning we created some common slides some common teacher resources that were all digital and could be shared across the district for elementary teachers in order to do that we pulled teachers from across the district to come in over the summer again to create these on their time with us to to provide resources across the district that

095if we had to transition to a at home learning we could do that at an instant and still be able to deliver this terrific um reading curriculum to our teachers um and the great part was the teachers could collaborate they got to spend a lot of time in it and now we have those resources to move and to edit and to implement as we go on throughout the school year again if i would say anything just again to build on what mr ambler said today that you know consistency through change this is one of those consistency pieces through change so as while the student might change schools or change classrooms there's still consistency with this fonus and panel curriculum and the way it's delivered from building to building i think that that is very important

096for our for the literacy of our students and finally um we talk about project lead the way um boy it's just an exciting hands-on innovative practice for our kids and and we did our process checks at the end of the school year last year and boy without fail while it comes with its challenges teachers just just raved about how the kids really love project lead the way and mind you it was a kovager so um the intent was to to have uh a pod of second graders do all do the same um you know uh forces of of nature um section and they could trade that throughout the throughout each classroom and share resources and talk about challenges and successes and helpful tips uh between the teachers well with covid we didn't do that so

097each teacher had to have their own standalone module that they would do with the kids so that it could be a little scary a little daunting but they really did a tremendous job so last year everyone got through one module the goal this year is to do at least two a stretch goal of three modules throughout the year at each grade level in grades one through five at the middle school level we implemented project lead the way as one of the wheels on the rotation so folks will have app creators in sixth grade innovators and makers in seventh grade and medical detectives in eighth grade so that is one of the wheels that all kids run through in their schedule again terrific hands-on learning real stuff that we believe that that as as kids as

098we're preparing kids for the future it's it's those life skills that um i think will serve them well we're beginning we've we worked out some of the scheduling bugs and bumps and we continue to get folks trained and to to see a growth in those participation numbers and really believe that we'll have um 90 at least 95 percent of our students through at the middle school level in all of those rotations and then finally at the high school i'm so sorry finally at the high school uh we're continuing to grow our project lead the way courses again that's probably our oldest program it is our oldest program at the high school but we had some staff turnover changes through the years and it really kind of fell on some hard times as far as enrollment

099goes and as these kids start to matriculate up through the high school i believe there'll be a demand for project lead the way the hands-on creative problem-seeking learning that comes with project lead the way and um we're going to continue to grow that next year we'll we'll we're going to grow an additional program at northside as a pilot and then also at the high school we're going to grow the um engineering and design this the high school module will be the that third year piece that um that kids will be able to take there's one more challenge one more oh summer school so again dealing with our um our our our covet ripple um we we had a number of kids at the high school in desperate need of credits and graduation pathway requirements we

100had a tremendous team of of teachers um that that helped lead that summer school programming and and because of that you see the outstanding work and the number of credits that that that folks have earned um while we uh online learning works for a lot of folks we know that we we would prefer in-person learning so our goal for this summer is to is to continue to grow our summer programming with with more in-person in-person instruction as well okay thank you dr reynolds we're almost finished pillar four social and emotional learning strategies to guide cell growth we established a district-wide framework for multi-tiered system of support we have our vsu ambassadors who assist with our cell support so that is not only with our second step curriculum but if students are needing additional assistance in

101different areas we're able to have those bsu ambassadors work with students we continued with delaware county comprehensive counseling coalition and we're implementing the mtss process and then pillar five this is the area that i would say we we um for the family part with our with covet it really limited the amount of involvement with families into our schools so we're excited now that that is going to be able to get back to being extended again our community partnership has not stopped this is the investment that we've received from our philanthropic investments as well as competitive grants so 7.5 million dollars since the beginning of this partnership and then here are just a few pictures of all the community partners that support muncie community schools we really need to get a list to show that you

102know the plethora of all the different partnerships from our foundations to our non-profits to volunteers our churches it's just remarkable the number of people that support us our healthcare agencies meridian health and open door it just goes on and on and on so we we are very grateful we couldn't do the work that we're doing without our community partnerships and if you've noticed from this presentation we really are taking a cradle to a career approach our report is much more detailed we left out many of the things that we're doing we you would be here until tomorrow night if we went through that entire report so for anyone that's interested andy has it posted under our strategic plan our innovation strategic plan um tab on our website and that report is available every year we'll

103be providing an update so it's our way of holding ourselves accountable and sharing with the public what we're doing not only just with words but we're giving you numbers as well okay thank you dr k any questions would encourage everybody who's watching tonight everybody who's here to take advantage of looking at that strategic plan and the dashboard there's a lot of good information in there i think it will answer some of your questions if you have questions from that um dr k dr reynolds um miss phelps all who are her leadership team their emails are readily available send them an email they'll respond and if they don't respond email me and i'll i'll talk to them about responding so one of the things that is critical to us is to be as transparent as possible

104in what we're trying to do i'm going to go into that in a little greater detail in a minute but not much uh we do need to finish up on the construction update on ewa mr jerome yeah i just wanted to take a brief moment really we're just let's just look at that first the first slide there really uh dr bell who's sitting back there and sarah england uh the principal there at uh at ewa and myself and paul dittmeyer we've had numerous meetings in indianapolis many meetings there on site uh just just a few days ago we had probably we had the construction manager we had probably 25 local vendors and we were all huddled together there at ewa as we were plotting the phasing of this first construction that's just about ready to

105begin at ewa uh we'll take bids on november 19th so this is just a just to give you a really brief brief update of where we're at on this project what you see there is ewa that's kind of a obviously a 30 000 foot view of just the overhead look looking down on it and really let's just focus on the green uh kind of the boston celtics green up there on the left uh on the right side of the left box and then there's about seven orange boxes those seven orange boxes reflect seven open classrooms or seven open spaces what we're gonna do there is we're just gonna move and phase as uh that area so we're not gonna set up portable classrooms that saves us money this design idea was brought to us by

106the construction manager uh we thought about having a field of 20 portable classrooms we talked about i mean they said no we don't think we have to do that they think we can utilize the space we know it's going to be a challenge but we think we're going to take it in these baby steps at first if everything goes correct you might not be able to see the uh right above the date of when this would start this would start december 21st so it start during christmas break and that phasing is when it would kick off that's when it would start and uh so i just want to give you that brief brief heads up we're also going to be doing a a wall breaking ceremony uh sometime within the next few weeks and we'll

107certainly let you know when all this is going to happen so really this was just uh and then obviously we're going to phase throughout the we're going to phase throughout this footprint and every almost every square inch of that building is going to be touched but uh this is the first part of phasing and they'll just keep jumping back and forth between temporary classrooms is what they're going to do and uh like i said i just want to give a shout out to uh to dr bell and sarah they've helped so many times with these detailed questions because if you remember what we're doing there this is all funded by esser funds it's probably as a cap maybe roughly eight million dollar project funded by those federal funds is to allow us to add walls

108and eliminate the open concept so it is a positive project it's very well received by the folks there at the building have a lot of good cooperation there and everyone's very excited so as we keep having more information we'll keep bringing it to the board and that's really all i really want to show you just a brief brief blurb of it tonight any questions for mr duran no other than the the idea that the construction manager came up with to manage this oh yeah that has saved us tons of money yes these rental units and the infrastructure connect and that we now can pour into the school itself amen with physical improvement so it's it was a great idea it was great great idea thank you uh brad thanks everybody for staying we're on to

109dialogue of the board uh briefly i just want to take a moment to address those who who have stayed as well as those who are watching and will watch in the future when the legislation was introduced creating this partnership in 2018 people tend to forget that in at the end of 2017 the state for reasons related to financial and academic performance had exercised its statutory right to place muncie community schools into a receivership and that receivership basically gave the state authority to determine how best to extricate muncie community schools from the situation where it found itself which was years in the making the statute was introduced in the spring of that legislative session it did not pass in the regular session it passed in a special session called by the governor and at that time

110the legislation that ultimately passed recognized that the challenges facing muncie community schools were both serious in financial and academic ways and you saw from those numbers on teacher retention during 2016-17 you saw an exodus of faculty and leading up to that period as parents saw the condition they made to them what was a rational choice at that time as barriers had been removed regarding transfers to other systems and a significant number of students went to other schools since that time in 2018 the enrollment declines have uh virtually stopped and in this year for the first time since 2006 enrollment ticked up uh for the first time now at the board of trustees meeting when asked to report to the ball state board of trustees within the past couple of months the financial situation due to

111mr jerome's management and administrative assistance management before that has drastically improved people forget that leading into the receivership due to financial and cash shortfalls the prior administrations had spent approximately 14 million dollars of a general obligation bond on day-to-day management which is prohibited by the terms of the bond so that money was not there that general obligation bond was slated for facilities improvements in order to avoid those bonds becoming taxable and a default being declared the corporation had to find available funds to undertake approximately 10 million dollars of renovations very quickly so that the irs did not declare those bonds taxable and the bond holders then coming to the corporation for indemnification that was undertaken that was the purpose of the 12 million dollar loan that was referenced by mr hyatt in his statement it

112was extended by the state of indiana for the purpose of avoiding the irs penalizing mcs by making those bonds to become taxable not only did we undertake to do the 10 million dollars in work we have run our fiscal affairs in a budgeted fashion since 2018 that has resulted in what 11 million in the rainy day fund at this point a little over 9 million in the rainy day fund our balance is 11 million on the loan so it was not as if that 12 million were set into our accounts for the purposes of paying teachers paying administrators buying equipment that was to fulfill the obligations of the bond that was issued in 2014 for which we face serious legal ramifications if it was not met the other issue was academic performance as those students

113departed those students who could many of them left and made transportation their own priority to get to other surrounding schools you saw at that time a significant drop off in standardized test scores standardized test scores by the way are simply one measure of student achievement maybe not the best measure in some respects that's deeply controversial however when asked by the trustees as to concerns and how things were going i told mike mcdaniel at that meeting the thing that keeps me awake at night keeps dr kwakowski awake and probably every member of this board is academic performance we recognize that this nation and mcs is at an inflection point academically what mr hyatt did not tell you regarding those schools that are grouped with us in the same achievement range you will find common factors kokomo

114marion fort wayne richmond their former industrial hubs proud communities who have very similar numbers to muncie we are not alone here what we saw last year though was in terms of learning loss muncie community schools did not it's learning loss as measured by the test again one measure was not what you saw on an average statewide now again is that acceptable clearly not none of us here accept that none of us should accept it no person in this community should accept it no parent should accept it it's not acceptable and we are working daily to improve it now if we're not getting something right we need to know it if we have a faculty member who is saying that we have a curriculum which is purposely designed to or being implemented in a way which

115purposely makes a certain uh race of children a certain gender a certain ethnicity feel bad about themselves we need to know that and it will be corrected i can assure you there is not a person on this board that wakes up in the morning and thinks that is somehow acceptable it's not it's abhorrent and if we find out about it it will be corrected and dealt with in terms of education when somebody says what's your priority it's teaching kids first and foremost early grade kids to read better literacy is critical absolutely critical numeracy is a close second you know we got to do we got to do better we understand that but we're working daily on it and so when we think about that legislation and the purpose of it the state said we are

116going to try a novel and potentially uh historic partnership with a teacher's college and we're going to see if it works and so we are working through again when i said you know the the american story has been one of experimentation and innovation we are at the cutting edge of that and we have an opportunity here but with that opportunity comes challenges and we understand that every member of this board understands that and we certainly certainly want to do well by our mcs students and our families that's our first priority dr kwakowski i know will answer any questions she gets by email if you have a question that doesn't you don't want to put it a board meeting you want to get it answered email her she'll respond and you know she can tell you

117she had an issue today she texted me about and i said what is best for our students their families our teachers and our administrators in that order and i think every member of this board feels the same way so with that again i will not let these things go unaddressed any questions from the media thank you for staying with us mr arnold thank you for staying i've given dr kwakowski a note anything you want in terms of curriculum you can have before you leave i want to verify your email address we're going to work so with that uh do we have anything else anybody else one of you heard i'm happy i mean i i don't wanna if anybody else has something to say please do so oh i do i just um as a

118board member professional development is important for our district i think it's also important for us as well so i know that open door law has us able to meet at certain times but is it possible to maybe schedule like an executive session where we can kind of have be developed professionally around for our finance and some of the the requirements that our faculty and staff have as they relate to curriculum we can have we can have an executive session for professional development with an outside consultant or we can have work sessions work sessions yeah can i just kind of add to that um i think it would be great for us to reflect a lot on the things that you were just discussing but um also in i don't know if it was calendar related

119or if it was just general that we put out the survey to our stakeholders at one point to just get general input and feedback and ideas and i think it'd be really great if we could do that again coming off of the most challenging years we've seen in education just to get some stakeholder input and then that would give us some actionable things to reflect on and brainstorm in our session i think it would be really great to kind of just regroup and hear from everybody again coming off of these really challenging years i think it would be really great i agree i think we should do that okay anything further before we journ with that that's a great idea do we have a way to create a portal through our website to allow that

120to be ongoing you do google forms google forms okay i don't know if the public knows that but that that's an excellent idea yeah okay in google forms you can continually change the questions and it can be an anonymous feedback if they you know if they want to be um okay anything further entertain a motion to adjourn so move second moving second all those in favor signify by aye all right thank you both same time you