001Good evening and welcome to our April board meeting. We're going to begin with our pledge and our prayer. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Let's pray. Dear heavenly Father, we just uh come before you seeking just thank you for um the provisions you've given us and the protection you've given us. We know the weather outside. Just thank you for this uh this facility we can be in. Just pray for um pray for the school system and we just uh just thank you for it and um that our kids can go here and for all the um staff and teachers and everyone who puts so much effort into it. Just pray
002that you bless them uh for all they do. Um we just pray that uh um that that you watch over us and and lead, guide, direct us. Just continue pray for safety uh throughout the rest of the school year and pray that you give um uh everyone energy as they they finish out the school year they can finish out strong. In Jesus' name. Amen. All right, our first item tonight is to approve our agenda. Um [clears throat] I believe there are no changes, no additions. Um so, is there a motion to approve the agenda? I'll make the motion. I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right, motion carries. Next, we have our approval of the minutes from our March 10th, uh the first executive session we had that day, and then the second executive
003session, and then our regular session minutes. Um those have been emailed to you. Um any discussion, questions, or changes to those? All right, is there a motion to approve the minutes? I'll make that motion. I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion carries. Next, we have our recognitions and we're going to get started with our BPA, so I think that's probably Mrs. Boots. All right, well, um thank you for um the recognition that um we're giving these kids is so well deserved. Um we have part of our group here tonight. The other ones had some commitments. Um but, I just want to say that I'm so proud of these kids and once again, we're headed to um nationals. And uh that's going to take place in Nashville, Tennessee in May. And so, I'm going
004to let the kids tell you a little bit about what they're competing in. Um we have several different competitions this year, so I'm going to go ahead and give them a chance to explain that to you. All right, so Adrian and I and Haley Zarecki, she's not here tonight. We're doing small business management. So, we get the opportunity to create a business plan for a small business owner and then we get to present that to some judges. Then they ask us questions and give us new situations that we have to help this business owner with. Uh can I ask what your business is going to be? Well, it was given to us and she's a like an artist, so she has a little art shop. Okay. Tell the creative business plan. I'm Bradyish and I
005did payroll accounting. I placed fourth at state, qualified for nationals. And our test we did uh employee income records, different journals and ledgers, and different taxes. My name is Jayden Patterson. I competed in prepared speech. I gave a speech on tariffs. And I placed third at the state level and will be competing at nationals. My name is Mason Fritchie and there were six of us on our team. We participated in parliamentary procedure where we placed first at state. And we had to run an official meeting as well as take a test on the different rules and motions and other things. There were six different people on that team. I'm Cash Rumpel. Along with being on the parliamentary procedure team, I pre- um competed in extemporaneous public speaking and got fifth at state. And extemporaneous public
006speaking is where I'm given a topic and I'm given 10 minutes to prepare a two to four minute speech off the top of my head. >> Mhm. And some people think I'm crazy, but I really like it. And I've qualified for nationals and will be competing in May to see how I do at nationals. Thank you. And we appreciate all of your continued support over the past years. Just cuz I like to ask questions, what did you have to give your speech on at state? For the first First round, it was on youth financial literacy. Then the second round, which was difficult for me cuz I was arguing in a opinion that I don't really have and it was the benefits of having solar and wind farms in rural areas. Which that was a little
007difficult for me cuz coming from a farming operation, I'm not the biggest fan of that, but [laughter] you kind of got to go with the flow there. Quarter of three north and three quarters west looks pretty plain out here. I know a few people who probably agree with you on that that went up that way. Well, we would like to thank you so much for um supporting BPA over the years and um I think these kids will do awesome and just they have a lot of talent and we are going to represent Adams Central well, right? >> [applause] >> And we wish you luck. Thank you. Thanks, Mrs. Boots for for leading. And next, we have our esports recognitions. I think I saw Mr. Murdock. Yep. All right, hi. Uh I'm Kyle Murdock and I've
008been coaching the esports league now for about two years. It's a pretty new program uh to our school having video games be such a competitive um sport. Uh we've been blessed recently to have five of our boys on uh one game, Overwatch, a team-based shooter against other teams, uh placed recently in division A for state finals. Uh they'll be playing against Union's Ville uh here on the 24th in uh Noblesville coming up pretty soon here. We're pretty anxious about it. I didn't get the chance to have my entire team with me here tonight. They had some other scheduling conflicts, but I do have a couple of my senior boys here that would like to introduce themselves. Mhm. Hi, my name is Christopher Espinoza. Uh I'm Sam Johnson, captain of the Overwatch team. And they have
009been working so hard to prep and prepare since we're representing esports for the first year of varsity and it's second year ever. And we're already so blessed to be able to compete at such a high level here in the state. Um Sam's been drawing up plans for us to try and work with here. I've been learning the ins and outs of trying to coach a fully digital sport without sort of getting directly involved myself um there and these have been some really interesting challenges uh for all of us involved. Um but, they've been succeeding at pretty much every turn and we're so thankful for the continued support of the school um and then of the network uh we're part of, too, the Indiana esports network that sort of hosts all of this for the schools
010around the state. Uh we've had some great support structures for this and we are continuously thankful for that. Any questions we can answer for the board? Anybody moving on for a college career? I'm seeing reading more and more that this is becoming a college thing that potentially has scholarship dollars tied to it at some point, so just curious. Sam, would you like to speak to that? Mhm. I will be moving on to play for Huntington esports. Yep, awesome. Great. What are you going to be playing for? Uh I'm going to be playing for $3,000 a year Overwatch. Mhm. Yep. He's been getting uh looked at pretty heavily by a few other coaches. We visited IWU this year and they took a pretty particular interest in all of our seniors, but Sam's gotten talked about. Well,
011not to over read for any public members or parents in the room or parents watching to say that this is simply evidence that kids should uh have a right to play more video games. >> [laughter] >> It certainly It certainly does lend credence to the fact that there is a there's an advantage to doing that at some point as long as it's in the perspective you're obviously benefiting from that. So, congratulations to you specifically on that and to your whole team and good luck here in a week or so. All right. We thank YOU VERY MUCH. >> [applause] >> ALL RIGHT, NEXT WE HAVE OUR FFA. MRS. KOHLHAGEN, I believe. Well, on behalf of the agriculture and our FFA chapter, we appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening as this year has been the
01275th year for Adams Central FFA. So, you may have a grandparent, you may have a sibling, you have an aunt and uncle in the program as in the past or whatever the case is and it's really cool to say we'll probably have a future one here that was with us here. So, it's been really an opportunity to be here at Adams Central. So, tonight I'm not going to talk very long. Each one of these kids is representing the 78 members of of our chapter, but I'm going to turn over to our student teacher. He has been here since January 5th and I think he's been exposed to about everything possible that could have happened, good and bad, along the way with our competitions, our road trips to Purdue University, in the classroom. So, we're excited
013to turn that over him and hopefully in the future here he'll be an ag teacher somewhere. So, again, thank you all this evening. We do appreciate your support every day. Thank you. Yeah, so as Mrs. Kohlhagen said, I'm Clinton Sollenberger and glad I could be here to just extend my thanks to all of you tonight. Um back in January, I came to this school thinking it was going to be a really long 13 weeks. And I had the opportunity to teach under Mr. Jones and Mrs. Kohlhagen, their manufacturing class, animal science, principles of agriculture, ag power and seventh grade. So, I think I hit all of them. But, I just want to really extend my thanks to all of you for being a really awesome community. Um I told Mrs. Ish earlier, I said I
014think without a doubt I can say that I have probably been placed at the best school in the state of Indiana to do my student teaching at. Um I extend my thanks to Mr. McClure and Mrs. Ish for letting me be here this semester and Mrs. Kohlhagen and Mr. Jones for letting me uh steal part of their classroom to do that. And I also want to thank every single one of these kids behind me and those that aren't here because they've really been an awesome group of kids to work with. And I without a doubt will miss them dearly. So, Friday is going to be a tough day this week when I have to say goodbye and there's nothing that I'm probably more disappointed in the fact that I have to walk out. So, again,
015I thank you all for this opportunity to be here this semester. It's been truly amazing. So, thank you. Thank you guys for your support for the FFA. I'm Maddie Martin and I'm a freshman. And this year we had nine students compete at the area forestry contest. Four advanced estate placing third place overall. And in the forestry contest, students evaluate and identify leaves, seeds, bark, and diseases. Seven kids competed at the district welding contest. Six moved on to the state contest with one team placing sixth and one team placing eighth. Seven students competed at our AC small engines contest. Two teams move on to district and both teams move on to state and will compete at the end of this month. My name is Chase Brown and I'm a freshman. This year we had 10 members
016compete at the area entomology contest identifying over 150 insects. Eight members advanced to the state with our junior team scoring third overall. At the same time, six members competed at the area contest and five students advanced to state and their team placed fifth overall. My name's Lydia Hummel and I'm a freshman. Uh we had this year we had 10 members compete in the soils contest. Three teams Three teams went to state. Um with the senior team placing ninth and the junior team placing seventh overall. We had two senior and one junior livestock skillathon skillathon teams that we traveled to Purdue University for the state contest and also competed in the Miami County Smith invitational in the same week. My name is Breanna Sutton and I'm a freshman. And we had two teams attend the Envirothon
017contest in Columbia City and they placed third and fourth. We also had the petting zoo and pork supper in February. Over 800 preschool students attended the petting zoo with a community open house on Thursday night of the petting zoo and we sold 950 pork suppers. My name is Kason Zaug and I'm a freshman and we had six members compete at the state horticulture contest for the first time and placing 11th overall at Purdue. And in February, we had two team two dairy foods teams compete at the state contest also held held at Purdue. And we held our FFA banquet this last Friday. Forage at the school hall, there was over 250 students, parents, and guests in attendance for our 75th year of ACFFA. Hi, I'm Kim Buchanan. I'm in seventh grade and I'm a treasurer
018for the middle school officer team. Um we had 25 of our members compete at the district LDE contest at Huntington University. We had nine first place teams, four second place teams, six third place teams with our middle school placing second overall and our high school winning top overall chapter. Right now, we also have livestock and dairy judging practices going on. The livestock team will compete this Friday in the Columbia City invitational with the dairy team competing next Wednesday at the North Miami dairy judging contest. I'm Ellie Neidlinger and I'm a freshman. And this year we also had our annual fruit sale. Numerous members contributed and helped with the sale as we sold fruit, honey, and popcorn. The section two parli contest required a team of students to conduct a properly run meeting, taking a written
019exam on Robert's Rules of Order, and for the novice team to answer verbal questions from a panel of judges. The novice team earned second place and advanced to state and the chapter team placed third. The novice team then competed at the state parli contest at Lebanon High School where they placed second overall being reserve state champions. I'm Mason Frickie and I'm the chapter president. And uh we had some students compete in proficiencies where they show all their hard work on their farms and their businesses. Um I placed first with one of mine, Kohlhagen Cash Rumple, and also myself got silver with another proficiency. Uh we had three members getting their state degree in June, which is Cooper Steele, Jasper Shuck, and Cash Rumple. Uh we have four students who applied for their American degree and
020are waiting to hear the results for those. And also uh I am competing for a state star in ag placement, which I got the top four and I'll do another interview in April in April to see uh if I win in June. So, thank you. Thank you all. We do appreciate your support. As you can tell, we're a busy group, but we uh we definitely keep the calendar [clears throat] full all the time. So, thank you again. Appreciate it. We appreciate what you guys do and uh I would just say uh for for our board as we run >> [clears throat] >> meetings, I had the opportunity to be at the FFA banquet last Friday night and Mason putting his some of his skills did a great job of once the meal portion of the
021evening was over, did a great job running an official uh ceremony meeting, I guess you could say, and he was well assisted by his cousin Alyssa. And I actually I had it that evening, [clears throat] I'm going to say now, I I intended maybe to try to find a place where I could come up front and make a comment, but it just didn't seem like there was a official place to do it. You had such an official meeting going, but what I wanted to say then that I would say now to the group that probably is the biggest compliment I can pay you guys. Probably about 5 weeks ago, I was down in Terre Haute at Indiana State University on a day for a class I'm taking and uh bought a superintendents in the room,
022would-be superintendents in the room and you walk [clears throat] in there and you're kind of sitting I'm sitting at a table beside a a lady just like I'm sitting beside Mrs. Sargent now and we, you know, you kind of introduce yourself and I asked where she was from and she was from somewhere in Michigan and she said, "Well, where are you from?" And I said, "Well, I'm the superintendent of a small school district down just south of Fort Wayne, Adams Central." AND SHE SAID, "OH, ADAMS CENTRAL, THE FFA." AND THAT'S exactly how she said it in the tone of voice, probably not quite as deep a voice as I use. But, FFA, Adams Central, I know your school. Uh and she had has most of her life had been in northern Indiana and I don't
023know I think maybe her kids had kind of participated, so she was definitely well aware uh somebody from Michigan when I told her where I was from, that was the first thing that came to mind. So, I appreciate you guys. I like Mrs. Kohlhagen just said, you have a lot of different contests going on around the state and we appreciate uh how well you represent uh our son, not only the school, but just yourselves and your families. I know they're very proud of you. So, keep up the great work. We obviously have a a long tradition of FFA here being the 75th year and uh that must have been started in just the very first or second year of the school cuz that's about how old the school is. So, uh proud of you guys.
024Keep up the good work. THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> ALL RIGHT, WE HAVE SOME I READ RECOGNITIONS FROM ELEMENTARY. I am delighted, first of all, to hear all of the things that are happening to the students that have passed through the elementary and that going on to do great things. But, I have three very special students with me today. Um I want to give them a recognition. Would you like to say your names for us? My name's Evie Ashman. Breial Henning. Brock Bussey. So, Evie Ashman, Breial Henning, and Brock Bussey are here today because they have worked very hard um in their area in the area of reading. They are wonderful readers. They have worked hard. They have read at home. So, thank you to families that says it happened by accident. Our teachers have
025worked hard. Our students have worked hard. These students took the I Read test, which is a very rigorous test for our students at the third grade level. Our second graders are invited to take it to see how they're doing at that point. We have two second grade ladies who had a perfect scores on the test. And Brock is a third grader and he scored a perfect score also. So, I would like for you to give them a round of APPLAUSE FOR AMAZING >> [applause] >> OH, SO SORRY. I DID THAT BACKWARDS. Second grade, third grade. I should have I should have had [laughter] that right. I Thank you for helping me. All right. And there you go is a little treat. We want to celebrate your hard work. So, well done families and students and
026staff. So, great job. We're super proud of you. GREAT JOB, LADIES. >> [applause] >> ALL RIGHT, THAT CONCLUDES OUR RECOGNITIONS. I think we have a lot to be proud of here. A lot of lot of great kids and a lot of great teachers leading and family supporting. Next we have our public comments and Mr. Soldner. I believe I don't think anyone else signed in. I did not see anyone. Well, Heather, I want to thank you for >> [clears throat] >> making me follow all these kids that have done such wonderful work. But, it's been about 3 months since I updated the board. I'd like to just bring up a quick update on where we're at. For the rest of you folks that may not know me, my name is Jeff Soldner. Myself [clears throat] along
027with several other alumni are heading up a project to fund and construct a veterans memorial here on Adams Central's grounds. The centerpiece, hopefully, will be a static display of an actual fighter type aircraft. And so, it's a it's a big deal. We think it befits Adams Central, as you might know. And it's all very doable is what I'm going to tell you. So, with that, I'll get on with the update. Now, I'm afraid our our >> [laughter] >> has Yeah, I think we got kicked off the internet again. But, that's all right. If you saw the homepage that was up before the meeting started, you can give it a shout. I'll just go ahead and continue on. We have a webpage, okay? And it'll be primarily for fundraising. I'm also going to put together a
028Facebook page. And on both of these pages, there will be a donate button that basically connects to the Adams County Community Foundation. We have partnered with them now to do all our fundraising through them. So, when people donate, they're going to be writing a check or even using their credit card to donate however much money they want through the Adams County Community Foundation. That money will sit there gaining interest until we're ready to use it. Our goal for the fundraising is about 150 grand and I think it's easily doable with the people that I've talked to now because we've already had some success on our early fundraising efforts, okay? I won't say how much, but it's it's like when you put that thermometer up, you know, we're not at the bar level yet, but the
029circle's pretty full, okay? So, we're having some early success with that. And basically, I'll bring you up to speed on where we're at on the jet. We've worked with the town of Monroe now. They will be the agency that applies for a jet. And you can get a jet through the National Museum of the Air Force or the Navy. And but both of them suggested that we try to use the Government Services Administration that operates government surplus. And we were advised this would be the quickest way to do that. So, we are going to work with the state agency down there. In fact, I'll probably be taking Justin Shafer of the Monroe town board to go down and actually meet the folks that he might be working with. So, that's a little bit of where
030we're at on that. We are simply awaiting for a contractual actually it's a lawyer to review the applications and then those will go in, okay? Design. We've had some I think good inputs on what we want to do design wise. The three basic items will be a memorial walkway made of brick, okay? And we're going to try to solicit donations for bricks and I think that always gets a lot of good community support. And then also that or that brick walkway will lead to the memorial plaza, okay? And the memorial plaza will have typically memorials to each of the armed services of the country and and then also memorials to the dedicated to the AC and Monroe community members that have served in the armed forces. So, there'll be several memorials in that plaza, okay?
031And then behind it will be located, hopefully, our static display on a concrete pile on. And and I think it'll make for a very memorable type of I won't call it a park, but it it's a nice effort by the community to honor veterans and those who have served. So, with that the rendering that I'm having done is being done professionally by Paul Harding, class of '70. He lives in Chicago now, but has been working as an architect up there pretty much his whole life and he agreed to make a nice rendering for us, which I'm hoping will be available here in the next 3 to 4 weeks. We want to use it for the kickoff that we're going to announce for fundraising with a press conference here at Adams Central, probably. Not sure where.
032I'm going to talk to Superintendent McClure about that. But, it'll probably be the week before Memorial Day and the intent is to get a lot of publicity out there as much as possible and then see where it goes. The website will be up and running. The Facebook site will be up and running. And we're hoping to see some community some a lot of donations start rolling in with that. Uh I think that pretty much does it. I want to talk a little bit about timeline. Uh we would like to give about 6 months to a year for fundraising. Like I said, it's a significant amount, 150 grand, and we'll see how it goes. But, to me, as soon as that money is raised, hopefully, we'll have all our design work ready to go and also
033any necessary permits or what have you. And the agreement between the school board and the town of Monroe where basically I'm asking the board to agree to leasing space for this memorial to the town of Monroe, okay? That'll be a contractual thing that you guys need to do for me. But, however that works, I anticipate that maybe really not that long of a time to actually build the memorial, maybe 3 to 4 months depending on weather. I think the long pole in the tent will be the static display. And so, we'll have to work closely with both the Air Force Museum and probably the GSA folks down at state to see if we've got something lined up. And I'll be honest, that's where you do a little arm twisting. You know, if we've gone to
034the effort to raise money and build this memorial, I think we can get some attention at some higher levels that can put the right emphasis to getting Monroe a jet. Okay. Questions? Anyone? Yeah, Arthur, I do believe is >> [clears throat] >> Quentin Winger, who's the attorney for the town of Monroe. They'll work together to make sure the contracts and legal documents are in place for that. And uh we'll figure out the timeline for when we need to take official action on that. But, does anybody have any questions for Jeff? Okay, I'll leave [clears throat] you with a teaser. The website is up. It's published, okay? It's acveteransmemorial.com. One word. So, you can go there and look it up. It's not working yet. I don't have them connected. I don't have the URLs connected for
035the donations that go to the ACCF. But, you can get a feel for what it looks like if you want to do that on your own. Okay? Thanks for sharing with us tonight. All right, we will move into our consent agenda here this evening. The first item we have is our payment vouchers and our fund reports. Um any discussion or questions about anything? I think we had one on there that was maybe a more of a higher payment unusual The only one I was going to mention, I think it was number 26515. I know I I mentioned one of our previous meetings. We had a one of our furnaces go out in the elementary kind of mid-February, I think, when it was pretty chilly. They had no heat in the elementary office area. That came
036in in right around $19,500. And that's one of the things that we've just had on our radar that's in in that area of the building where multiple units in addition to that one are could be good for two or three more days or two or three more years. You just don't quite know, so those are just the sorts of things in that area we'll probably occasionally uh start running into, but that was payable. Uh that was probably the one in discussing with Don that was maybe a little bit of an outlier as far as dollar amount that might not normally uh be on there. Okay. We hope. From month to month. Um any others uh any questions from the board I should say. Okay. Next we have our 2027 budget and CBA calendar. It I
037believe it's the same as the one that we had last month. So, no one had any issues last month. I assume that we're all okay with those dates. Um moving on to contracts, we have our food to school food to school cooperative contract. Um I don't know Mrs. Everett if you want to say anything about that or not. I know it's a typical one we do every single year. Yes, it is one that we do every year and basically this is a group of other directors in Indiana that help us do food purchasing so that we can get the lowest possible rate, which helps you know our budget out a little bit. Um I have learned the other day I was talking to another director who does their own bidding for other corporations like Fort
038Wayne and Southwest. And she says it's she handles it she has 26 years experience, but she said she has to do it weekly. So, I can only imagine the time that would take me which I would do it if we need to, but she's she used to do it weekly with multiple different food vendors. So, I'm like this kind of cuts it down that they do the bidding for us, give us the best rates so that way we can focus on feeding our kids and basically helping our school instead of spending time doing all the paperwork behind it. They just do it for us. Okay. Any questions for Jessica? All right. Um next we had a donation from uh for the e-sports jerseys from DZ Gaming, so we'll just need to accept that and and
039thank you very much DZ Gaming for helping out our e-sports team because their jerseys look pretty cool that they had on tonight. I assume those are the new ones. Okay. gaming name There yes. Uh-huh. >> [laughter] >> Saw that. All right. Um next we have our TAG awards. Uh Mr. McClure is going to review the process again because that has that's changed. It's the first year that um it's been being done this way um according to the state, so I'm going to let him do that and then we'll read those names. Yeah, so I I think that's some of the information's been shared a little bit, so this is probably just a reminder. So, the TAG grant which stands for teacher appreciation grant comes from uh the state of Indiana. That's been in effect for
040probably 6 7 years give or take a little bit I'm going to guess. Uh but had some pretty big changes this year where in the past teachers who qualified for that grant may have got $300 $400 little bonus stipend and check. Um state made some changes that essentially greatly increased the amount of those stipends, but also greatly decreased the amount of teachers that were allowed to qualify. So, in any school corporation uh the maximum amount of teachers that are permitted to receive that grant is 20%. Um however, I'm not believing that I know of any school that actually received that dollars from the state to to award 20%. That's not a criticism of of our state. It's just uh um just a fact of the the amount of dollars that came in. So, the amount
041of dollars that we got for that was right at uh approximately $49,000 maybe a few dollars less and it ended up that if you [clears throat] divide that out by the $3,500 stipend we were going to be able to award like 13.72 awards. So, uh decided to put just a few extra dollars into that to make it an even 14. So, uh so that was kind of the the bare bones information that we got from the state um as far as that and pretty much every school had to come up with their own process to identify and select those teachers and if there there were just multiple multiple different ways that schools decided uh to do that. Um the way we ended up doing that was through an application process which every school had some
042sort of an application process, but um an application process and the requirements that did come from the state was that it had to be heavily heavily based on student data that uh staff members could provide to show that their students had really achieved at an extremely high level. Uh other things that could be considered were things like uh teaching in STEM areas, high need areas, special education, science, technology, engineering, math. Um also maybe um uh this not really affect us, but for example maybe uh high need areas within a school district. So, for example uh East Allen schools for example uh might have some different demographics within their their individual school corporations, so they might identify some different schools. That didn't really apply uh to us here at Adams Central, but um that's was one
043of the the criteria. So, staff members um this was actually something this was all in place before I kind of started officially here in this role on January 1st, but this is one of the things that I worked with Mr. Layman and kind of took on prior to starting to help get that process in place and then uh applications were due in January. We had a uh our administrative team our principals assistant principals evaluated those. Uh we did it the very best that we could. Those were turned in in an anonymous way uh where staff members turned in several copies of their application. Uh only one of those had a name on it. They were assigned a number uh which is what our administrative team received. Now, uh for transparency clearly sometimes in our district
044if you are uh the the application is reading that comes from a sixth grade English teacher uh your high school middle school principals are going to know who that sixth grade English teacher is. Perhaps our elementary assistant person though doesn't. it was a third grade teacher then you might not know which third grade teacher. So, as much as we could uh those uh applications were evaluated anonymously and then basically they were just scored based on the data and what was presented and we rank ordered them literally 1 through 25. We had 25 applicants uh that all received a um a numerical value for a score and then we literally just picked the top 14. Uh I was kind of glad the way it worked out. It did not There was not a tie at number
04514. I was wondering what we're going to do if we had a tie for like the 14 15 spot. There was a difference in score between number 14 and 15. Uh originally prior to starting the process we'd had some discussions. Some schools were trying to decide are you going to give x amount of awards if you can do 14? Are you going to do five elementary, five middle, four high or are you going to somehow do that? We decided not to do that. Um but I'm also glad to tell you the way it worked out. I think when those names get read here in a minute we had five elementary, uh five middle, and four high schools. So, it actually worked out pretty well. Uh worked across the four high school. I know we're a
046math, science, English, and social studies, so it was kind of across the board. Elementary I know we had three of the winners were what you might call traditional classroom teachers, two uh maybe or or teachers, but not directly in a classroom uh on a daily basis in that way. Uh so, the process really went about as good I think as it could have gone for the first year. My intent right now I'm believing that next year I don't think the state is going to make many changes. I'm guessing at some point they might come out with some more direction or maybe samples of what they believe were good applications. Uh I will continue to work with some other colleagues to determine how they did things, how it went, and also with our teachers association to
047decide if there's going to be any changes that we made uh we'll need to make for next year. Um that's a little bit down the road yet, but that's kind of the process and uh we're we're very blessed to have a a great teaching staff K through 12 or like pre-K I should say pre-K through 12 here at Adams Central, but uh we did have 14 people that were selected for that honor that will receive a stipend check in the amount of $3,500 minus some uh like the turf some of those kind of things. Uh that was another thing that was decided was that on top or or below everybody pretty much around the state. So, those checks will actually be in an amount slightly smaller than that, but $3,500 is the stipend amount and
048uh you're going to be asked tonight to approve those names within the agenda, so I'll allow Mrs. Frank to read those names. You know, we can do one at a time. Any questions before she does that just about the process? Sorry. All yours, Mrs. Frank. All right. So, our recipients are Carrie Ashleman, Caitlin Bussey, Shelby Dalrymple, Matt Landis, Beverly Conklin, Harry Anderson, Robin Everett, Betsy Teemley, Julie Beer, Deanna McClure, Krista Gerig, Leann Schwartz, Clint Gerber, and Kevin Dines. So, congratulations to those individuals. Um Yeah, really happy to have I'm sure there were a lot more that were just as deserving, so maybe next year that will be a a different group of names that's read, but we thank those that that submitted those applications and worked on that. >> Heather, can I ask a quick
049question real quick? If we did get enough money to fund 20%, how many teachers is that per Uh for us that would be right around 20. >> Around 20? Our our teaching staff 100 give or take one or two. Thank you. Um yeah, and primarily that was that was one of the requirements. The two main requirements to be eligible to apply number one you had to be a teacher um a classroom teacher at Adams Central during the 24 25 school year. So, any new teacher we may have had this year would not have been able to apply or for example if we had a teacher this year that leaves to go to another school or retires, you're not allowed to retire um or to to apply for that after the fact, but if we did
050it would be right around right around 20 people. So, we weren't we weren't terribly far off. We were about 14% instead of 20%. Ours is pretty easy math. We're right there with them right there with the teachers. All right. Next, we're going to move on to our textbook recommendation. And this was for a life science book for biology grades 9 and 10, I believe. And I don't know if Mrs. Ish has anything that you would like to add to that or I appreciate the work of the science department. Our teachers have to be bilingual to work with her new teacher in looking at the different options. It's a new class we're going to offer. So, that's it took a little bit to find a textbook, but I appreciate the work of the committee so So,
051this would be for what age of students for the this It's open. It will possibly primarily be our freshman students before biology just to kind of give them a boost before biology. All right. Thank you. Okay, next we're going to move on to our overnight and out-of-state trips and we have quite a few of those here towards the end of the year. And I know you all saw the forms for every one of these, but we'll go ahead and list them off. So, we have an FFA small engine state competition in Lebanon, Indiana, April 23rd and 24th. We have an FFA livestock judging competition again in Lebanon, May 1st and 2nd. We have the BPA National Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, May 5th through 10th. We have the 7th grade Ohio Caverns trip to West Liberty,
052Ohio, on May 21st. And then the 8th grade Cedar Point trip to Sandusky, Ohio, on June 2nd. Any questions or clarifications about those forms that were sent in by the sponsors? Are there any um tests during that window for BPA in May 5th through 10th? You know what? That is a great question because looking at those dates, I'm going to say yes, there are. So, I'll let maybe Mrs. Workman nod over there as well. We have several students that are impacted and so they will be taking the late test. Okay, so there's another testing date for that. Okay, good. Yeah, the last week of school. Thank you. All right, anyone else have any questions? Okay. Uh we'll move on to our resignations. We have five of those. Um first is Mrs. Michaela Rash, uh third
053grade teacher. Um I believe she's going to be staying home and being a mom with a new baby. Um so, we wish her the best and thank her for her time at Adams Central. Um next, we have Mrs. Kathy McCollum. She is a middle school high school special education assistant. Um I believe she has some other family things that she wants to do as well. Uh next, Mr. Nick Smith, varsity boys and and girls golf coach. Um he's relocated. He's finishing out the year with the boys with for us. Um and we appreciate that. Uh next, Mr. Austin Balmer. He was our varsity assistant baseball coach who is pursuing other opportunities. Uh Miss Gabby Landis, our middle school cross country coach. She um has asked to resign for next year just different different things that
054she needs to take care of and and doesn't think that would fit in her schedule. So, we greatly appreciate all the time that all these individuals have put into Adams Central and wish them the best. I don't know if anyone else had anything they wanted to say. I don't want to to skip >> thing I was going to comment, I think it just as you look at those five, I think it's just interesting you have kind of a resignation on just about each of the different individual life circumstances that could cause changes anywhere from a a wedding to new job opportunities, a relocation, a baby, a retirement from a from a spouse. So, I think those five have kind of covered again just the different phases we go through in life that may cause us
055to make some changes, but we uh certainly appreciate the the things that they've brought to us. They're both the extracurricular coaches and then uh certainly Kathy and Michaela with their role during the school day. So, we appreciate them and all they've done for Adams Central. Okay, next we have our recommendations for hiring and first we have Mr. Parker Bates moving into assistant JV baseball coach role. And we have Miss Britney Saddlewaite for um the winter guard stipend for band for 2025-2026 school year. Lastly, we have our coaches roster. And just to make you aware, of course, we have the the one update there for baseball, but we also have club sports listed at the bottom um of that. And so, that's that's just so we can be aware of who are in those volunteer positions
056as well. Any questions or clarifications on any of that? I might just make a clarification kind of in specific between regard to the club coaches. So, we just have a variety of sports throughout the course of the year. I know I've talked with a couple of you about that. I think it might have been Shelley specifically wondered if we could get that on the agenda and I I think I told her or maybe another one or two, you know, that was actually something [clears throat] that I thought was typically on there in my prior role when I was coaching and selecting people to help us with our elementary club travel, whatever you want to call that at grades 3, 4, 5, and 6, I typically would report those names. So, that is something going forward
057we'll try to make sure we have that on there. Again, as much as for for the knowledge of our community and for you guys, but also for for those coaches. I think it gives them just a little bit of protection when they've actually been formally board approved. And and also in that regard, one of the things that we've had just over the years and I think we've kind of nailed it down a little bit here in the last few months as far as background checks. Obviously, anytime we have somebody coming into the building that's going to work with our kids, they get a background check of some sort. Typically, that's a limited background check that might be done if somebody was coming in to to work in a teacher's classroom, maybe a lunchroom monitor, or
058they're going on a field trip. There's a variety of things that people come in to do on a short-term, maybe a one or two time basis that we do those limited background checks. One of the things that I that I've asked our office folks to do and we worked through that with them and myself and talking to the athletic office is anytime we have somebody in one of these club sports roles where it's probably somewhat expected that they could potentially be alone with kids, whether that's in a a gymnasium, out on an athletic field outside, they will get a full full background check just like any any of our teachers would do. Those cost I think what are maybe 40 bucks? Really even 40 40 give or take a little bit. 25 35 That's a
059better deal than I thought. So, but bottom line, we're going to pay for those. That's one of the things. Most of these people are volunteers. So, the school day, you know, that might be a thousand bucks over the course of the year to get those full background checks, but I think that'll be clearly money well spent for us as we go through that process with these people in typically in coaching roles that these club sports are are going to be in. So, that's a little bit of an update on that for you. Thank you. All right, well that ends our consent agenda. So, are there any any questions or clarifications or things we need to go back to? If not, is there a motion to approve? I'll make the motion to approve. >> I'll second.
060All in favor? I. Opposed? Okay, motion carries. We made it to our administrator reports and we'll start with the elementary. Um there's just always a lot to be thankful for um at the elementary. I don't know how many of you get to spend an entire day in an elementary, but there are a lot of moving parts and a lot of great work. And so, I just want to thank several people real quickly um whether it's our custodians, our paraprofessionals and aides who are waiting patiently for a child to decide they're ready to move forward in the hallway, our classroom teachers, interventionists. Um but I do want to give a special shout-out to um our school secretary, Michelle Cochran, and Ava Stafford. Ava is a high school I student who helps us in the afternoons. And
061we all have roles and responsibilities in the elementary, but sometimes those lines get a little blurry. And um our motto is our school our students, our school, our responsibility. And sometimes you have to step into things that maybe weren't your in your job title. And if you would come in our office um today, it was just we were all busy going and Michelle had parents and students and she was tutoring a little student on his um kindergarten writing as she did all of the gracious things that she did. And Ava was supporting her along the way. So, it's always good to be a part of a good team. So, very thankful for that. Um we have finished our first round of IREAD and now we are preparing for the second round. Students in third grade
062and second grade who did not pass um will get a second opportunity. So, our interventionists and classroom teachers are working hard to prepare them and continuing continuing on in that. ILEARN testing started yesterday. And so, our students are talking about all the great breakfasts that parents are giving them. So, thank you for that um getting them ready to come in and be prepared for those tests um on those days. We have a couple events coming up that I would like to just invite the public to um here as April draws a little more to a close. April 23rd is our fourth grade Indiana history program um at Mrs. Kingsley and then on April 24th our PTO sponsors a fifth grade versus staff basketball game and they have an auction as a fundraiser. It is a
063wonderful night of comedy. I work very hard not to embarrass myself so I will um likely cheer from the sides cuz you know, you got to avoid a little bit of that if as you get older. I don't want to be the one on the floor. So um but I am thankful for all of the teachers and staff and um the PTO for all the work that they do to help bring the community in and staff together. So just like to invite everybody to come out and enjoy that evening. Next we have our middle school high school reports. Okay, well as Mrs. McCulla said we are entering um the land of testing. So between ILEARN and then going straight into our AP test, um there are a lot of tests from now until the end
064of school. So it's going to be a busy time um for school counselors as well getting all of the testing with the teachers. Um we are finalizing the 20 um 26-27 schedule. So that is in here. It's still only April. They're getting ready for next year. I want to thank Mrs. Working and Mrs. Clinker and Mrs. Lumpkin for all their hard work on that. Um it takes many many hours to get that finalized and they've really been dedicated to it and for it's the home stretch there. Um our quarter four midterms are next week already. So that's going to be here before we know it as well. Tomorrow our juniors get to go on a JA field trip. Um so we're looking forward to letting them go there um and get another chance um to
065get a building and and learn more about some careers and things that they can do. Um I want to thank um Sunshine with the Feed My Starving Children event. Um Heather, Deanna McLear, Krista Gerig, the girls. It was a fabulous day and the opportunity to be in there um all the way from some elementary times middle school through high school. Um it was great. It was a great day. And so it takes a lot of work many many hours. Um but anyone who was there would know just um what a special day that was. And then we're looking forward also to May um to celebrate with our seniors as they are ending their time here at Adams Central. We've got prom coming up. We've got senior awards night. We've got baccalaureate. And then of course
066our graduation on June 7th. Thank you. Mr. McLear, your turn. Yeah, so just a a couple of very minor things. Couple follow-ups on uh what Mrs. Dish said there. I was also going to give a shout-out to uh our school our community for the Feed My Starving Children mobile pack like you did or nearly somewhere just a little bit over 200,000 meals uh going to just literally around the world to kids who uh otherwise would not be eating and I had an opportunity just to address a couple of our groups of kids prior and uh uh maybe to my embarrassment I sit here at 51 years old and I a little embarrassed how many times in my life and maybe even as adults sometimes you miss lunch and you say you're starving or I can't
067believe how hungry I am when the truth is uh I've never been hungry a day in my entire life and all the days that I've lived. So that's just an extreme blessing that most of us in this room, most of us watching, most of us in the community um that's just a blessing. Sometimes we maybe take that for granted uh that uh some in our community, some in our area may may face that but particularly around the world uh people are facing that. So again uh thanks to Heather who was definitely involved with that. Uh my better half Mrs. McLear was involved in leading that as well along with Mrs. Gerig. Uh but really just what a what a neat opportunity. I think in the day's world you hear a lot about kids not wanting
068to work and different things. Well if you come down I didn't see anybody not working uh with our kids that were down in that gym. They were hustling. They were working hard. They were having fun while they were doing it. So it's really it's kind of like watching bees in the beehive or ants in the anthill if you get an opportunity to see that. So and then just uh we also had about I think it was at 140 Heather maybe 140 community members and some of those were Adams Central folks as well clearly on the on the evening before on Thursday night. So big thanks to some of those groups and many organizations and individuals made donations. Uh somewhere around 60-70,000 dollars it was raised to uh to purchase those meals. So just very appreciative
069of that. Um The other thing I wanted to mention uh just as as Katie was kind of talking and Mary as we enter our testing season. I'm assuming most of you have kind of started hearing about the new accountability model for schools in Indiana where uh I think it's been was it 2019 Mrs. McCulla Mrs. Dish the last time we received a school letter grade. Sometime I say next fall but they I think I've now heard maybe not until January we're going to get our score uh or our letter grade for this current school year. Uh now keep in mind for this current school year they didn't approve the accountability model until March 4th. So we went about 80% of the way through the school year not really knowing for sure how that was formally
070going to be assessed and I don't say that to complain. I just say that this is going to be considered what they're saying year zero. Um so it it's sort of it's it's kind of the intro uh kind of give you a little bit of a baseline where you're at for schools. Uh hopefully we don't find ourselves in this position. I don't think we will. Schools that maybe receive a grade that's a little bit less than desired. But really by saying year zero what that's going to mean is there's not going to actually be any accountability to the accountability model I think this first year. It's kind of just to set that baseline see where you're at. I would like to thank our our principals. I know our guidance counselors as we start looking at
071what is going to be involved in this new accountability model. Um we are actually sitting I think probably uh ladies feel free to correct me probably about as well as we could be positioned just with some of the work they've done over the last few years. I don't know exactly what that'll mean with the letter grade as far as that shakes out. Uh but we've been trying to do I think they have specifically I say we but really it has been them cuz I'm fairly new in this role. But uh working really hard to do just what's right for kids and and as many educators around the state are uh we're just fortunate. I don't think we're going to be scrambling on a lot of stuff cuz a lot of things are in place. At
072some point uh may not be till a meeting this summer. I think at some point we'll uh give you guys a little bit more detailed information on that. Our principals and counselors have seen a lot of webinars. Uh Mr. Steve Baker who's uh uh the former principal of Bluffton High School who recently retired a year ago is kind of the I say most people consider him maybe one of the foremost experts in the state. So he's done some presentations uh for the area. Um so we're still diving into that. Uh but that new accountability model is now officially approved and uh we will see a letter grade for that sometime next year. So I don't know if anything else you guys would have added for tonight. That's probably good enough description. So we'll get some
073more details on that coming down the road um as we get there. The other thing I wanted to give you a little bit of an update on um is our high school middle school principal search. So we did advertise uh just before spring break we posted our high school principal position. Those applications were accepted through April 8th. We ended up having 11 applicants which in just talking to some superintendent colleagues we were I feel pretty good that we got 11 applications and really uh I would say every application was a pretty valid application. There were no applications that came in that you just thought this is somebody that sent maybe a thousand of these out around the country. They were all uh I think pretty good applications. We had made the decision um uh Mrs.
074Accord and Mrs. Hilerly and myself had developed a little bit of a rubric. I'll give Arnita and and Debbie kind of credit for I asked them to help create a rubric. We did that but kind of use that just to go through to help us identify who we did want to bring in for an interview. I identified we identified eight candidates that we wanted to interview and uh seven of those are going to come in and interview next week. One of the eight had had said she had turned an application in here had accepted a position somewhere else. Not sure if that was within her own district maybe a move up or whatever that might have been. But uh next Monday and Tuesday night we're going to interview seven candidates uh for the high school
075principal job. Uh that interview committee is going to be in myself and Mrs. Hilerly. Uh we've got five or six teachers that have volunteered to be part of that process. Uh our ladies in the office uh Susan Cindy and our high school guidance counselor Mrs. Working Mrs. Clinker uh will be involved with that. I think I've hit everybody and I think Katie's going to be a little involved after the interview and maybe giving some tours and maybe some informal interviewing if you want to call it that. And uh our goal coming out of next Monday and Tuesday is to identify three candidates. That's kind of my target number. I suppose that could become four or that could become two that we're going to then come back and interview the following of Monday Tuesday two weeks
076from tonight 13 days from tonight. Uh not sure if we end up using both nights or just one of those nights. Probably would be dependent upon if we have two three or four. And I have asked Mrs. Frank and I think I put that in some notes I sent you guys the other day. I would like to ask two board members uh to be part of that. So I've asked Heather to kind of coordinate that with you guys. So if you're interested in that um kind of in that helping to to do that final selection process. I certainly view this as uh probably one of the most important decisions I'll have to make in my new role is selecting that next leader for the high school. Uh but I value the input that we'll get
077from from the group next week and then um the group of more of these kind of some of the various folks in the leadership teams around the school participate that following along with a couple of board members. So that's where at the high school principal position. Uh as we've had discussion on we are I guess you could say kind of creating that middle school principal position. Uh that was posted on April 8th, so about a week ago. We've got already what, maybe five, six applicants in already, so excited about that. So, I'm looks like we'll get a good number of applications there as well, so excited about that. We're going to kind of trailing that again the end goal for the high school principal is to prove that person at the May board meeting and
078the middle school certainly by the by the June meeting. The only other thing I might add with that with adding a person there in the office area. I've been working with Todd McDonald. White Gain's had a representative in and we're looking not 100% sure yet. I know for obviously you're all somewhat familiar with our layout in the high school middle school office area over here and really since that was built back in 2011, we've got some kind of for lack of a better term, I'm just going to say wasted space when you walk in and kind of to your left that has been used for a variety of things over the year, but purely from a square footage standpoint, we've got we've got some empty space there. So, what's probably going to end up happening
079our storage room which is on the end here that is just a typical storage room. It's actually a nice size storage room. We're probably going to end up converting that into an office and then wall off an area kind of in that back corner where it's a little more out of the way for some storage. So, that's kind of the tentative plan. I think that's going to be a a pretty minimal cost and that that's been something that's been I think on the just a variety of discussion points over the years how we might anywhere from I think at one point maybe Mr. Pettibone years ago had suggested possibly the superintendent's office could go in there. I think that was pretty quickly next. I don't know if that was Mr. Pettibone or somebody else. He's
080not here to defend himself, but I think the superintendent's office is better off not in the high school middle school office probably for for their benefit more than the superintendent, but anyway, that's kind of our plan in there to kind of utilize that storage room with some office space. That might just involve moving a door from one side of the wall to another and then like I said walling some things off and then working with the group just to confirm that if there was any sprinkler heads, fire things that need moved around a little bit to make sure that all happens correctly. So, if anybody has any questions on any of those things, I'd be happy to answer them. Otherwise, that is what I have to report in this evening. Okay, any other other things
081board members want to address? Okay, is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? I'll make the motion. I'll second. All in favor? I. Opposed? All right, motion carries. Our next board meeting will be Tuesday, May 12th, 7:00 p.m. Same place. Thank you for coming.