001thank you we'll turn to dr karkowski for ceo comments well i first wanted to share that we have written a statement from muncie community schools and rather than me trying to summarize i'm just going to go and read the entire statement that we put out dear students families and friends in light of yet another senseless killing of an unarmed black man at the hands of the police we at muncie community schools want to reaffirm our commitment to diversity equity and inclusion there is no justification for anything less racism and racist violence by action or inaction is intolerable and unacceptable the black lives matter movement must include all of us as we support our black and brown students teachers staff and families it is not a black problem but a global problem black lives matter and
002we must show this fact in our everyday actions moving forward we are committed to dismantling racism in our schools and acknowledge some practices that are unacceptable including an inadequate representation of our black and brown educators disproportionate discipline and eurocentric curriculum here are ways muncie community schools will address diversity equity and inclusion last year we established a cultural competency committee and made a it's made up of a diverse group of individuals to make sure we are doing all we can to provide a welcoming inclusive environment for students families and staff based on recommendations from this committee we are asking the board to appoint rhonda ward as our new director of diversity she will also continue in her current role as assistant principal at the high school rhonda is well respected throughout the community and through muncie
003community schools additionally the committee created a plan for cultural diversity training including implicit bias which will begin this summer before every staff meeting there will be time to read reflect listen and have honest conversations regarding issues of racial justice with input from ball state university muncie community schools community members and experts across the state nation we have written an innovation plan along with a more detailed strategic plan that is due to our legislators june 30th this plan consists of five pillars and two foundational principles one of the foundational principles is culturally relevant teaching and learning and will be embedded in all that we do such as curriculum professional development social emotional learning and family and community involvement we are committed to prioritizing the recruitment and retention of teachers of color we will require implicit bias
004training for our muncie community schools school resource officers this summer this kind of proactive approach with our frontline workers responsible for the safety and well-being of everyone inside our school is just one more way we can provide the best educational environment for every student we will also require this training for our bus drivers and front office staff we will review our curriculum to sure to ensure there is relevant material and that classrooms have a variety of texts that include positive diverse representations we are committed to improving communication with our communities of color through multiple channels we will continue to work to eliminate racist and punitive practices and policies we have begun the groundwork through our positive behaviors interventions and supports initiative pbis that began several years ago and most recently with the revamping of our
0052020-21 student discipline handbook we plan to incorporate restorative practices in our schools we are strengthening our multi-tier system of support teams in each school to proactively address student behavior so issues do not reach the level of in-school or out-of-school suspension we will dismantle biased practices put into place in order to provide black students equitable access to gifted and talented programs advanced placement courses and dual credit opportunities we will ensure that minorities will be included considered and or represented when it comes to identifying a panel of judges within the schools our director of diversity will assist in these areas as a side note i've had questions about that and that is regarding often um competitions such as cheerleading we would make sure that we have judges on panels it is what mcs does in the days
006weeks and years ahead that will ultimately ultimately make a difference in the dismantling of anti-black racism that occurs within mcs and beyond we are committed to a sustained effort to create change where there are true where there will truly be equity and justice for all and what i would like to say is i am committed to and have for my entire career been committed to equity and i will continue making sure that the actions that we've listed you will see us make progress that is definitely my promise thank you uh any questions for dr tech i do have a couple other updates that unless you have some other questions next um i have received some questions regarding they're called pandemic electric benefit transfer program the ebt cards that some people may be receiving in the
007mail and this is another through the cares act through the fssa any family that lives in muncie community schools we are on universal feeding programs so it says that if a child is qualified for free or reduced lunches you get a card for 320 about 325 per student but because all of our students qualify since we're universal every family will receive one card per child and so many families are starting to receive these and they aren't understanding what they're for and it's a way of helping with the times when we weren't in session even though we passed out meals we know it was an extra hardship for families and the federal government through the cures access has provided these cards we also have a reopening schools task force that has been meeting the department of
008ed department of health fssa released guidance this past week we're in regular meetings with the delaware county department of health and what i can say is we will be back in session on august 11th make sure i have that date right august 11th is our first day back right now we are planning unless something would change in the future um we are planning on being in school five days per week you may hear that different people have hybrid approaches but we are certainly planning for five days to be in school but we also know we have some families that are either hesitant to send students back or we may have some medically fragile students and for those any of the folks that are interested we will also have a virtual option so we will offer
009both a traditional and an e-learning option for families to make selections and then finally um the athletic plan has to be heard by the board and also the board of health has to approve it because we know that our athletics will begin after july 6th we want to make sure that at the next board meeting you will be hearing our athletic plan to be able to for us to move forward in july on the ebt parts that have been sent out those have gone directly to the families yes so since we're a universal district i guess i'm really confused as to do we need to communicate with those families the the the families have received a letter that many of the families who received the letter because it says you qualify for free or reduced
010lunch and then they're confused because they think well maybe i really don't qualify for free and reduced lunch and why am i receiving this card and so i just wanted to let all families know that in muncie community schools if your child attended medicine community schools you will receive this this card and you're entitled to it and then so that's a debit card with 300 some odd dollars per child so if you have multiple children that would be more than that so are they then going to give the debit card to the school no no this is all just it's for them to purchase food and supplies for their families oh so they can purchase it in other places yes it doesn't have to be used here oh it's not to be it's not going
011to be necessary okay any given questions thank you for um all you've done with the movement out here with all the recent events that have happened across the community been present and just i just want to say thank um in terms of the online virtual watching this or anything i know we've talked about finding some funding for schoology uh is there anything music need to do to help you ready for that no i i believe we are just working on what that curriculum will look like and i know tony is working to get a way to go from our enrollment page so families want to make that selection that would be easy for them to do we're making progress and early july we'll be able to share more of the details of our educational plans
012with you yeah can i make a suggestion that we have andy perhaps worked with wolf boom and local public radio in terms of maybe similar to what we've done prior years regarding public service announcements concerning plans for reopening any options that will be available to our families absolutely um i don't know if we touched basically stuff recently on that but i could maybe get in front of that if we get the statement regarding i also want to take a moment and recognize uh james leslie who is retiring after 25 years of service with yeah the district at the advanced adventure environmental learning centers uh it does look like um in terms of what we talked about the island earlier that things are proceeding pretty well um is there any place where we're we're behind are
013we up front on every we are really having fun the principals have done a fantastic job of recruiting from home they've kept things up they've given us a weekly interview sheet so we know exactly who they're interviewing and where we can what we can do and where we can help them and so we have eight vacancies i have two recommendations of those eight on my desk right now so after dr k reviews them we'll probably be down to about six that we need to feel and that is fantastic you know in general early yeah i'm thinking back to when this when was the lord first came together in july of 18 it wasn't i'm real i'm excited i feel like rhonda don't know what last name i'm going to give you tonight any additional questions
014concerns comments for items a through h financial report yes thank you in front of your uh including your board packet was the monthly financial statements for the month of may and i just always like to give you a monthly update of where we're at obviously it's nothing in the calendar year but we're certainly coming up on the end of the fiscal month of june uh was like a report we did receive our state basic grant of 3.2 million dollars in the month of uh in the month of may we're still receiving our normal state basic brand it's not been reduced or anything based on the pandemic or any cuts at the state level so we're still still receiving what we expected to receive obviously with the state receiving less money each of the last three
015months those those numbers might change but that would be the next uh perhaps uh the latter part of this calendar year they have not reported anything yet to us so in terms of cash balance we still have almost uh 24 million dollars uh 23.8 million at the end of the month of may that's still on target uh i'm positive or very happy to report we received from the local property taxes of early tax draw of 2.8 million so we did receive some money there in may we'll get some more tax money by the end of this month in june uh it's still yet to be to be seen how much we'll actually receive on these first two installments of may and june and last year we received almost 5.7 million of local property taxes by
016the end of june so we'll see if that makes a difference because the state extended the deadlines with no penalties on paying local property taxes i'm still still planning on if things go right and things go well still planning on being in the surplus position in the education fund by the end of this calendar year and also still able to uh still planning on trying to set aside another two million dollars in our rainy day fund for 2020 and i just give you that little note there at the bottom under number five on other items that local property taxes um still expecting to probably receive over 10 million dollars last year we received about 50 54 of the local levy and we don't know that for sure until we get to the end of december
017of this calendar year some of the other items i always include are just the monthly uh some of the monthly charts and graphs in terms of our cash balance and our appropriations spending we have not spent over our budget that becomes very important when you get to the end of the fourth quarter but i won't comment specifically on any individual uh page or some of those other items unless you had a question um we're just um preparing for the june fiscal closing uh where we could do a uh you'll have a budget presentation for you for the new upcoming budget in like august of august 11th is the meeting date and we'll go right into the accrual accrual accounting audit with the ball state auditors and statewide accounts auditors probably they'll come in the first
018part of august so we start getting a little bit more busy in the business office at that time so other than that that's pretty much the extents of my financial report for you tonight any questions for mr giraffe i just like to say thank you he's been working very hard with baker telly on getting five-year productions put together on the financial plan or part of the materials need to be submitted by the end of the month and i think we're getting pretty close and we are disgusted a little bit today and brad is comfortable with where things are there's going to have to be some things that the board will have to address uh certainly in 2022 20 degrees in that period of time that looks like paper tilly has some suggestions for us but
019has really done a great job of addressing an area that's extraordinarily complex and also uncertain right now given states revenue issues so thank you for all that you've been doing uh there are no additional questions with anything in motion so second we moved in second and all those in favor signifying posting song is dr reynolds around we let dr reynolds take a vacation this week who's that on the video no the [Laughter] my glasses are not okay here i trust that that's weird when the calendar committee met our intention was to have elections not held in our schools and um with the unprecedented things that are happening in our country today we have decided that for this year we will continue hosting elections in our school and then the next year we will work to
020find different locations for those election sites so with that we would not want students to be in schools when elections were taking place just for the safety concern so we are asking that we change november 3rd to be an e-learning day and i can give a bit of background there was some communications with the county before the pandemic regarding finding other locations uh the van diving came along and we discussed it with mr day and leanne and i talked to me just given the uncertainty of what election day looks like it felt like we may not be being good neighbors by forcing the issue for this november but we are going to not think we are going to push to not have elections after this november in our school buildings okay move through okay a
021second and moved and seconded anybody have anything they wish to say i have a quick statement um dr k already reviewed some specific actionable items and i'm so grateful for that action as far as black lives matter in addition i'd like to share my personal thoughts on this i'm speaking as a mother educator colleague friend and board member i recognize the place of privilege on which i'm able to speak the fact that i'm able to take my time and learn about racism instead of living every day the murder of george floyd is simply the tip of the iceberg that has opened much of america's eyes to the system and racism in this country as a white woman i realize i could never perfectly understand the fear and anger of my black friends our black families
022our black faculty and staff but i will most certainly always stand beside them while no one condones violence neither should anyone lose sight of the larger deeper concerns about the institutional racism that has ignited this i stand beside you i empathize with you with your anger and hurt and exhaustion i see you and i'm listening i will continue to listen learn and take action as dr k share i remain confident and wonderful faculty and staff at ncs to be there for our students both for their minds and their hurts every child deserves a champion and black lives matter mcs don't say the same i cannot be more prouder than to be a part of um the school board and the board of trustees and i'm part of the mcs district as a whole i know
023that from the outside of been in it may be difficult for some to understand but knowing what we're doing knowing what we stand for from the inside out i stand committed with you and i i personally would not serve in a place that i did not feel was working for equity equity involved so i just thank you all for your willingness you know your openness the honesty that we have and i am just so appreciative of muncie community schools what we're doing and what we'll continue to do in this community the media is not here this evening so at this point uh thank you for hosting us at our new space as well and we've done anything in terms of thank you for every tech or we probably should invite him and recognize him [Music]
024all in favor speaking bye-bye [Music]