001All right, welcome to our board meeting, our special session. We're going to get started with our pledge in prayer [Music] to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Father God, we thank you for this day. Thank you for the beautiful weather and what seems to be a great 4 fair going on. I just pray that you will please um help us tonight as we get ready for the start of the school year. Things coming at us quickly. Just please be with us in the decisions that we make. All right. First tonight is we need a motion to approve our agenda as expected. >> I'll second. >> All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. Uh next
002we have our policy board action items and we're just kind of going back to some things that um we had started. So approval of the handbook. I know we had it last month. Um, but we had a few questions on some things. I wanted to make sure that everything was set the way that we wanted it to be in there. So, in looking back at that and looking through the change sheet, um, does anyone have any questions or clarifications that we would like to get from administrators for the handbook? We do have included in there it has not been a part of the handbook, but we do have included in there the random drug testing policy. Um, this is something that has been signed before, but it was never actually in the handbook and printed
003with how that would be taken care of and how the steps would be going forward. So, that's now going to be a part of the handbook. And I don't know, Mrs. S, do you have anything you'd like to add about handbook or any that kind of change? >> This is a document that everyone sign before me. I think it was part of our so that will be added in there and it's it's quite lengthy so people want to make sure that they do take a look at it. We're not going to read the entire thing. Um but again is for extracurricular activities specifically is some guidelines set up in there so that you know you would have to sign to be able to participate that yes you would be a part of the random drug
004testing um should that occur. So, all right. Any any other clarifications on that before um it does also affect driving to and from school. You're right. >> But not academics. >> Um they would be driving, but the goal of the entire thing is otherwise just to let the parents know and seek support for the student through that. All right. Any other clarifications or questions on that since that is a part that a large part that was added? All right. We'll need a motion to approve the middle school high school handbook. All in favor? Opposed? Okay. Motion carries. Um, next we have approval for bus routes for 2526. I know um Mr. Layman and Mr. Weber have been discussing this. So, I know we want to get some information from Mr. Weber about how this what
005this would look like. government that [Music] the question the last few years or the possibility would be to not just change the really operating walk about 20,000 years about ask that question that >> and So, as far as those drivers coming from their routes, would would you say an average, how much would it lengthen their routes would that be? Oh, they probably >> But we do have enough space on the buses. And as far as if this is approved, um, how will the families be notified of like and when will they be notified? Like where they where they make some chang and have the drivers been talked to about like this possibility of this happening? You guys had any discussion? Yeah, in the past we've had we struggled with knowing that there's going to be
006a day that we had some drivers retired and filling those positions. We were always scared what those were going to be. We still up against that wall of >> Yeah, I've got two drivers. That's all I got. I got something right now. In two subs >> in two subs of those subs they don't mind having there's two of them for So Dan Brent, are you suggesting this as a talking point or are we >> you need >> right? That's where I'm at. You're asking for approval to >> eliminate the route. >> Yeah. had money for the last two years and we know the future of the financial situation that we're in [Music] worse not okay this is a time to talk about Can you remind me just the oldest buses? How old? >> 16. And
007the youngest black prior to us putting off buying those buses, how long did we normally drive them until we lost How many years did we try to do that? >> We used to do that 12 years 13 years. Now we got six million 18 by the time we budget. [Music] >> Thank you for taking picture anyway. I mean, our bus there's 11. >> Well, it's like anything else. There's probably not many of us in here that drive the same car for 18 years. Maybe some of you do. That's okay. >> But along that, you know, to rely on that student every day, it has to be And I guess the other side of that is if we make a decision not something it's not to I don't know years years ago when we started town
008right we talk about back then when they see the building because a lot of days there just wasn't that many kids on they use that fairly Yeah. And if you look elsewhere and There's just I think this work mile high We're not that it's not some >> I guess my last question are there signals back in the housing magicians >> is not really walking Yeah. Heat. Anyone have any questions? I don't I'm I'm If it's an EC $40,000 cut, I'm going to be honest with you, if it's something we can try and if it doesn't work, we can go back to it. I'm all for trying it. So, I guess my motion is going to be is to approve the 25 26 year eliminating that count by on it own. That was my >> second.
009All in favor? >> I opposed. Thanks for your All right. Next, we have the approval to forgo reading the policies below. So, is there a motion to forgo reading every one of those policies out? Second all in favor. Um the first group of seven policies we have are all technical corrections from Leola who manages our policies and um their grammar, their wording changes. Um the seven policies let's see we have 2210 and I know that all of you have had a chance to look at them and and read them 4213.01 01 staff student relations 5310 health services 5611 due process rights 6230 budget hearing 7310 disposition of surplus property uh 8,400 school safety information. So all of those were just you would see the highlighted would just maybe be like a colon or a period
010something like that. So those seven of of those seven does anyone have any um questions on any of those and we will take them separately to approve the technical corrections first those seven to I'll make a motion for the technical Second. All in favor? I >> opposed. All right. Motion carries for the technical corrections. And I if I can interject, I would also add the technical corrections and deletions. You don't by law. You don't do a first reading and a second reading. The board can just approve them and think the grammar police have spoken. And next we have the deletions. Um 2700 was annual performance report, 8540 is vending machines and 8640 has to do with transportation for field and other corporation sponsored trips. Um so some of these they were absorbed into another policy
011and some of them are just deleted annual performance reported out. So, any questions about the deletions? If not, we'll need a motion to approve those. Second. >> All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carries. Okay. Next, we have the ones that are the revisions. So these are ones that do have some changes that are made to them. So um this would require us if we did decide to move forward to have uh to forgo a first and second reading for these. Uh Mr. Layman's going to go through the different revisions on these so that we're all clear. I know you received them, but just further clarification so that we're all on the same page. Um this is actually the primary reading primary reason for getting together tonight. These these arrived the end of the week after
012our last board meeting and the recommendation is they be in place by the start of school. H that's interesting. We're going to start school before we get a chance to do that. Um but and for some schools that have a board meeting twice a month, it's really not a And it's not a problem for us either. But the one thing I want to emphasize is every one of these policies came to us because the legislature made a change back in April. So you talk about local control. We are putting these in policy because the Indiana code changed and it now needs to be in our policy. But we still have to take action. Now, I would I would add when we get to the end of these um because they are a result of Indiana
013code again, a board doesn't have to do first and second reading. They have in this case would actually have to take a motion to not do first and second reading and then take action to put them into policy. That decision you can make at the end. You do not have to make that now. Um, so there's actually I think there's like 16 of them. The first one, uh, 2221, it's a revision to the mandatory curriculum, uh, policy, and it's the policy, the revision has to do with the human sexuality that we have to teach at schools. And the nice part about this one is I think those of us uh who are fairly conservative, these are good changes. It, for example, it talks about the instruction needing to be age appropriate and it talks about
014um when you talk about pregnancy to actually talk about the specific stages and have pictures again age appropriate uh to really teach kids uh the value of that. And um it also talks about the instruction for age appropriate sexual relations between kids and when that's not appropriate and it is appropriate. So it's kind of nice to see this data actually putting in some things that I think most of us in this room truly uh agree with. But that is um those are the changes um in 2021. Also, it talks about a consent form, but I'm my understanding is we already do a consent form for some of these programs. The state's now just saying you need to do that. Well, we've been doing it. Um and the other thing this one does, uh and I
015will tell you these won't all take as much talk from me. Don't don't think we're here till midnight. Um, but this also says that we any of our human sexuality curriculum needs to be posted on our website. The links or the references and we'll see that that happens and that's taken care of once uh this is approved. So that is 2221. Um, any questions about any of those? So, the primary things are it's talking about making sure things are age appropriate. It's actually talking about things we already do. Um, but it also references the consent form and we need to post those. Probably the biggest new thing for us. I don't think we currently post that. Now, all schools have to put that on their website. Questions on that one. Okay. 2410. If any of
016you are involved in uh special ed case conferences, what we've done in the past is if a parent would come in and they really wanted to record the conference, we didn't tell them they couldn't, but we said the school is also going to record. So we each have a recording of well the addition to this law is we have to allow them to record. So once again we've been doing it. It's just now the Indiana code changed and we don't have a choice. We have to allow them to record a case conference u meeting. Any questions on that one? >> It's only audio. It just says recording. >> It just Oh, it took out on you. >> Um, it I I guess we could all comb our hair and wear a nice shirt if they
017want to do a video recording, but uh I'm sure the bulk of what people want to make sure is they capture the audio, but there is technically no nothing against video. I would think hope if they wanted to do that they would let us know because again if they record the school will record well we don't know that they need want to do video we might have to say whoa we can't do this today or whatever but I don't think that'll be a problem um the requests to record are very very minimal and we already had a process for handling that before they ever changed the law. Any other questions? um 2414. I know I talked a long time about 2221. Well, 2414 is another policy that was impacted by that same change. So, you'll
018find a lot of the same language copied over into that. Uh the reason for that is the first one I talked about was the curriculum that schools offered and this one is act actually about reproductive health. Obviously you need those same statements in that policy. And before I ask for questions, I'll just jump down and say 246 is the same thing again. and they're talking about making sure you get the consent forms because that's the policy on student privacy and parental access which is why you need the consent form. So those two are driven by the same change as the very first one. I know that's getting a little confusing but these policies are so intertwined that changes in one also impact a change in another one. So I guess on that topic questions even
019back to 2021 because they're all on the human sexuality and reproduction and again these are all policies we currently have in place. These are updates a big part of that um4 that I can make a statement. Yes. But I like it's like it's going back to like teaching abstinence versus everything else that has been taught. So I do like that part. It's a big part of that. And it also talks about like unified settings versus like male settings and female settings and what teachers are going to teach that. and um specifies that I would add compared to some of the more recent changes that they forced us to put in policy, these were a nice surprise. Okay. 2623 student assessment. We've already done some of this. The new state law is that a student who
020does not pass I read gets two chances to take it again. Um even though we didn't have it in policy, we followed that this summer because the law passed in April. So they we do remediation and those students get it take the test again. The state has said now you can try another time. Um, and the other thing that's in here, I keep reaching my screen because my laptop is uh screen sensitive in this. Um, this law also lays out some of the testing for the next three or four years of what the state thinks is going to be so beneficial. I I I said told myself I wasn't going to commentary. But again, they're just setting the dates and the expectations for the future tests. We can say we don't want to do it.
021That's not an option. That's exactly. But we are appreciative that there are a few more opportunities for those students who didn't pass. Any questions on that? Okay, moving along. 3220.02. This is supplemental pay. Uh, Adam Central along with many other schools has a setting where if you have what we consider a hard to fill position where there just aren't many teachers involved in it, you can pay that teacher some additional funds to encourage them to come. Um what this policy does is it says that that is not part of the collective bargaining. Now the school gets to decide what that amount is and what that looks like. Um I can see good and bad out of that. But nevertheless, the legislature thought in their wisdom that that should not uh be a part of that.
022Um and again another part of that law is before you start negotiations and I know we have those people in attendance which is awesome. You're supposed to identify that money first and say that's what you've been doing with supplemental pay and then we we work from there. But anyway, any questions on on that one? So would that include like any level setting or you know is there a trickle effect then you start adding adding supplemental pay to you know certain position? Well, we currently do to some of them when people are hired in. Um, and that that amount is typically stays with that person as long as they would stay at Adam Central. Um, typically it's when you're out going to hire um a new a new person. If it's a a really hard to
023fill, um our uh our biomemed courses would probably fall under that. It'd be it'd be tough to find someone. And and let's face it, Fort Wayne community pays more than we do. Homestead pays more than we do. you know that there's a competition out there and it's it's a way for smaller schools to try to stay competitive finding teachers. I think that Norwell does here. Maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong if you know this. When they hire um for Norwell, they're hard to fill positions. It's like a they have like a boost for every single like special ed um if you teach like the advanced placement classes like that kind of stuff. It's I mean it's like in their language in their contract. Am I right? Am I right about that? Okay. So
024like this isn't like something new for in school I guess. Um, we've been doing it since right before CO I think we first put it in all the contracts. Nor was interesting. So any other questions? Okay, this next policy is 511 and they added one line. They said students can now transfer schools for athletic reasons. I think we probably all saw that one coming when the colleges did what they did. And anyway, uh you've always had transfer students now for the last several years. Well, now it's specifically Let me see if I can find that sentence. Oh, it said it was actually a deletion. No transfer student shall be accepted for enrollment for athletic reasons. Gone. I I don't know if that generates any well probably generates a lot of questions but not about the
025policy. um 5200 again um it's uh it actually impacts four policies. So see I told you we would go a little faster here. The state has now said it is absolutely illegal to expel a student for chronic attendance problem. many schools when the list just got so long on attendance we would say if you're not going to come then going to deal with it but you can't do that and that is actually in policy 5200 which is the attendance policy. It is also in which is the discipline policy. It's in 5605 which is the suspension and expulsion of students with disabilities. And it's in 5610 which is the suspension and expulsion policy. And some of you are thinking, you're really serious about this. You can go on our website and go to something called Board
026Docs and when you can't sleep some night, you can start reading through these. And uh so really that's four of them with the exact same thing. And it's just simply saying we can't expel a student if the problem is questions on that. um as we expected I think everybody here is familiar with lifewise they have added to that policy again already being done but the students the staff at Lifwise have to have background checks And I'm I'm pretty confident they're doing that because I'm familiar with the life wise program. Again, it's not necessarily new, but it is now state law that they have to be. Um, questions on that one? is the harassment policy. And this is a very small deletion in a policy that again kind of fits back with the human sexuality. It
027still states race, color, national or national origin, sex. They have taken back out gender status, sexual orientation andor gender identity. Those things that we put in here several years ago because of the new administration, those have come out of that policy. And it's a 12page policy in one sentence. Um, anybody have any questions on that? Okay. 5517.01 01 is the bullying policy which again we've had in place. What they did is they they changed the timelines on when there needs to be contact with parents and all those meetings and things like that. They they've changed those um in that policy. See if I can find an example. Um, for example, on several of them it says before the end of the next instructional day. A lot of the times they said five, they were saying
0285 days. Now they're saying maybe not today, but by tomorrow we need to make those contacts. Any questions on that? Okay, we did 5600 and 5605 and 5610. 5771. There's times when I read some of these updates, I I want to say what brought this on. I want to read this addition. If a corporation student has died, transferred, dropped out, or otherwise withdrawn from enrollment in the corporation. The corporation shall not remove the students property without first providing the parents an opportunity to collect the property. I don't know why the school wants it, but um that's the change. If the student's not here, we have to let the parents have whatever they left at school. So, I'm thinking we'd probably do that. And for some reason, somewhere something happened that they felt there needed to
029be a a law for that. Any questions on that? Okay. So, the decision for the board tonight is first of all, do you want to do first and second reading? And if so, we're done. If you want to make them law, because you can because of Indiana code, you can take a motion to forego first and second reading and just pass them and make a policy. Or you could say, I'm not sure about one of these. We could pull it out and approve all the others and do those separate ones as first and second reading. It's at the board's discretion at this point. Are there any others that we have further questions that have about a chance to actually look at it? And we were given the revisions that I should read through. I do
030have a question about 2410 like is it in our best interest to always record just in our best interest part of part of that becomes storage of all of that data when you think about I mean I I would hate to guess how many case conferences there are in a in a school year. Uh, and many of them are an hour or more that would be a lot. And I I will tell you that almost all of those conferences are done as great teamwork and everybody's focused on what how we can help the student. Um, so I I would say there would not be a benefit of that. And I would say too we we have a pretty good idea if things are not going to be maybe as cordial. Um and and in some
031of those then one of the uh people from the co-op will actually come to our meeting to help with just the legal pieces and and all that. So I could see that being a little problematic, >> but if you don't document it, it never happened. So I I guess that's more >> well there are meticulous notes taken at those meetings. There's even a whole software package I or whatever it's called where it's all the co-op has access to that and all the teachers and uh it's it's very very well documented in the meeting and when you're all done everybody has to sign that document that they all agree that that's Other [Music] questions we should go back and look at again >> or not? >> 5223. You said you assume that likewise doing background checks.
032There's someone here ask >> they asked me to help volunteer a couple times and I would have to pay back just to even volunteer. you know, documented or I mean is there someone that will routinely follow up on that annually or is that following someone's >> I mean now that it's in policy we might have for that right do you know since it's in policy now that we would think we would want a copy >> I mean originally it was off campus and we really were all hands off but now that it's Oh, so I guess are there any of those that anyone feels like we need to have further but just like more time on? If there are not, >> are we talking more time on just the changes or the policy of a
033>> Well, we're just making a change of containers. >> If if there are anytime there are some of these policies that come up that even what we currently have, you're like, I don't know about that. you just need to let me know and and I'll add it to a time when we can really dig into that policy if we want to make a change for us because some of these there is discretion at the board level but these certain changes there aren't. But if if there's if we ever bring a policy up for change and you see something else in the policy you just have to tell me and we'll get it put into reviews. All in favor motion carries then then we can go forward and approve these >> approval of of the revision
034>> these 15 policies that we just discussed for revisions. I need a motion to approve this resolution second. >> All in favor? Opposed? >> All right. Next, we're moving on to our personnel board action items. We have two approval, two hired. We have uh two individuals in our maintenance custodial area. U Miss Karen Loose and Miss Angela Arnold. you have anything anything to add or >> um I just would say at the last meeting you gave me permission to bring people on so we could start school these two people are already working for us but since we were having a meeting I said let's make them truly official all right we'll take those two together if there's a motion all in favor motion carries welcome to and uh next is our superintendence report. >> The
035only thing I have tonight um there's been a lot of conversation about discipline and and that at all levels since I arrived. I' I've heard that multiple times and I want you to know I've started working my way into what is what do our handbooks look like and all the good things that go with that. Um and I will continue to do that. I just wanted to ask the board, are there specific things you would like me to do um as I dig my way into that meeting with administrators looking at the handbook? Uh but if there are things you'd say, well, I'd really like you to look in for this or um I can I can do that. Otherwise, I'm just going to keep digging in and seeing how we move forward. AR's going
036to be mad at me for this one. I I I feel like looking through some of that handbook, our our discipline is our lane is this wide. There are 10,000 chances that we give to make it right. I think 10,000 chances is too many. That's my personal opinion. I think when it comes to some of the physical things that we're dealing with in our school system today, I feel like I I don't know that it's one strike and you're out type thing, but I I think some of those habitual offenders that continue to do the same thing over and over and over again and more like the fourth time, the fifth time, the sixth time, and things like that, I think that's too many. Um, and I know Oregon allows it to be that many.
037And I'm probably speaking more towards the elementary school side of things. I'd like to see us at least have a conversation of narrowing that down and maybe not given seven chances to grow up all the time. >> So, you're talking about like an individual handbook policy, the consequences for that policy. You're not talking about there's way too many policies. >> No, no. Yeah. I'm talking about the discipline that takes place for the action that >> like if you go down through the elementary there's like if this happens then this and then they get the same chances or whatever and then after chance number five then we're talking about >> you know ex uh being um suspended or whatever. Um, and sometimes I feel like, okay, well, if you yell out in class or whatever, like
038I can see that, but like for example, bullying, you can have up to five chances before you're um suspended for 10 days. So like to me, it's like or or inappropriate touch in elementary is five five chances before you're like uh not speak tonight. I'm exhausted, but suspended for 10 days. So some of those things I feel like we need to make sure that the action and the consequence together. I have a glass I can tackle I can tackle that >> similar to uh that I I just think that like where the accountability lands with some of those decision making like I mean that the uh you know some some minor some major like um is our principles at every level being the last call there are they engaged in all those kind of major
039decisions. Good. Appreciate it. What else? >> I just think consistency and making sure that it's being followed the same way and maybe not lenency given to students at times. I mean, some situations obviously require lenency, but it needs to be consistent and I don't know looking your documentation know that's that's how that's found out or if it's just something that is more chances of making sure that who's vaccinated or being followed and you know I mean especially now that we have well you have the next day to reach out for situations and um you know that's law now so just making sure that those policies are consistent and I can also add that our two administrative teams both middle school, high school, elementary, having these same conversations and been very open to the things I've
040commented about so far and and we just want to make sure we're going in the direction that the door wants us to go. I can take more or I I don't have anything else for my consider. >> All in favor? >> Oppos? Motion carries. Our next board meeting is Tuesday, August 12th, and I think we're going to be at 7 p.m. We have our