001nurses um thank you like they called it Monday November 14th 2022 school board meeting to order all right that's it to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right Mrs Hannan present Mrs president Mr kosher here your I am present vice president Arnold president and president all president accounted for you next we have a few public comment um the first the Mr Don Barta uh okay good evening everybody um I just came here briefly to thank the board before the end of the school year um as you know last year our television production class at LaPorte High School won the state championship at skills USA they won a lot of things and I'd probably be
002coming here every week and I acknowledge everything they did but we had a tremendous amount of support I specifically wanted to thank Mrs at large who went above and beyond any Call of Duty to help us Dr Francis going Dr Larson Dr tonago when I got started at the school we couldn't have done it getting equipment getting support everything that it took to get those students in position to win that championship and just all the things they're doing we're sending more kids to Ball State for sending we went on a field trip to DePaul over the weekend we're sending kids to major colleges now they're majoring in television and film and it's the end of the year and I know the school board's going to change and everything's going to happen I wasn't able to
003come the night when they honored the kids here but I I came tonight because it was just important enough to me to say thank you to you Mr Arnold the support in the community everyone who's helped out I just wanted to come and thank the Lord in person thank you thank you next we have Heather Oak hello can you hear me yes okay um anyways I'm just here um there was a uh and I'm grateful that I sat behind the library and so I was able to talk to her um there's some books at the library in the port that I think people would be not at the not the school that I'm aware of at the public library for teens I think people would be appalled at and I do not know what kind
004of books are at the libraries here and hopefully nothing like that um I just want to bring up a suggestion so some other school districts are letting parents opt in because of the ongoing concerns about what books are coming into libraries and if you guys don't even probably know I mean I couldn't possibly know what all books are coming in um that parents would be able to opt in and see what like if their child checks out a book they get an automatic like email saying your child checked this book out and I know some school districts are doing that and that's just uh I don't know you know what kind of software that wouldn't fail or what kind of cost but um that's just a suggestion that might help in the future with some
005transparency with books that are better and next we have Donna Johnson hi thanks that are concerned about changes thing within the health nation and Indiana regarding to gender identity and what that means and why we're kind of involved confused and so I come to the board just asking questions because I start out with Federal speed I'm going to read it because I'm kind of that way I hope you all lost and confused or confused you know I'm old here so uh I started out with Early Learning vocabulary transphobic homophile homophobic misogynist transgender gender identity gender expression gender fluid gender transition gender dysthoria binary cisgender non-binary Prius same gender preferred name pronoun I'm confused I don't know what this little kids are going to do so I looked at the American Psychiatric association Diagnostic and statistics
006management DSM used to have gender disorder now it's gender dysphoria this is the title from the TSM the latest version feeling of discomforts there's a definition the elite of discomfort or distress that might occur in people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at Birth or sex with any physical characteristics the Mayo Clinic listed then some information regarding the gender dysphoria so here's from Mayo Clinic okay everybody knows real quick right signs of gender dysphoria marked in congruence between one's experience Express gender or primary and or secondary sex characteristics strong side to get rid of one's sexual organs strong desire for primary and or secondary sex characteristics or other gender strong desire to be of the alternative gender and then they recommended these and this isn't conclusive of everything just some of the top
007ones that I took off the top of that yeah assistance to ease dysphoria okay transitioning hormones good rockers generator talking breastfinding packing helping with makeup and wardrobe surgery when it got to The Binding it made me think of when I was in school I read about the Chinese finding all the women's feet it just didn't straight too well with me when we're binding up other things so anyway my findings my conclusion from this is that according to these guidelines of treatment from the well-known and well play it seems that our schools are going to be in more heat and they haven't checked I have had to swear we're pronounced gargantuan task and you're going to need to have not Educators in reading and writing repeated but you're going to have to have trained psychiatrists and
008psychologists are these children who are having just dysphoria are they being assessed by professionals when they come to you and how are they being addressed I just my heart is broken for the whole Community for adults parents children School teachers board members everybody we're all in this together and it's a big mess and so and are these policies what is the proof going forward that these policies are actually helping promote their mental stability and and protecting these young people um what I've seen online it's it's not clear and so my question to you then is I'm confused on the federal laws of the state policy codes pertaining to the parental rights in this these children unless they're 18 they're older they are under the legal authority of their parents and yet these policies are being
009put in place that are not considering parents that in a state of their policy that's just put in place in New Carlisle that parents are not to be advised of this and uh so I had put uh for some information on who the board got it early I dropped it off this morning and uh my question is then I have sent a copy of this was a binding attorney general from Indiana and 19 other states had put forth this uh the plaintiffs and in the United States Department of Education or the defendants so this was a memorandum opinion of order and in this memorandum report it was stated that the conclusion of this was that I'll read it for the fourth arteries is the plaintiffs which would be these states but of Indiana and the
010Knights inner state is granted that the defendant's motion to dismiss which is the Department of Education is tonight accordingly it is hereby order that the federal defendants the states in all the respect I mean Department of Education and all the respective officers agents employees attorneys and persons acting in concert or participation with them are enjoying and restrained from implementing the interpretation of the dear educator better fact sheet which I think stems from the change that President abiding had put forth in his executive order on January 25th executive order 13988 so these are things that are coming down the road and coming down fast and furious I'm confused parents are confused I went to the school board with a special meeting there in New Carlisle and there was some say 100 200 I don't know but
011there's a bunch of impassioned parents and they weren't shouting and causing problems nobody had to carry take them out by you know the policeman to escort them out but they're concerned for all children all children and so that's my question too and I'd like to to know what are these laws in the time of cutest thing says that this should be enjoyment until there's a decision made and as far as I can understand there's no decision made again we'll take into account your comments tonight thank you and so you can you tell me what response would be we will not we won't respond tonight we'll take note of what your concerns are here we will do what uh in some format we'll get back to you yes thank you very much there's no other public
012comment and we will move on to the consent agenda um the approval of the minutes of October 10th 2022 school board meeting the 24th 2022 School Board professional school board meeting the approval of the minutes of the October 24th 2022 special executive session meeting approval of the minutes of the November 7th 2022 special public hearing school board meeting the approval of the minutes of the November 7th 2022 special executive session meeting financials and ratifications and approval November 14 2022 Treasures report October 2022 Personnel recommendations and travel requests president at large I'd like to ask if we could pull out item number seven under the professional leave to vote on that separately out of number 2.08 then professional leaves number seven consent board to do that so we don't have to vote any problems with that
013for the consent agenda thank you Jim I don't think um we will now vote on um 2.08 item seven and make him a motion to approve the second second thank you Mike I've been heard um all in favor signify by saying aye aye cast moving on to Old business oh no yeah not yet nope okay sorry then we have no old business we've gone to reports we have superintendent report Dr Francisco thank you president at Large this evening first off we'd like to have some recognitions of our students and cross country and so we have a group here tonight Dr Larson is going to do some introductions at least of the coaches and we'll go from there um thank you board and as you can see we've got a lot of orange and black in
014the in the back rows there some of our high school students to be recognized this evening so I'd like to have our athletic director Mr Santana come up with a couple of our coaches and and share what this good news is until he's not a runner look how slow he's been guys student athletes for again making the state finals appearance they're getting used to this with the number of appearances they've made but I'll tell you it never gets it never gets old congratulations elected to introduce later I wanted to thank those for showing up today thanks to the board thanks to Central Administration for your recognition we're just very grateful to be able to come here again today this year as Mr Santana mentioned we're lucky enough to say that we've had quite a few
015years of success and we'd like to keep that going it's something that we have a lot of pride in our program and hopefully it brings a lot of Pride to this community and Corporation as well I wanted to introduce a few of our athletes we appreciate you guys making this a certificate of athletic achievements that I'll hand out to them separately and hopefully we'll get some pictures uh but I wanted to introduce them separately and then I was going to go over some of the highlights of the season um we have Ian boss Chase Collins Stevie klumzak Liam Lilly Preston Peterson J ply Hunter quadland Brayden sabeki Charles steigel Tyler Troy and Lila gillisi foreign this was her sophomore year um for those who don't know um she came into this season with an injury
016she had a stress fracture this summer we knew that it was going to be a pretty difficult season for her and the fact that she was going to have to miss a majority of the season and luckily she was able to compete at the conference meet so that was basically right in the Midway of the Season she was able to earn an all-conference all-sectional all regional all semi-state still and she placed uh 41st at the state meet she's a 4.0 GPA um just a epitome of a student athlete and then also a member of the girls swim team as well so did you have to miss a beat today for this okay I know she's got a busy schedule too um so these are our boys um they had another great season this year they
017came forth in conference meet and it's always really cool for us to be able to compete in the upper half of the conference then became third at sectional second at regionals six at semi-state it was a very up and down day that day we had an assistant member of our team that were just was disqualified and uh with my buddy now and uh but uh it bumped us but we should have came in third but became sex that day but was still qualified for State we went there and we became in 19th Place just very proud of all these athletes I mentioned this in our state send off our boys team has an average GPA of 3.91 so just a lot of 4.0s we had a lot of students a few athletes that were academic
018All State as well so just a lot of really things to be proud of with this team it's just a privilege to be able to you know to coach these fine young men and women each and every day um just really promised to be here and share that support with you guys so thank you okay thank you hope your head somewhere good everyone give us all right good job all right [Applause] foreign very good we'll move on with my report as well as our cross-country team we're proud of our fifth and sixth sixth grade art students if you take a peek in the back and see evidence of some of the work they've been up to this fall so congratulations to them as well as their teachers that work with them on a regular basis
019this week is a big week for our strategic plan we need to point to update everyone on our progress we are on track again but this week we will have our representatives from education elements here on campus working with our steering team breaking down the data that we collected from the surveys as well as from the interviews that we've been conducting have been conducting and continue to actually collect information on over the next two weeks and so the goal is to by the end of this fall have all that data analyzed and start to produce it and put it together so that we can develop an action plan and we will continue to update everyone regarding our progress in putting that plan together that concludes my report next we'll move on to the elementary assistant
020superintendent support Dr tanago thank you president of ours for my report tonight I have two areas that I want to report on one in guaranteed Bible curriculum and the other in staff parent and Community engagement guaranteed viable curriculum I want to share with you some really exciting work that we're doing in our district to better serve our English learner students so in in our Corporation we have over 300 students that qualify as English Learners and there are new state and federal rules that require districts employee certified staff who are licensed in language proficiency language development to work with those children so right now we currently have four teachers two of them we've had two of them for several years now but we've just expanded to our elementary and have hired two more and one of
021the exciting things that we're doing because there's such a shortage right now is we're providing the training and the certification from our Esser dollars so working with those teachers on a plan over a several year period if they maintain good standing in our Corporation and provide service to our Corporation we won't require that they pay us back for the money that we're putting forth to towards that certification so it's really a win-win it helps our students which is the primary driver behind using those Ester dollars but it also meets the state and federal requirements that we know we need to put in place so with over 300 students I expect that in the future years we're going to have to grow that program we're looking at visiting some other corporations that have higher populations of
022the English Learners to better learn their program structure how they do how they support their English learner teacher of records and their students so I really expect for this to grow and parent and Community engagement you'll remember back in June we are awarded a considerable Grant through the Healthcare Foundation of Laporte for our playground space upgrades and improvements it's been a very slow process but I bet you you're wondering every time you drive by Riley heilman or Kingsbury where is that new equipment and that's a question that I get a lot of the time after we are awarded that Grant which was almost four hundred thousand dollars we had to go back and revise our quotes um the grant while very gracious and considerable didn't cover the whole amount and with fluctuating prices we had
023to go back to our provider and do a redesign so that took some time and we did get designed uh quotes submitted back to us we approved them we signed the purchasing agreement and then the order got placed but because of shipping delays and shortages of supplies and those types of things were just kind of stuck right now so we want our Kingsbury families our heilman families our Riley families to be patient this whole process is moving along and then for the schools who are also on our list we intend to apply for the 2023 Healthcare foundational Laporte grants which will be coming up I believe this winter January February and those schools with me Lincoln Crutchfield in Kingsford Heights following those schools and again don't want to assume that our grant will be approved
024but if we do a good job like we did on our first grant I believe the Healthcare Foundation will be supportive then we would look to Indian Trail and handling they would be in 2024 or later so we're making progress we're very gracious for the the funds that have been provided to us and there moving along we just aren't where we want it to be but we're doing all that we can that concludes my report for tonight next we'll have the secondary assistant superintendents report Dr Larson thank you president at Art just a few highlights from the previous month and some things coming up in secondary education again just what I can kids in cross country and academically and on the track and just for the coaches that spend time running along with them which
025I think is at the high school also this weekend we will have our fall play on November 18th 19th and 20th in the Performing Arts Center and murder room so make your make your plink into we had our community-wide trick-or-treat night at the high school on October 27th and 20 sports teams that participated with hundreds of children going through for trick-or-treat and all of the proceeds from that went to the Indiana Special Olympics program a great event for our community and for our kids on giving back as well at kessling today they celebrated what is known as World kindness day which was actually yesterday Sunday November 13th but they have the kessling kindness crew their theme this year was be kind wherever possible so just really want to applaud the administration at kessling as well
026as the staff there for encouraging our students not just today but every day to really show kindness to others in their school and outside of school school as well Kathleen and the middle school also participated in our community-wide veterans program which was held at the Civic we had musical performances from our high school and our Middle School our 8th grade choir performed and also our eighth grade students participated and we also were able to recognize teacher Bonnie DeWolf with a certification from the Veterans of Foreign Affairs I believe at that everyone and we also held a ribbon cutting ceremony in partnership with the city and with American licorice for our slicer Champions room at the high school and so due to the support financial support from American lingers we were able to take a room
027and make that into a meeting room for mentors and mentees and and so we held a ribbon cutting very grateful for that as well and then lastly just here at the Boston building I'm really expanding our faces programs which is our family and Community engagement services so we just recently started Spanish El classes for adult Learners during the day so we have on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10 to 12 o'clock where our community members can come into the building and for adults that are learning English so we just continue to try and and respond and meet the needs of our communities and our families so anyone interested contact Mario Rosa or contact me and we can get those are the great things happening in secondary yet so thank you thank you next we have the
028assistant superintendent business and operations report Mr Hunter the president at Large the pleasure this evening to ask David Merkel from Larson Danielson give us an update on the construction project Prosper progress so go ahead and turn it over to David there's a lot of exciting I've been able to get out there and see it you should again things are moving quite quickly in in the right direction so Mr Merkel well thank you again thank you for the work and for the confidence of school district is placed in Larson Danielson to be your construction manager uh so as Mr Hunt said there's a uh building was really coming along since we were when I was last year we just started putting some steel up in the air so you can see now steel is pretty much
029all up the both the end walls are sided and the roof with the roof is on so we're getting pretty close to being closed in as the weather starts to turn go the wrong direction for us for us uh you can see here's one of the close up of one of the animals there's they were currently this was probably taken today and a little snowing around you can see here and there uh they are working on trimming out the window openings and the other side and the same going on so on the inside of the building um most of the launchable optimizing walls of been placed and that work is going on you can see the sidewall is being left off until that gets completed okay some more pictures of some framingo being finished up
030and here you can see looking into what will be the service phase and um if you see some black walls on the one side there's some door frames going in uh over the mezzanine will eventually be this is looking into what will be the food storage area and uh the facilities Department Shop and that's it for the slideshow coming up key things that are coming up overhead doors will be delivered this week uh to read or get beat up but they'll be here as we get closed in so we can keep the Building closed in for the winter the pole barn for vehicle storage uh is due the latter part of the month so that'll get uh be able to get up for the weather to drill bit and we're looking at pouring those slabs
031in the uh office area by mid-December that's what's going on if there's any questions anybody would like to ask glad to answer what I can what the expected date is for fully ready to well we're working towards you being able to use the facility for the start of school year and 23. so it will be turned over sometimes this summer next year the buses start to round in the form for thank you once again thank you Mr miracle uh second item on list this evening for the report is just an HVAC update uh we are putting the final touches at both at higham and the Indian Trail over fall break some of the roof units were able to be placed there at heileman then during the November 8th professional development day we were able to
032put the roof units there at Indian Trail so they're putting the final touches on there we're excited for that those two projects to be complete but then that brings us up to final preparations being made for both the critch field and Kingsford Heights HVAC updates legal advertisements are already out for bids the pre-bid meeting is set for November the 22nd at 10 A.M here starts here and they will go out to both Crutchfield and Kingsford Heights with a bid opening set for December the 2nd at 11 o'clock here at the ESC boardroom and then the recommendation for the approval or acceptance of the bids and approval or an award of the bids would be after December board meeting so looking forward to again to move forward on those particular projects then that the 2022 Geo
033Bond updates the sale is set for those bond issue for November the 17th with the closing date for December the 7th and then the The Debt Service the payments for our Geo bonds that it would be set for the calendar year and the last thing on my item this evening is just a shout out to our food service department as well as our transportation department and also our special education department on our November 8th professional development day both food service and transportation had some professional development with the assistance of our special education department for the transportation they had Eric Wozniak who is one of our supervisors for our special education program and he was able to work with the bus drivers on strategies of de-escalation with students when working with students the drivers were very
034grateful for that time were able to ask questions and again be able to pick up some again really great strategies that would have working with the kids and then the food service department along the same lines of de-escalations working with our cashiers at the high school and actually all of our schools on again de-escalation if kids start to get escalated for one reason or another they've given them strategies on how to help out with de-escalating students in that capacity so again very grateful for against special education department for Lending their services and helping us out with transportation and food service and that concludes my proportions first we have the consideration for the recommendation to improve the accepted grants donations gifts of the quest Dr Francisco thank you president large once again we're our schools and
035our programs are beneficiary of a number of different people in the community and businesses and first and foremost in front of you tonight for acceptance will be a 100 donation from Tim and Kathleen gartland and that's actually going to this High School which will ultimately go for the purposes of wristbands Spirit wristbands for students at North Myers High School suffered a number of different setbacks with the recent hurricane that we had so our school will be work our high school students will be working with that high school or working on the details secondly we have a donation to our radio and TV program I heard from Don Barta tonight that group continues to do amazing things and from its Inception it was we were working off really minimum funding for that and since then the
036community has stepped up in a large way this last donation in front of you tonight is from the Legacy Theater group for 500 for that program we also had a Lions Club donation of dictionaries to third grade students we had Unity Foundation Grant substantial three thousand three hundred and thirty three dollars for LaPorte High School robotics uh and that that again that program is up and running this year thanks to the a number of different staff members that are working again to be creative to make these things happen for our students lastly the donation to Food Service in the form of 100 from Denise West and that is to uh it's not Anonymous but Anonymous but it is a kindness account in order to cover students fees that um families can't cover those fees those
037deaths and so before you tonight for your consideration are those gifts and grants is there any discussion Helens well over four thousand dollars in money and value so wonderful anything else all in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed next we have a consideration for recommendation to approve the 2022-2023 lpcsc and lft collective bargaining agreement thank you again uh before you tonight uh consideration for accepting and approving the agreement between the teachers the of the lft and as well as the Laporte Community School Corporation Administration first of all I'd like to we read off the details last week in a public hearing regarding the the actual agreement that we have I want to thank Claudia and Joe I think their crew that worked along with our team from the administration which consisted of principles and
038administrators from the corporation these these deliberations lasted from September up until the last couple weeks so uh though that window of time is defined by herb I'm happy to say that we were able to come to an agreement within the window meet the timelines without having to go to any mediation of any sorts this year we're happy to be able to put the race forward we were working very creatively with Mr Hunt in order to put put something forward which again is going to help put our teachers in a position where they're competitive with other corporations we still have work to do we committed to that during the window the short window to come to an agreement here but we're going to do work in the Long Haul to identify you know what our vision
039is to try to get teachers where they need to be and then secondly what the logistics are going to have to be in order for us to be able to afford to meet that vision and so we're looking forward to that challenge and we're going to start up soon within the next couple weeks those deliberations but thanks again to Claudia and Joe and to their team for coming to terms thank you thank you for the recommendation or the motion to approve thank you Jim is there a second second Mark is there any discussion seeing none all in favor say goodbye by saying aye aye opposed fast thank you Claudia Williams teachers John Krasinski and I would like to thank the union team the ESC the administration and the school board for helping us ratify our
040working so thank you thank you we have no other business is there any board comment our next our next school board meeting will be December 12th 2022 at 6 PM for the motion picture some of thank you Shannon mark