001Chelsea Winningington and I am the chief of public and community relations for your Gary Community School Corporation. And it's that time on the agenda for Gary Ready snapshots. It's our opportunity to recognize and celebrate great things that are happening across the district. One of the things we pride ourselves in here in the Garin Community School Corporation is the celebration of history. And I often hear from alumni and individuals who have a touch base with the district. And I had an email from a gentleman by the name of Mr. Arnell Hill. He's a proud graduate of Gary Westside, class of 1975. And he has an award for one of our other fellow graduates that he would like to present to the school district, the school board, and Dr. Stokes Posterously. Mr. you're here. Would you please
002come and give us this historic information and make this presentation? Can we welcome him as he [Applause] comes? Thank you for letting me be here today. I'm here on behalf of a former teacher in the area school system, Mr. William Bale. Mr. Bale taught in the area schools for 25 years in 1975 until 2002 approximately. He passed away unfortunately in 2004. Now in 19 2019, excuse me, he was given an award by Hayes College Neville for being a distinguished alumni. Of course, he passed away then, but I took the award on I have. But there was no family there for him at all and no friends. So I had this in my home for the past six years, but I thought about give this to Gary School Systems where he came from. So I brought
003this award that he was honored with back to Gary to have you all hopefully keep in a safe place. I've got the war here information also. [Music] [Applause] Thank you so much for being so thoughtful and diligent, Mr. Hill. We're always ready to honor our educators, past and present. Next, I would like to share with you information about a recent program that was held at Westside Leadership Academy titled the parent impact. It was orchestrated by our ACE, Miss Sbrite, and it focused specifically on parents and families who have students with special needs are part of our special populations and their resources. And when I tell you there was a full house, there was a full house with great information, instructors who presented as well as parents who presented. and where they were able to ask
004their questions, fellowship, and also develop a network where they will continually stay in touch. If you're interested in watching back the presentations, they now live on our website, on social media, as well as our YouTube page. And I want to extend a special thanks and congratulations to Miss Sombbright, our family and community engagement liaison for her less faced series where each month she brings in resources and individuals to communicate to our parents and communities. Can we give Miss Sombra a round? [Applause] We are also still gathering data regarding our upcom upcoming summer passport program. We simply want our parents and guardians and families to fill out this quick survey to ensure that we are ready to accommodate any and all scholars during our summer passport program. It will take place um immediately the following week
005after school ends and it will include a variety of enrichment opportunities for our youth across the district. But starting with this passport survey, we ask that you take it and then we will be in touch within the next couple of weeks with a full robust lineup of what summer looks like in your Gary schools. Next up, we are so excited to share with you that on this coming Wednesday, May 14th at 1 p.m., we'll round up right over at Bthoon Early Childhood Development Center. It's the kindergarten round up. We are ready to round everybody up for the next school year. Seems like we just got started, but it's time to round up. And this is the opportunity where parents can come who are ready to enroll their children in kindergarten and meet all of the
006representatives from our various elementary schools, the principles, the teachers. But we have also set up the roundup so that if you are seeking to enroll your child for any grades, we will have representatives at the roundup. There will be snacks and games and tours of the building so that people can get ready for the next school year. So again, please mark your calendars for the kindergarten roundup. And um you might see a pony over there or two with the Brown Family Ranch that will also be one of our special guests and activities for our young people as they gather to enroll in the Gary Schools. The recent episode of a day in the district features Miss Adams and Miss Kinsey from Bthoon and they're talking in depth about the kindergarten roundup and they are also
007talking about the upcoming parent conference that we have on May 31st which will take place also at Westside Leadership Academy. So, we want to remind parents to also be sure to register for the free conference that's taking place at Westside from 8:30 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. And last but not least, it is my pleasure to reveal our enrollment campaign theme for the 2526 school year. It is strong roots, bright future. And the way our team arrived at this mantra is that we know how proud we are of Gary's history. But we are also very proud of where we are headed. And if you see one of our scholars who has on sunglasses because her future is so bright, she had to put shades on. Uh our billboards are representative of all levels, our um elementary,
008middle, and high school. And it has the information of course of where you can enroll your child. This is the tip of the iceberg, but you will hear commercials and a digital marketing campaign and a grassroots campaign and radio ads all boasting this. So get used to it. Please join us in embracing the theme of strong roots, bright future. Enroll your child in the Gary schools today. Thank you so much. This concludes my report for Gary Ready snapshots. You're now back in the hands of the school board. Thank you. Thank you. Um, are there any questions from the board members? Thank you so much. Let's move to item number five on our agenda. Excuse me. Item number four. I apologize. Um, our first we will have Mr. Johnson read the public comment information. Pursuant to
009Indiana Code 5-14-1.5-3, the Dair Community School Corporation Board of Trustees welcomes comments from the community. As a result, the agenda for each regular meeting provides time for public expression. Period of public expression is limited to three minutes per individual and 30 minutes total discussion of items on the agenda or to express concerns relative to the operation of the school city, school board actions and other items of general educational interest. If there are many people wishing to address the board, we may limit the amount of time a person may speak. Comments should be directed to the board, not individual board members. Statements shall not be abusive or argumentative. Persons making comments shall not debate statements made by others. It shall not be permissible to or forally present or discuss complaints against individual employees of the Gary
010Community School Corporation at any order school trustees meetings. Issues relating to personnel, individual circumstances, or an individual school will be referred to the building principal or an appropriate administrator in an attempt to resolve the issue prior to an appeal before the board. Speaker cannot transfer their remaining time to another person. The board president will enforce these rules and may take actions necessary to maintain order at the meeting. Such actions may include, but are not limited to, interrupting the speaker if the statement is too lengthy, unduly repetitive, or otherwise violates the rules. The president may terminate the address of any speaker who violates the rules, or limit the total amount of time devoted to public comments if there's a large number of people wishing to address the board or if there's a large agenda of other
011business before the board. Thank you, sir. I have Carolyn [Music] McCrady. Good afternoon everyone, board members and Dr. Stokes. Uh, I want to just say a few things about Dr. Ruth Needleman who will be donating part of her black history collection to the library at Westside High School. And I thought everyone at home and everyone on the board might be interested in knowing a little bit about Dr. Groot Neman. She is a professor emmeritus from Indiana University. And she's always loved her books and languages of South America as well as the art of the Caribbean. As a young moon, she worked in California's lettuce fields with Caesar Chavez, writing a newsletter for Spanish-sp speakaking workers who struggled every day in those fields to form a union where they would have rights and dignity. Later she
012would go on to teach, excuse me, on the university level, but was so passionate about the war in Vietnam and the invasion of Cambodia and the shooting of students at Kent and Jackson State that she joined with camp gaps demonstrations for which she was fired three times by the same university only to be brought back because of the protests of her students that would not allow her firings to stand. She was beloved wherever she went. When she arrived at Northwest Indiana, she set about creating a new kind of curriculum in the labor studies department at Indiana University Northwest that focused on bringing in workers mostly from the steel and auto industries and offered degrees that they had never been able to obtain. She called it swing shift. And over the years, hundreds of workers, men
013and women, black and white, and Latino, graduated from the program, having learned the proud history of the union movement as part of the untold history of the working class in general. Most recently, and over the last decade, she led the fight to oppose the deportation of our own uh of thousands of workers from our Gary, our own Gary uh airport, whose only crime was to be undocumented. And during that time, Ruth was able to convince the Gary City Council to enact the welcoming ordinance that was overturned only recently by AG Todd Draita with the threat that if the city did not do so, the state of Indiana would sue. Ruth has done so much more, and it would take several hours to recount all of her contributions to the struggle for justice. But now it
014is her wish that part of her beloved collection of African-American history books and novels that number over 500 volumes be placed where the collection would be appreciated and treasured for all the collective wisdom it represents in the library of the Westside High School. Thank you Westside and the members of the Gary Community School Board on behalf of Ruth for this honor. Um she would have been with me tonight but she was unable to be here. Thank you very much. Thank you, Robert [Music] Bugs. Good evening, boy. My name is Robert El B senior and the Hill presentation is a perfect segway into what I want to talk about tonight. There was a teacher that taught for the Gary Community School System for 60 years. She taught at Uston Washington Lock Jefferson Elementary Schools. Her name
015is Di Smith. Uh this lady never missed a day of work. And I came to the board and asked uh one of the board members if they would recognize her cuz she recently passed. I gave her a copy to the superintendent. I was told that we have many like her. So we talked about trying to recognize our own. Here's a lady that never miss a day out of out of 60 years and we can't even get an honorable mention of her of this board. The other thing I would like to uh mention to the board or suggest to the board during your pre-tenure I would suggest that you leave a legacy by naming number one advocating for a brand new school and naming that school after Quinn B. Smith, uh, Mr. Hawkins, Custo Hawkins, we
016all know him. We got one from Bernard. Watson, which is in disrepair, and I would suggest that that name be taken off that rag school and be renamed another school or if you build another school, put that name on there. These people are the real educators from Gary and they have forgotten as if they never existed. So, this training, this board has the power to advocate for a new school. A new school is going to bring more industry. As it stands now, every district around the city of Gary has a new school except Gary. They put over $20 million on a road that's still leaking. So, I would suggest that you all take a good look at this brief time that you're going to be on this court because there's legislation trying to remove you
017all like I was removed uh by putting the parts and all that other kind of stuff on there. So I would suggest that in this city of Gary and that if you want to leave a legacy that you start by recognizing your own educators. This this is is ridiculous that the people that gave you so much and and education elementary education is the basic the foundation of where you going to go how success you want to be in life. This is the basic foundation. And here's a lady that gave 60 years of her life. 60 years and I can't even get this board to give an honorable mention. I asked Mr. Johnson, he said, "Well, we have another we have other people's have about the same amount of time." But I was asking about her.
018He mentioned Mr. Quinn Smith. She's a friend of mine. name a wing a library or something after this lady and something after put there's a lot of things you can do if you want to do it because when other people come to take over they're going to change name and name everything they want and you all know it you know what I'm talking about so I would suggest that you leave a legacy a positive legacy for the children of Indiana thank [Music] Dr. [Music] Spangleberg. Good evening. Um to segue off of what was just discussed, um I know that there's other districts in the area that are considering doing more proactive and ongoing honoring of our educators. And I think that that's absolutely necessary. I know that I think this is teacher appreciation month, but
019honestly, every day should be teacher appreciation day. um because we put our the our future in the hands of teachers every day and that's a tremendous responsibility and most of the time they do an excellent job. Um but there's also it brings to mind uh we have two former board members that I'm aware of who have passed within the last year or so. Um and when the first one passed, I advocated for something to be said. Um, and that didn't happen for whatever reason. And now, of course, James Piger, PJ, depending on what he wanted you to call him at the time. Um, definitely has to be mentioned and I'm not going to, you know, wait and see again. But also, Jonathan Moose, a lot of people forget that he served on on this board.
020He did. Um, and he was very attentive to doing things in the legal, ethical, and correct way. He was very despite many objections to it, he cared more about this community than he ever did about politics. A lot of people don't want us to remember him that way that that is the lasting legacy of the good that he's done. Um, a couple things in line with that. Um, we do need to be very mindful of facts and requirements, especially for 21st century scholars. Um, I believe Westside was right around 68% completion by the April deadline, but the problem is is that their ability to access those resources is highly dependent on them completing it by the deadline. Um, there's still time. There's still time in the federal deadline. Hopefully, they take that into account. Hopefully
021more more of our kids can get in. I know 68% of our scholars, which was right around the state average, but our overall average was like 44 definitely have to push harder. And it also brings to mind, why are parents not aware that their kids are eligible? Because I'll tell you that proportion makes no sense. A ton of our kids are eligible to be 21st century scholars. Sometimes they don't get the letter. Um, other thing to be mindful of, following IEP law. If a parent requests an IP that the process needs to begin, there should be brochures, pamphlets, information everywhere for parents to see what this process is. And this helps our teachers too because if if kids are having behaviors in the classroom that disrupt their learning or other people's learning, that's maybe a
022symptom of something medical, psychological, neurological, doesn't matter. That process still helps to address that. Thank you. Going ne done. [Music] Good [Music] evening. I am Lenny McDonald, president of American Federation of Teachers, local number four. I stand before you this afternoon filled with many emotions. My folks are hurting teachers and pair professionals during this teacher appreciation week. Earlier today, I sent many of you an email, administration, and board members from a middle school teacher reaching out to me for help and assistance. Student discipline is a problem in the Gary community schools. Staff are being told by building admin and security that their hands are being tied by central admin as far as consequences for student actions. Teachers are being assaulted physically and verbally on a daily basis. We have students with 50, 60, even 70
023writeups. Much can be said, but my middle school teacher addressed the concerns. Please read the email. We need real action. Thank you for these few moments offered to me. Teachers in Paris can no longer afford to be silent. Bruce Curry [Applause] [Music] Thank you. I just uh glad to be here to address everyone. First of all, want to give outstanding recognition to the board and to the community on what I saw I think with uh Martin Luther King's daughter here and I just wanted to say it was an excellent event and it brought to mind this being a weekend of Mother's Day. Uh one of the thing my mother always two points and I kind of figured I I need to say this real quick is power of education. Right now we know what we're
024going through in the country. We have to stay strong locally to to deal with education. Like this one woman said, uh, Mary Cook, she said, "The whole world opened her eyes when I learned how to read." That's what she said. The other person, Martin Luther King said, and I heard it with the uh speech just before me around discipline kids and and what is what is education about? Intelligence plus character. That's the goal of education. So, we've got to focus on those and make sure we work together. We got tough neighborhoods. We got we got good teachers, but we got to stay strong with our students. They need to be disciplined. You deal with them. If they don't, we recognize them. But we want our kids when they go out to this world and community
025to be good corporate citizens. We want him to contribute cuz uh one thing Mr. Peggy always told me he said Bruce I got on these buses and I I took these buses he's telling me about it we took every kid try to find every kid want to go to a college and he would call and it was the help of the teachers the principles the board members uh I know Mr. Bugs was involved in it in the past. Others help these students get opportunities to grow. We got to continue that and we got to stay positive. Y'all look in the room. Everybody looks all right. We should be happy. We're living happy to help our students because they graduate. This is the month of May. May is the most beautiful month in education. So, we
026just need to stay strong and vigilant in our education. We dealing with no federal government now. We got to deal with Indiana. So, let's do the right thing. That's all I'm asking. God bless you. Let's just have a let's just be strong and deal with these issues. It's not nothing bad about them. This happened when I was young. Some kids was bad, some was good. You had to deal with it. And teachers, back your teachers and board, back your faculty and community, back everybody. Thank you. That's all. I think I'm on time. [Music] Item number five on our agenda is the consent agenda. At this moment, I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda. Items one, 5.1 through 5.6. I'll make that motion. It's a motion on the floor. May I have a second?
027Second. been moved and properly second. Any discussion on the motion hearing? None. May we have roll call for approval, please? Mr. Suggs, yes. Dr. Woods, yes. Dr. Mloud, yes. Yes. Mr. Johnson, yes. And I say yes. All board members say yes. Vote of five yes and zero against. The motion carries. consent agenda has been approved. We'll move on to item six, 6.1 on our agenda. Uh, Miss Zabaroski. Good evening. Good evening, Gary. Community school board members, Dr. Stokes, and community members. As you all know, we recently issued a request for proposal in RFP for food service, which is a requirement by the state. This has been a significant undertaking and I want to start by sincerely thanking both the RFP committee and the school board members for their dedication through this entire process. We received
028a total of nine proposals each of which required thorough analysis, thoughtful discussion and careful consideration. This was a detailed and lengthy process, but it was critical to ensure that we are making the best possible decision for our students. So, with that being said, I would first like to take a moment to thank Sedexo Magic for their many, many years of service to the Gary Community School Board School, sorry. So after extensive review, we are excited to introduce Chartwells as our recommended food service provider for the 2526 school year. At this time, I would like to invite the Chartwells team, part of the team up to give a short presentation and then I will be back to the podium. [Music] Good evening. Um, my name is Kelly Deal. I'm the regional sales director for Chartwells. Um,
029we're honored to be here today. We're very excited to start here at the Gar Community School Corporation. Um, this has like I said, it's a long process. So, I her team and her dedication to it is great. We'll take her just a couple minutes of what we are going to do here at Gary Community Schools. Um, I will say we are missing one of our team members. So if this is a little disjointed that's why she's stuck in uh traffic. Her name is Tanara Winters. She's going to be actually the area director that is over schools but I guess 65 is uh shut down. So we'll just go with it. So just a little bit about us. We are Chartwells which is part of Compass Group. So you might have heard of Compass Group between
030uh Ley restaurants, US dining, uh we do hospitals as well. Um but Chartwells is the K12 sector. So all we do is K12 schools. Um we run 700 plus districts nationwide, but here locally in Indiana, we are the leading provider. So we have 43, hopefully 44 after tonight school districts in Indiana. and they range from uh Southbend public schools to little old Lafayette Catholic uh you know with 600 kids. So we have a wide range of industry leaders and expertise that really just focus on K12 schools. So what does that mean in the difference for you as Tart Walls as a company that goes with Tartwells? We have a vast culinary talent that we focus on food that kids want to eat. We're here to learn what Gary school kids want, what they love, and
031put that on the menu. It's ever evolving. We have 16,000 plus recipes that our local school director can choose from. So, if the kids don't like it one day, it's off and we can add something new. Unmatched efficiencies from uh how we order to our inventory systems. as a company, we can bring those here to run your program in an effective way. Our extensive resources, like I said, 43 school districts, you have everyone from Siobhan Kerry, who's our regional vice president uh here in the state of Indiana. We also have 13 chefs, six dieticians, all locally in Indiana that are able to come and help out the Gary Community Schools. And then obviously bringing the cafeteria and the classroom together. It's just not about feeding the kids, it's about educating them too about how the
032food makes them feel and how to make them perform better. Go ahead. Hello everyone. Uh as Kelly mentioned, uh so my name is Siobhan Kerry. I am uh the regional vice president of over the Midwest region. Um and I live here in Indiana. Um and so I wanted to talk a little bit about our team. Um so you can see the hierarchy here. So Tara Winters is uh your onset like is your area director um and so she will be the person that you will work with um in the beginning uh to kind of have a transition into uh right before school and then obviously we'll have an on-site director of dining services. And one of the things that was so great about going through the process with uh with Linda and her team was
033really understanding uh what what was important to uh Gary Community Schools and what kind of team you were looking for. So what we heard was you need a food service director, an assistant uh director of dining services, which is just really over is all about the operations. um an executive chef, uh someone that's going to work with the team, um really focus on that culinary presence, uh and the food quality, and then a marketing specialist, somebody that's going to do a lot of the nutrition education, um and telling the story of all the things that we do here uh in food service. The big thing is is that um this is a partnership and so there's a collaboration between who these people are and so we want to make sure that everybody knows you know
034Linda Dika Dena is a huge piece to this as well while she is your she's your liaison for food service um between us and and Gary community schools and so we want to make sure that we have a collaborative approach of the team your on-site team and who we pick so everybody will get to see those candidates meet and decide who's the best fit here for your team. And so what are a couple things that will change here in Gary Community Schools with Chartwells as a partner? First, um we are happy to introduce Navigate Foundation. Siobhan will talk about that in a little bit. Um but it is a 12week or a two no it's 12week uh paid internship program that we can have with your culinary students. And the great thing about that is
035Compass Group is so large. We have so many outreaches in industry and uh sports and entertainment that they can have other uh internships just not in K12 food service. So it could be at a hospital or sporting or dining. So it's really about bringing education food service together for your students. Custom driven custom student driven menus. Again, this is not a corporate menu that's a one-sizefits-all. It is about what resonates here in Gary Community Schools. Your food service director, your executive chef will be able to make those decisions on the fly through feedback from the local community, which includes parents and teachers and administrators and of course the students. We're obviously we want to be a trusted partner. It is not we're just a vendor here. We are a partnership. We're here to make Gary
036the best school corporation, the best food dining that we can. So, how do we do that together? You know, and that's even getting Linda ready for her audience, which there are a lot. So, come in with the binder. She's got it all. And we'll set her up for success. And then student engagement. So, again, we have some really great ideas. We have a celebrity chef series which if anybody's a foodie that knows like Jeff Tila um he's part of this and they come to the to our schools and we'll do in student engagement. So they talk about their life and how they grew up and you know they get to the students get to taste the food but then also see how they came from you know uh a school district and now they're celebrity
037chef on the food network. It's actually a really cool series to see the kids interact with you live cooking competitions with them as well. So that is one thing that Gary Community Schools will um get to see. And then also an increased participation. Usually when you transfer vendors um there is about a 17% participation increase in the kids number of kids that are eating school lunches. So that is exciting to see um the first day of school, you know, when they come back in August or July, they are like, "Oh my gosh, this is different. This is great." And it's very hyped. And we're all the kids are coming to eat. And so we're really excited for this partnership. Again, it is a collaboration of what we do best and what you guys do best
038and putting it together. Again, just a little bit about our food philosophy. It'll be more scratch cooking, authentic recipes, nutritionally balanced. There'll be a lot of training with your staff um here in the cafeteria as well. We'll do an intensive 3 to 4 day back to school training with all of them that includes some culinary training from our executive chefs. Um and it's continuing. It's just not the one and done. They'll do some training uh by spring break. And we have a coloring masters class where if they want to get more in depth, we can send them to um another school district where and other uh is food service employees for that school district. They come together and learn from each other. It's it's really cool. But again, fresh, local, seasonal, try to do some
039farm school things. Um again, building that relationship to what the kids eat and how it affects their body and eating good food. Go ahead. couple three or three programs that we are introducing into Gary Community Schools as well. One is Discovery Kitchen that is for all grade groups. Um and that is really just tying fun things to the cafeteria. So, we'll set up a booth and your executive chef will have it. And we'll be talking about seed to table and what it looks, this is more for an elementary school, but what it looks like when you plant a cucumber, how you harvest it, and then what it looks like when we serve it on the plate. Because I remember when I was a food service director, when going into kindergarten, first grade, you know, classrooms
040and talking about them, they never understood what a potato was, you know, and that they just had that for lunch and a French fry. So, really trying to bring that together is all what Discovery Kitchen is about. And if you want to go to the next slides too, I'll talk about we've got some fun pictures of mood boost activities. So this is for your um kinder or elementary school and middle schools. It's about tying what you eat to your mood. So if you eat a blueberry, you are calm and alert. Or if you eat um a tomato, I think a tomato is the alert one. So it's really all about engaging the students more than just here's your food and move along. So, that's a really fun one. And they get those little, you can
041see in the bottom, they're called our movies. Um, we give out wristbands and they get little collectible cards that have all the movies on them. The kids really think it's a fun thing. And then the next one is um student choice. So, this one is for middle school and high school and it's one of our proud uh we're very proud of this programming because it lets students have a choice. So, we come into the cafeteria, we do tasting events, and the students will then vote on what they want in the cafeteria the next month. So, it's a station that they get to choose. So, it could be we might do a it's called roost, which is our chicken concept, a barbecue concept, and a Chinese concept all uh throughout the week. Then they come back
042and they vote and then that one they will see for the next three months as one of the options. So, it really gives them empowerment that they can make a difference in what they um what they see on the menu. And it's really funny to see cuz usually we'll do the voting throughout the week. And so, you know, they'll do it on an iPad and it's like up on its TV and they're like, "Oh, mine's losing. I got to vote a couple more times." You know, like it it's really a again engagement is what we're here for. So, so the navigate experience. Uh, so we're very excited about this program. Uh, it's been in the works for a couple of years. So, um, as I'm sure you all you all know, um, the workbased learning
043hours is a big thing in schools in Indiana and across the country. And our, um, our leadership has been listening and saying, you know, what can we do? what resources can we provide, you know, our clients to help with the workbased learning. Um, and so introduction of the Navigate experience. So, we uh partnered with a with a woman by the name of Simone Byron, uh, Chef Simone, uh, and so she has a a program that she started in Atlanta and in the Charlotte uh, North Carolina metro area. Um, where she goes in and she works with students on hospitality tourism. And so how it works is we have a boot camp, you know, first two weeks is of a boot camp between um on-site as well as virtual um and we work on professional development,
044how to work, you know, in in a in a kitchen, you know, the um what's the word? You know, just learning like how to work with people courtesy um you know, you know, how to how to work in a in a work office environment. And then we moved to the culinary training foundations. And then from there, after the two weeks, then we start a 12week uh internship program with us uh in our in your kitchens here uh in Gary Community Schools. And so these hours that are paid um that helps go towards their work-based learning hours. And then from there, it creates a path for them into the work uh to into Compass if they choose to. And it doesn't have to be in K12. Um it can be in our higher ed, you know,
045higher uh Charles higher ed. Uh so colleges and universities, they could be with sports and entertainment. Um so we have a lot of different options. A lot of big flagship accounts uh that we partner with uh throughout the throughout the country. So Google, um Proctor and Gamble, some different things. So there's a lot of opportunities as well as and maybe it's not culinary, maybe they decide after doing this they like more of an operations job um more administrative purchasing you know sales there you go sales um and so we provide a path because what we have realized that in addition to trying to support our clients with the workbased learning needs um we as a company are growing and we need the kids to grow with us and so this program that's kind of where
046it's come so I we're very excited about it. It's new this year for us in Indiana and so we're excited that we can do it here uh in Gary Community Schools. Thank you. Um so as Kelly mentioned, uh student choice, right? That that's a big thing. Food their way. They get a voice. Well, this is kind of kind of goes with our philosophy. We have a listen first approach. Um we want to make sure not just our students but our clients that your voices are heard. Um, and that everybody understands that we we serve at the pleasure of the school district. Um, and we want to we want to whatever you're looking for, we want to do. So, it's not a um cookie cutter approach. We want to customize your food service to what works
047best here in Gary Community Schools. So, our big thing is surveys, focus groups, not just with students, um, but with staff as well as parents, um, and administrators. Um, we really work with, um, we love the student council. Anytime we can get in front of the student council, uh, they they are great. They are unfiltered and they just say it like it is. Um, and it really helps us build our menus. Uh, and then just offer different, you know, different things to the students throughout, you know, K through 12. Um, so here at Gary Community Schools, you'll have your voice survey for the staff um for so we do a a your voice survey um every couple of years so that staff can really give us what uh they feel is important as well as
048meeting with your principles uh quarterly so that they can fill out a principal scorecard and tell us how we're doing. Uh and then obviously we do a annual uh client [Music] survey and you know at this point this is really this is our tagline um that we are we're all about the happy and healthy. It isn't just a catchphrase. Um it's our way of it's our way of life. This is you know what we want. We want kids to really enjoy um obviously enjoy coming to school and then enjoy uh their time in the cafeteria. So, any questions? Sorry if we went over a little bit. We're just very passionate about the school of nutrition. Thank you for your presentation. I'm I'm excited and pleased to hear about the mood food and you taking the
049opportunity to share with the students how the food impacts their bodies. Um, I think it's exciting to hear that they're getting educated as well as getting the nutrition that they need. um food their way, the input that the students give to kind of select the food for I think you said three months. Um how responsive are you to feedback? One of the things that I've noticed um current state is is that I've been hearing concerns from faculty and parents and students and it doesn't seem that we've been able to articulate that we hear you and understand your need. Have you been able to tackle that type of response? So, excuse me. So, it's very important for us to be to embrace the community and be part of that. So, making sure that whatever events are
050going on that we're there um to engage. So, it's not just come the parents complaints are not just coming to you that they see us at, you know, a you know, a a wellness night or something of that nature and they have a direct line to us as well. But we are happy to share you know one of the things that we like to do is when we get the survey results we like to analyze it and then say okay out of all let's say we had 500 responses we'll kind of use analytics you know AI to review it and tell us okay out of your 500 responses this is these are the top three things that are very consecutive amongst the group and then we want to report that back to you say yes
051we heard you here are the three things that we've identified that is the concern across Ross all uh all parties and that this is what we want to do and we we that's why we wanted to bring in a marketing specialist to help tell that story because I think that's really important. Um one of the things that we've learned is that we're very humble in the sense of we just put our head down and we do our job. But the problem is not everybody knows what we're doing. And so we found that the marketing specialist was really important so she can get out there and help or she or he sorry we the last two have been female so pardon me. Um but uh that they can get out there and really tell the story
052and help communicate those um concerns and not just take them but then give a follow- through response to them. And we use your communication channels, right? So whatever, however you communicate to your parents or community, we will, you know, follow that along. If it's a newsletter or a social media post or, you know, just at a fair, a career fair or a student fair, we'll we'll be there. And and typically our process with communication is we do not communicate to the community without approval from Dr. Stokes, from Linda, from Dena. Um that that that's just not how we operate. Um, and so we want to make sure that you're good with the voice because we represent you. Thank you. Any additional questions for um the internship program is there how many but how many students
053do you take on this? So a cohort um I believe it's up to 15 students for a cohort. Um, and I think that's kind of our our goal is that the first three months is usually that transition, training the staff, getting the kiddos fed, um, starting the nutrition education, and then my goal would be to have the Navigate program either started by the spring of the the 25 26 school year or going into the fall of uh, the 26 27 school year. And again, I think it would be it's a collaboration. So we we need we need everyone to identify those students that want to be in that program and there's some we have to work with the parents make sure that we get parents consent. Um there would be a virtual platform where we
054would uh where chef Simone would talk to the parents and kind of give them an indepth overview so that they can then decide if this is something they want their student to participate in. You're you're really looking at the juniors and the senior uh students uh to participate. [Music] Yes, I just have a brief question. Thank you for your presentation today. And although I saw quite a few pictures of the food, is there an opportunity to taste before making a decision? We should have. We were coming for my eyes though before waiting so it was a little hard. Uh well, I I was going to say like what can I do on the fly? Thank you. Thank you, sir. I heard something about a second chance breakfast. You going to share? Yes. Yes. So, second
055chance breakfast um has been very successful in your uh at the high school level. Um as many of you know, I'm this is I'm this way as well. I get up in the morning and it takes me about an hour and a half like before I even think about food. And so what we have seen is that with with the high school students, they come off the bus, they're usually not thinking about food. They're just trying to get to their first period class and then, you know, they get out of first period and they're very hungry. And so what we like to have is breakfast like in a mobile setting. And again, it's a collaboration with the district as well as the principal. But what we have found is that between that uh after first
056period and like second and third period having uh breakfast available for them to kind of grab and eat on the go as they're moving to their next class. Um and so it we've implemented this in many of our high schools and it's been a big uh it's been very much appreciated by the high school students. Any other questions? Thank you so much for your presentation. Thank you. [Music] Thank you so much, Chartwell team. At this time, I would respectfully request the board approve Chartwells as a new food service management company. I will entertain a motion. It's a motion on the floor. May I have a second? Second. It's been moved and properly second to hire Chartwell as our food provider for the remainder of the 2526 school year. Um, any discussion on the [Music] motion?
057May we have roll call for approval, please? Sure. Dr. Woods, yes. Dr. McCloud, yes. Mr. Johnson, yes. I say yes. And Mr. Sugs, yes. We have votes of five to zero. With a vote of five to zero, welcome Chartwell. Thank you so much. Item 6.2, Dr. Nichols and Colonel Lian. [Music] Good evening, school board members, Dr. Stokes, Mr. Bugs. I'm sorry, Mr. Sugs. Um, in our community, our uh community, I would like to uh introduce to you the [Music] virtual system. It's an advanced training simulator designed to prepare our trainee for real world um situations and to provide an indepth look into human performance under pressure helping you to make critical decisions in tense uncertain and rapidly evolving situations. Realistic scenarios filmed with real actors are on our virtual system. You learn how to verbal
058deescalate uh situations. It could be for mental illness response, active threat or active shooters. Um higher risk entries, duty to intervene, and various tactical approaches. Each scenario has about 25 to 85 different paths based on one's behavior. Optical features include the uh software which is uh included with the virtual system and also a victa curriculum which will allow people to uh receive certification upon completion of the training. The system will become uh a part of our criminal justice program but would allow students, teachers, schoolboard members, Dr. Stokes and the personnel at the Gary Career Center and the Gary Community School Corporation to experience training on the virtual system by appointment and with proper clearance from Dr. Stokes and Mr. Cwell only. The virtual system will be over to the community and surrounding neighbors. Uh just
059just a few words about the right to training system. Uh okay. Uh we've actually I've I've used this for years. Uh when I was a federal we were training and we would uh lease it out or let it go to different police department and even schools. And it was proved to be so efficient. Uh I mean it motivated the students, it motivated police. So we we we've been trying for at least two years to get the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, someone to fund this program for us. So we actually uh we were blessed one day uh we even briefed the d the state director of the career centers and he actually uh gave us a thumbs up and he said he's going to use it. He's already provided some other schools with the
060other career centers with the program and it has increased enrollment in some of the programs down by the Vincen's area. This will definitely uh be a gamecher. This program is so effective that uh if you try it you you'll kind of get hooked on it. But it's so real that you we can have all different types of scenarios. There's a total of over 300 scenarios. We have a program that will allow our radio and TV program to make actual videos using, you know, our school district, our people. So, it's going to be as real as we can make it. Uh, it it has different things like uh it has the weapon system, but it also has the mace and the taser. So, this is a a system that's really effective. It's been tested years and
061years, and it's just it's been used. Uh we're hoping to well we are we've discussed partnership if we're successful we'll be having a partnership with the Gary Police Department as well as a federal agency in this area uh that that's very interested in partnering with us. Do you have any questions? No, I I I don't have any questions, but I I just want to let the board know I did uh attend a walk through a [Music] virtually impressive and uh very realistic and so I think it's definitely something that we should have for our students just [Music] I'm sorry. Go ahead. I was just another uh employee actually went to train. Oh yeah. So I don't know if he wanted to speak or did you anyway I'm sorry. Would you explain the funding to me
062again? Yes. So we wrote um in our Perkins grant we wrote um and it's it's our comprehensive local needs assessment. We wrote it in the grant. It was approved by um CH and um that's how we funded it. So it is coming out of our purpose grant. And what does implementation look like the process for that? Okay. Well, well, we we have to pay first. And um he was looking for a half, but we did explain to him that our district does not um give, you know, half have half down. It's a violation of our board policy. Yes, it's a violation of of your policy, the board policy. So, we're looking once you guys approve it, um we will um follow after that. Great. Thank you for the presentation. I appreciate it. I'll entertain a
063motion for approval. So move. I have a second. Second. It's been moved and properly second. Any discussion on this matter? May I have roll call for approval, please? Dr. Woods? Yes. Dr. McCloud? Yes. Mr. Johnson? Yes. Yes. for me and Mr. Sug. Yes. All right. Vote is five to zero. With a vote of five to zero, the motion carries and you have been approved. Thank [Music] you. Item 6.3, lawn care [Music] service in regards to rough hands. as the provider. So, so basically um we wanted to ask the board to approve Rug Hands as our provider to support with um not only lawn service care that deals with mowing, but they actually graciously agreed to clean up some of our lots where unfortunately they're seeing some dumping. Um, so they uh because they weren't necessarily
064the lowest bid, but when you consider all of the other extra work, the cleanup that they were doing, they were definitely a great bid. And so we're asking that the board approved them as our vendor to support lawn care. Thank you, Dr. Stokes. Any questions on this matter? I'll entertain a motion for approval, please. So move, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. May I have a second? Second. been moved and properly second. Any discussion on this matter? Roll call for approval, please. Dr. Woods, yes. Dr. Mloud, yes. Mr. Johnson, yes. I say yes. Mr. Suggs, yes. Votes are five to zero. With a vote of five to zero, motion carries. And Rough Hands has been approved as our lawn care provider. Item 6.4. four. Mr. [Music] Richards, good evening board and Dr. Stokes and community. Um, I
065am here to request approval for the transition from of our website and our um our hosting messaging services from GGET to FTG. So um within the past month we have seen an increase in the website traffic growing from 1,000 to 7,000 hits per day which is a 600% increase. So, uh, that assumption that no one is interested in, uh, G the Gary Community School Corporation has been disproven as soon as the jobs were opened up and also um with, uh, general information, district news and community announcements. It also affected the ETN portal. So this is evidence that we are growing and this is one of the reasons we need to have a robust uh website that can handle the traffic that is coming in and growing constantly on a day-by-day basis. So the transition from
066uh APOG to from get to APG is uh going to have great advantages for us. First of all, GGET is just primarily a backup system, you know, where they back up data. But in the past, they offered a small uh amount of uh share space uh share space for to host a website. But as you can see, as traffic increased, those bandwidths uh were not big enough to handle what uh GSC is growing into. All right. So after G on the other hand is specifically designed for K through 12 districts and uh so this will be more of a robust and will handle our integrated communications better. Right. Next please. So as you can see uh with the um tools that we have and the communication tools that we have you can see the check
067uh boxes that power school and GGET are two separate messaging and hosting systems but with APG we bring all of that together and we will have one robust uh website to do our transactions. Okay. So I'm requesting uh approval for transition from GGET to APIG for our website hosting and destiny services. Thank you. Uh any questions board? [Music] One question that I had you you shared that um the current um site was uh had issues at,200 hits per day. What's the capacity of app apt is it yes so uh the current website we were sharing a server with other organizations so when they um increased their traffic it affected us when we increased our traffic it affected them so it was a shared server this server is a dedicated server only for the Gary community
068school corporation So we can increase as much uh bandwidth uh space as we need to. Thank you. Any additional questions board? You have me a mobile friend. Yes. You know and I don't want to you know try to have a whole lot to say but that's going to be a very important piece uh as we communicate with parents for registry. uh it's going to allow text messaging. Uh uh 76% of students and parents are using phones to register now. So this is going to be a big huge piece. I'll entertain a motion for approval. So move. There's a motion on the floor. May I have a second? Second. It's been moved and properly second. Any discussion on this matter? Hearing no discussion. May have roll call for approval, please. Dr. Woods, yes. Mr. Johnson, yes.
069Dr. McCloud, yes. I say yes. And Mr. Sugs, yes. And five to zero. With five in favor and zero against. The motion carries and the website change has been approved. Thank you. Thank you. Mitch, good evening board. Dr. Stokes and community members, I am before you today to request the acceptance of resolution 14. In contemplation of resolution 14, we would like to consider that current employees covered under the labor union agreements being considered are entitled to the benefits and protections of those agreements until such time as they are no longer employed by the Gary Community School Corporation. The maintenance agreement has not been revisited since its last inception in 1997. In addition to that fact and the National Labor Relations Act not requiring the Gary Community School Corporation to recognize any labor organization, the agreements
070in place inhibit the ability for the district to move forward in hiring the necessary staff to support our grounds in a fiscally responsible way. In closing, I request the acceptance of resolution number 14. Any questions? Thank you. Any questions, board members? [Music] I'll entertain a motion for approval. It's been moved. May I have a second? Second. It's been moved and properly second. Any discussion on this matter? Roll call for approval, please. Dr. Mloud, yes. Mr. Johnson, yes. Dr. Woods, yes. I say yes. And Mr. S? Yes. Vote is 5 to zero. with a vote of 50 to 0. Resolution 14, bargaining agreement has been [Music] approved. Item number 6.6, it's a approval for donations. Any clarity that we have on that? [Music] Okay. Traditionally, we like to bring um donations to the board to make
071sure that you're in agreement with what we're proposing. We have a fund for the Westside Leadership Academy, their performing arts fund. There is a amount of $175 and the donor donation is from Eternal World Kingdom Ministries. We also have for Williams Elementary student activities. It's for the cost for transportation. It's from Trinity Baptist Church of $34.20. For Westside Leadership Academy Media, we have um 50 African-American history books and I think you heard a little bit about that from Dr. Ruth Neman. Um this is just a resource. No actual dollar value has been provided. Um, for Frankie Woodman College student activities, we have $200 from the USW local union 67.87. And from Westside Leadership Academy, the JROTC fund, we which is a student activity donation is $250 from Hesville Community Service Post number 232. We ask
072that the board accept the following donations as provided and shared. May I have motion to approve, please? Second. Been moved. May I have a second? Second. Been moved and properly second. Discussion on this matter. May have roll call for approval, please. Mr. Johnson, yes. Dr. Mloud. [Music] Dr. Mloud. Yes. Thank you, Dr. Woods. Yes. I say yes to Mr. Sug. Yes. Vote to five to zero. With a vote to five to zero. We welcome the donations. Thank you. Items number 6.7 field conference experiences. As you see in your packet, there's a list of um conferences and field experiences. Um any questions from the board on these [Music] items? We're hearing no questions. I'll entertain a motion for approval. So moved. May I have a second? Second. It's been moved and properly second. Any discussion on
073these experiences on the motion? May we have roll call, please? Dr. Woods, yes. Dr. Mloud, yes. Mr. Johnson, yes. I say yes. And Mr. Sug, yes. votes five to zero in favor. With a vote to five of five to zero, the field experience has been approved. [Music] Thank you. Let's move on to item number seven, 7.1 on our agenda. Dr. Nichols. [Music] The computer science grant was written as a team effort with the Tech Smart Company. Um, our grant we were awarded $108,000. And the grant allows for two teachers uh from Westside Leadership Academy, two teachers from Bailey Middle School, two teachers from Gary Middle School, and two teachers from the career center to train um with the Techmart Company for computer science uh implementation in our district. Um in the new design for um
074the new um diploma, it it allows for one credit to be um implemented for our seniors for computer science. So any teacher um in the system can teach computer science once they receive the training. Um it involves uh programming written in uh for the computer and coding and um coding is the process where you give instructions to the computer to follow. It involves writing and coding program languages that computers can understand and computers can execute. As a result, teachers selected will teach the computer science and then they also will receive um a certificate from the company. It's a six week uh course and upon passing um they will also have a have an endorsement and we'll be able to implement the computer science in in all the schools in G in Gary the middle schools
075and high schools in Gary. You have any questions for the board? With this software, what do you consider the lifetime, the shelf life of this software? Uh the software is just for the school year for the 25 26 school year. However, they are allowing um I want to say 25 to 30 licenses that will allow us to uh use it after after the 25 26 school year. Thank you. Any additional questions? Do do you know what language they're going through the code in? I want to say Python. Python. Correct. [Music] Any additional questions? Thank you. Appreciate it. Item 8, 8.1, legislative [Music] update. Senator Mark Spencer, please. Good evening, members of the board, President Suggs, Superintendent Stokes, to the audience present tonight and those who are viewing by way of social media and uh streaming.
076I wish you all a good evening. It's a pleasure to be with you. I am Senator Mark Spencer. I represent district 3, which encompasses Gary Hog, Marville, Lake Station, and New Chicago. I was asked to come here tonight um to talk to you um from Dr. Stokes office uh specifically Dr. Stokes in reference to our bienium and our legislative session of 2025 and more specifically the fiscal impact on the Gary Community School Corporation. So with that being said, there's a a lot to dig into and I I do not want to get deep into the weeds because this this legislation is massive. It's an omnibus bill with a lot of pieces and parts to it. Some of us refer to it as the Christmas tree because it keeps adding ornaments as it uh progresses. So,
077with that being said, I want you can understand what I'm going to share with you tonight. The projections and the projections were provided by the state budget agency or the SBA, the Indiana economic forum and the revenue forecast uh technical committee. So as a freshman, this is my first uh session in five weeks in uh it has been quite the experience to say the least. But with regard to what we're discussing tonight, there are two major pieces of legislation that I want to discuss with you. The first is budget uh the budget which is House Enrollment Act 101. And the state legislature passed a $44 billion budget that fails to take the necessary steps to support all Hoosiers. So, the Indiana Senate Democrats introduced over 60 amendments to the budget focusing on empowering working Hoosiers,
078uplifting our schools, and taking care of our aging parents and grandparents. And some examples of that are uh the education amendments that we drafted included school voucher accountability, teachers earning $60,000 minimum salary, restoration to school internet grants, requiring schools to provide a plan to DOE, Department of Education to uh find more understanding and balance with school counselor ratios. But none of those issues were discussed nor adopted. We also talk about a property tax reform and that's Senate Enrollment Act One. Okay. And under the direction of our governor, the legislature focused on alleviating the burden of property taxes to Hoosiers, which we all need to do. Now, how however the final bill offers substantive relief only to the wealthy with those families with homes that are valued at $150,000 or less are expected to see an
079increase over the next 3 years. Next slide, please. So I want to get into some of these projections and again I want to emphasize they're merely projections but from sources that are well equipped to offer these these renderings. So if you will look with me at the total funding column as we look at the impact onto the Gary Community School Corporation for uh funding year 2026. This column shows the total funding per year for Gary schools. And in funding year 2000, uh rather fiscal, and if I said funding, I meant fiscal. Year 2026, Gary Community School Corporation is going to receive $42.74 million. And in 2027, Gary Schools will receive $42.51 million. Again, emphasizing projections only. So, if we look at the next column, funding change. This column shows the year-to-year change in the total
080funding. We only see.9% increase in fiscal year 2026. While in fiscal year 2027 there is a decrease total funding of [Music] 0.5%. Now the next column is the p the per pupil ADM which is the average daily membership. And when we take the total funding divided by the ADM, Garrett Community School Corporation will see $10,422 per student in 2026 and $10,650 per student in 2027. Now, from a quick glance, thank you so much. From a quick glance, this is within the top 10% of all public school corporations in the state, and we're probably somewhere number five or number six. If you look at per pupil change, the Gary Community School Corporation is seeing an increase in both fiscal years when it comes to dollar per pupil. This is in spite of a projected ADM decrease
081as well. But the overall message here is that though we're seeing these increases, they pale in comparison to the voucher increase throughout the state and do not make up for the hits that we're going to feel on Senate Enrollment Act One. Next slide, [Music] please. As we dig into the impact to our school corporation by the numbers, we continue with Senate Enrollment Act One. Let's look at the calendar year 2026. If you look with me here, the table shows the projected net levy for the Gary Community School Corporation under SEA1 and it compares it to what the school corporation would have received under the previous law. The highlight here is that in calendar year 2028, we will see a drop of 22.4% in anticipated p uh property tax dollars. And that's a total loss of
082$9.1 million. Furthermore, the levy under SEA1 uh sees a decrease between calendar year 2027 and calendar year 2028. Next slide, [Music] please. I want to say that we've been uh in discussion with Dr. Stokes office and I can assure you that her team has been working diligently to make sure that our corporation remains solvent and the proactive steps that are taking place right now are uh very meaningful and necessary as we begin the process of tightening the belt. Our caucus has worked very hard to represent you to make your voices heard in terms of our ideological preferences or differences and the challenges are looming ahead. Although this is a sobering, I want to say that as we keep fighting as Senate Democrats uh to ensure our public schools are supported, we do support all public
083schools, but taking from one to fund the other is never the answer. We'll continue to fight for meaningful solutions leading up to 2028. And many of you know what that is. 20 2028. That's the time that uh we begin sharing resources with our charter schools. The community needs to stay engaged and being here tonight is very meaningful proactive step in making sure that you're engaged. Reaching out to my office and my number is on the slide up there for you to contact me. uh but also visiting our website at the uh Senate Democrats website to get connected to my social media pages for updates throughout the interim and uh daily updates during the session. And I want to reiterate, listen, I know the information here is sobering, but necessary. Uh we have to continue to
084working to craft bold proactive steps to secure our future, not just for our corporation, but of course our most important resource, our children. And with that, I want to say thank you very much for the opportunity to serve and represent. And uh God bless you all. And to all of the mothers within the sound of my voice, I want to say happy Mother's Day to you. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Spencer, for this update and really appreciate the effort that you and your team and Dr. Stokes and our team have done to make sure that we know um the impact of this legislation. Um are there any things that we do? I know prior to the vote and uh governor signing all of these into law last week. Um we had calling and writing campaigns
085to try to impact it. Are there any things that you suggest now um that we do proactively or should we Yes. As a community, any and everyone within the sound of my voice feel these halls. I've seen firsthand with the number of individuals pressing an issue. Legislation listens. Legislators listen. Filling these spaces where they're a standing room only with an objective, a goal, an initiative that's shared by all can garner results beyond imagination. having actual active uh proactive steps in terms of reaching out via social media um with messaging that is uh paired and specific and consistent. People do listen. The grumples are in the hallway when they're hearing voices that are proactive in approach. Uh other than that, standing behind our leadership because they bear the burden and I see the numbers before many
086people see them. And um I was reluctant to step to this podium because it has been whimsical and then bringing this news is um is difficult to to digest. But standing behind our leadership with the knowledge base that they have, the experience they have and the information that they've been given um will assure our success for years to come. Thank you, sir. Any additional questions, comments? We appreciate you being here. I appreciate you all. Have a good night. Item 8.2, academic updates. Dr. Trewell. [Music] Good evening. Good evening. Members of the board, Dr. Stokes, and community members. I have the pleasure of um if you go to the next slide. I'm talking a little bit tonight about our K5 curriculum adoption. um which is challenging to come behind a fiscal update, but I shall chair.
087Um and so as a district, we have a very strong compelling vision that we're working to accomplish alongside our mission um as you can see on the board. So I won't read all of it, but our goal is to advance top tier education. And in order to do that, we have to ensure that we have the latest and the greatest curriculum in front of our students to provide the necessary supports to compete to compete globally um in our classrooms here and beyond. You go to the next slide. And so what you see on the screen are the three district goals that Dr. Stokes um put in place upon her arrival. Um and so we so coined them. one, the first one is really having a thriving environment where we have an environment that promotes safety
088um where children and staff and students can thrive. The second one is sustainability um implementing policies and procedures to be fiscally responsible um which Senator um just spoke about. And last but not least is graduate readiness and so that every child is on track to graduate for employment, enlistment, entrepreneurship and um enrollment. I always forget one of those things. And so you saw this last month when Miss Morris shared a little bit about um the academic department and we have a a compelling vision as well as long alongside um a few values that we're really encompassing and utilizing to hold ourselves together. One being service, support, accountability, and last but not least, academic excellence. Next slide. And so why are we talking about a curriculum adoption? Um last year or so it would have been
089the 23 24 school year mandated that school districts with a certain level of academic data threshold um adopt a new curriculum aligned to the science of reading and aligned to the 2023 literacy standards. our current adoption is aligned to the 2020 standards which means it is out ofd um and it's not current. It also we needed to also ensure that there was a systematic instruction focus that was again aligned to the science of reading and that we currently have a literacy need that is far more greater than what our current curriculum can meet. We have approximately 456 second and third grade students um who are not on grade level and we recognize that the curriculum that we use needs to support them at all of their various needs and so we want to ensure that
090a curriculum can support those things. Can you repeat that number? 456 second and third grade students and I'll talk a little bit more about that um in a subsequent presentation. You have a question. I what is the total number of our students? He's talking second grade students, right? That's what I'm saying. The second grade students, you said there's 456 that aren't. So, how many? I'll give that to you. I don't want to give you code. Okay. Next slide. Talk a little bit about the science of reading. So, within that, within the science of reading, there are five key components that it looks at. Phic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. um it's evidence-based instruction really looking at how teachers teach reading right and so I will say that most pre-ervice organizations universities don't necessarily teach
091teachers how to teach reading um but they are expected to teach students how to read and so what most of the curriculums that are aligned to the science of reading does is it's aligned in a way to break down instruction in a meaningful way that allows them to support students and the last but not least is student competency areas phmic awareness, fluency, oral language skills um in writing and spelling which we know are all necessary competency areas. Next slide. So we began this review or starting to talk about this review earlier this year and we garnered a group of teachers from across the district. Um each elementary school identified two to three teachers to be a part of a curriculum review committee. We did not want to make that decision just from the district office.
092We really wanted to hear from them what their needs were, where there were gaps in the curriculum. Um, and we wanted them to be a part of that process. And so, IE identified five curriculums that we could choose from. Um, those were the only five we could choose from. So, we invited those five vendors to come out um to meet with this committee group. Um, again, the focus area were the to ensure that the curriculum was aligned to the 2023 literacy standards. um IDOE vetted each of those curriculums in advance. And so we had those rubrics and the responses to those rubrics as we began to look at those uh curriculum um vendors. And so this is just further talking about the rubric that was used um and what the look fors were. It had
093to be aligned again to the science of reading. It had to have explicit and systematic instruction which I just talked a little bit about ensuring that teachers could lock step teach literacy on a day-to-day basis. Had to have a robust awareness and phonics component also assessment and progress monitoring opportunities and ensuring support for diverse learners. You can keep going. So what you see on your screen are pictures from the curriculum adoption day where we were locked in the conference room in the district office for eight hours. um engaging in presentations by each vendor. Um our teachers grilled with many great questions asking about how was it aligned? What does it look like to implement culturally relevant curriculum in our classrooms? How can it support differentiation in our classrooms even connected to the technology needed for
094our advanced students? And so you just see pictures of that again the resources. What you also see is the teachers were really digging in and evaluating each uh curriculum in a very aggressive manner. And so these are the uh vendors that were in place on that day. Um I need to back up and say it wasn't only for K to 5, it was also for preK. So preK additionally needed a new curriculum as well um that was aligned to the science of reading. their current curriculum is not aligned to any of the NDI standards which poses great challenges not only for our teachers but for our students and their readiness um beyond prek and so what you see is we have great minds which is wisdom um for prek they have prek on my way
095the creative curriculum um we have open court wonders which is our current curriculum um and they did do a compelling presentation because they want to keep our business but our teachers again voiced many concerns about the the capacity of the curriculum to meet the needs of our diverse students. Next [Music] slide. Again, teachers evaluated each curriculum. So, after every presentation, we had a session where teachers um again looked at what each program was offering, looked at the strengths as well as the areas of weakness. Um we applied a rubric to each one um in house. So although IDE did a rubric evaluation, we wanted to do the same so that we knew exactly what was in each one. And then they provided feedback and made some recommendations. And so while there were five, they nailed
096it down to two of the possibilities. And so um we look we took we took that into consideration and we looked at those things. Keep going. And so the review team their final selections on that day for K5 was Whitten Wisdom and Savas My View. um prek their final selection was pre-K on my way and early learning matters. And so based on those conversations um we came back to the table to begin evaluating it from a cost analysis standpoint because we wanted to make sure that while each of the vendors did a compelling presentation that we were also financially um responsible in looking at what they offered against our budget budgeted amount. Next slide. Again, these are the factors that influence that selection process. Science of reading, equity focused, um strong foundational skills that find
097the need with awareness and ensure that they had a contentrich um core literacy component. Um as you may know, many of the vendors, they don't write literature that mimics um our environments. And so we pose several questions about what type of literature you can add to um this stable um core curriculum to ensure that our students can see themselves in the literature that they are reading. And so that nailed that knocked a few of them out because unfortunately they did not have a culturally rich literature uh base. And so we can keep going. So we wanted to make sure for curriculum um which is critical for their developmental area that it was aligned with social emotional learning. It had a component for family engagement. It was teacher friendly. Um in our pre-k classrooms there is
098a lot of hands-on learning that must take place. And so we wanted to make sure that it encompassed a whole child approach and that it had a strong literacy foundation. And so um here are the recommendations that we are looking to based again on the teacher recommendations as well as the financial um component for each of the programs that we looked at. Um so for K5 we're looking at Whitten Wisdom and foundations and GEOs. And so they have three distinct programs that supports all of the components of the science of reading. And for preK um they voted and we agreed with uh PreK on my way and the goal is to begin this information and implementation in 2526 school year which means over the next few months we have to roll out a robust professional
099development plan that will encompass PD for the school leaders the classroom teachers and the support staff and all of the vendors um are offering ongoing PD. So it will not be a oneanddone professional learning. Um they will come in um do boots on the ground professional development um coaching in the classroom really to ensure that teachers are implementing this new curriculum with Fidelity. Next slide. So I did want to share with you the curriculum adoption cost just so you can see um what it will cost us um at a total investment for not only our prek program but also our K5. Um I can also share with you at a later date. Um, and this is probably on the lower end. There were some that came in almost close to over a million for just
100the K5 program. Um, so it roughly goes about 743,000 for preK through fifth grade. Um, and this program comes with the Kitten Kaboodle, the Cadillac version. Um, all things for literacy. Um, decodable readers for students. Again, professional development and um, the core curriculum for the teachers. That's the next slide. Jess, any questions? Thank you um for sharing and and giving us a glance of the value of of the science of reading. And um what I'm interested in is as we decide as a district to support initiatives to improve our student performance, what are the KPIs, the metrics that we as a board can utilize to show that there's growth not only in our students but in the capacity of our teachers. Um, I thought it was important what you said that they didn't really you
101were aware as a teacher but teaching you how to teach reading. How do we know what to ask and how do we know when we see growth not only in our students course but in the capacity of our teachers? Sure. Um, so you name one the student academic data is always one measure that tells a story. Um, over the course of the years our academic data um is not where we want it to be, right? we have a number of students that are not reading on grade level from um third grade and beyond. And so looking at that data over time increasing with the percentage of students who are reading at or above proficiency tells us one that um teachers are implementing the curriculum with fidelity. Two um that we see a comprehensive approach to
102the implementation in the classroom. So, as we're doing classroom visits and classroom walks and walkthroughs, um, while that data is internal data, that's data we can share with you because what we should see is a direct alignment to teachers implementation to what the look fors are for highquality instructional practices in classroom. And so, we do walkthroughs um on a weekly basis in our classrooms. We use that feedback to really gauge our professional development needs and design ongoing PE for teachers. Um the other uh piece of data that will tell the story is teacher evaluation data. Um because again as teachers efficacy and capacity improves, you should really begin to see um teachers uh core ratings improving as well with them moving from possibly um needs improvement to effective um and beyond. And while the goal
103is not to just live in there, we really want to see also teacher retention. Um, many of the teachers shared in this session how frustrated they were with the curriculum and how challenging it was to implement the components and how unsuccessful they felt at implementing it. And I'll be honest, it looks their sentiments shows up in our student academic data because they're not really clear on how to use all of the resources and tools. And so our students are not getting everything that they need. Now, they were not speaking for the entire corporation because they were individuals, but their voices were really strong in the challenges that they were facing with the current curriculum that we're using. And if I can add, one of the other ways, at least that most superintendents that we look
104at data, we follow not just individual teacher data, but we also look at what's called cohort data. So we basically take a student say they're in third grade now if they've been with us K 1 2 3 we're looking at the trend for those cohort of students. So it wouldn't necessarily be all of our students but the students who've been here with us. What have we done to you know support those students in in the way of their attainment for the academics and we look at the teachers that are actually in those support classrooms to make decisions about what's best for our students. So we look at that cohort data. It's really important. I I like that look at the cohort data. I like the look of going in and bringing the teachers their actual
105classroom effectiveness. What I'm concerned about it we just wait for annual uh uh observations that we're not moving fast enough to catch up. I mean, it just seems like we have such a a lot to make up and I just want to make sure the board is providing the tools needed to be successful. So, it won't just be annual data. Yes. There's ongoing we're collecting data on a daily and I think you're going to address some of that in one of the other presentations tonight. So, I think some of those questions you can ask at that time when she has that data. Thank you. Yes. I'm sorry. Any other questions or concerns? And and and in terms of the cost uh for prek, we have to foot the whole bill for that. Right. The state
106doesn't provide any money for that. Correct. That is correct. Could you say that louder so everyone can hear the state does not pay provide money for pre. They however did mandate that we have a curriculum aligned to the 2023 literacy standards. And so as a district we have to fund that cost. So So that's another example of the state giving school districts unfunded mandates. Yes. But yes Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Yes. Any other questions? Okay, I'll be back on the 10. Thank [Music] you, Miss Adams. Good evening, board. Uh, Dr. Stokes and community members. My name is Jamila Adams. I am assistant director of curriculum assessment for the Gary Community School Corporation. Um, and this evening I'll be talking about partnering for student success. Next slide. So, as Dr. Tur already talked about
107our academic department uh vision, I just want to remind you all that we are focused on service, support, accountability, and academic excellence. Next slide. So the purpose for my presentation today is just to elevate family engagement. Um highlight the dual capacity building framework and I'll tell you about that in a little bit and then preview some key efforts we have coming up. Um I work with MTSS which is multi-ter systems of support but we have a grant which I'll talk about in one second and so I also coordinate um some of our parent engagement efforts. Next slide. So the SFC or the statewide family engagement center um for Indiana has provided us with a federal grant through insource which is a nonprofit and we are one of five partner or model sites. Um and we
108have a project called effect. So that's engagement for families, educators and community together. We were selected and we receive $100,000 per year um for five years and this is our second year of the grant. Next slide. Our other partner sites are not um MSE Warren Bartholomew and Perry Central. Um just to take a step back, the grant was awarded in 2023. Um I got to GCSE at the beginning of March. So I am picking up from where we left off. Next slide. So why family engagement matters? Um students historically across the board perform better when families are engaged, right? So it improves our academic achievement. It boosts our graduation rates. Um which Dr. Trible will talk to you a little bit about graduation rates in her next presentation. Next slide. Um, and it also focuses
109on those holistic benefits for our students as well as behavioral improvements. Um, it should not just be teachers or school staff working on these. It should be a collaboration and a partnership. Next slide. And those partnerships promote trust and they support student success. Um, and we certainly have seen, at least since I've been here at the events I've been with, speaking to parents, um, like the one mentioned earlier from our special populations department, that trust is key. Um, as a previous teacher, I know that to be true um, when it comes to the students in our classrooms and we want to make sure that we meet the needs of all of our students. Next slide. So the grant works um on a framework called a dual capacity building framework for school and family partnerships. Um
110Dr. Karen Mack is out of Harvard and she is the person who developed this framework. Um and this framework really gets to two-way growth. So we want to make sure that our staff um you all just mentioned staff capacity. We want to make sure that they build the capacity to engage with families. that's not something that's necessarily taught in teacher preparation programs. Um, but also building the confidence and the skills and the trust and self-efficacy of our families to support and advocate for their students. So, we're moving from traditional involvement um to co-creation and shared responsibility. And this is the framework. Um, and what we did is everything that we do, we kind of process it through those policy and program goals, which are going to be our four C's of capabilities, connections, cognition, and
111confidence. So, those are the things that we are using as through lines to build this across the district when it comes to our staff and family engagement. Next slide. And so how we're putting that framework into action here at GCSD is staff will be receiving professional development on effective engagement strategies. We've actually already started that. Um parent voice will be prioritizing focus group and stakeholder meetings which we'll talk about in a little bit. Um and schools will co-design events with families and not just for them. We don't want to be um the experts. We want to include them as experts as well. Next slide. So, one of the things that we work with is our regional stakeholder group. We have flyers back here if anybody wants to join. Um, but we want parents, we want
112community members, we want anyone that's an advocate for children to be on this group. We meet once a month. Um, we had our first meeting last month and our next one is coming up which we'll talk about in a second. But basically, these group members serve as ambassadors um between the school district and families. um they recruit other family members. Um and then they also represent our population, but we review data, we talk about feedback, um and then we try to engage with resources to ensure our families are prepared to advocate for their children. Next slide, this month's focus, we'll we'll be meeting next Wednesday um from 4 to 5:30 at the district office. And so we'll be focusing on asset mapping. Um some of the folks on our team are from Gary, some are
113not. Um and so we're really going to sit down and see what resources we have here in Gary in the community. Um and how we can utilize those moving forward for this school year and SY 26. Um we want to talk about the community strengths, um any areas of need for our families, for our students. And so we're really going to sit down and kind of take a comprehensive look at what is available here in the city for our families. Next slide. And one of the initiatives that we have coming up on Saturday, May 31st is our power of partnership parent conference. It's our inaugural conference. Um and we're going to be focusing on fostering academic success and emotional well-being. Our first lady, Crystal Milton, is going to be our keynote speaker. Um it is
114going to truly be a day that's going to focus on adult wellness. Uh and we're also going to focus on that staff and parent capacity. So we're going to have some uh focus on restorative justice, restorative practices so that we can shift adult mindsets in the district. Um as well as providing the parents opportunities to advocate for themselves and for their students and take on some leadership roles. We'll have a resource fair. um different community organizations are going to be there to provide some resources for our families. We'll have food um and we're just going to have a good time. So, we're looking forward to that and we hope that you all can make it. We have flyers for that, too. Um so, we hope to see you there. Um but this is really truly
115for the district, but also for the city. So, if we have um folks from Gary who are parents of littles that are not yet in prek, we still want them to come out. If you're not a parent, I'm an aunt. I'm not a parent, but I still want you to come out. Um because there's something that we can all take from this um because it really is going to be focused on adult mindset shifts. Next slide. And so the call to action is the last thing I have is just we want everybody to get involved. This is truly about um shifting mindsets in Gary, not just the school district. um because we all have a part to do when it comes to ensuring the success of our students. Uh and so if we start now,
116I know we can see leaps and bounds when it comes to growth for family engagement in this district. Um and so thank you for giving me time. I think that is it. And do you all have any questions? the the one thing that I would ask um I think what you shared earlier about the effort is going to be different than just doing it here in the classroom and uh I think it's been evident here at our board meetings that we have some uh engaged stakeholders from different areas of the community and I would just suggest that we lean into those stakeholders because this is Um, I think Dr. Stokes says it takes more than me and you. It takes me. There you go. There you go. So, I just encourage that. I I I
117applaud this effort, but I encourage for us to spread the traditional way we look at it. Our churches is a wonderful way to reach out to our families, to reach out to our students. And so, I just want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to um move our needle. So thank you for the effort. Thank you. was a little bit about fourth grade promotion. Um, and as you know, fourth grade promotion deals with the I read the threes. There are actually three times the students have an opportunity and she'll discuss that to actually pass that assessment. That is an assessment at this time that needs to be passed in order to be promoted to the fourth grade. Thank you. Good evening again. Before going to this presentation, just to give you
118those numbers, 363 second grade and 77 third grade. Now, that number changes on a daily basis as students are very transient in some cases. Um, you know, school just got three third graders just a couple weeks ago. And so, um, put an asterark by that number because I'm sure it's changed since I last pulled. So, 363 377. So, out of 744 students, we have 456 that have not passed. that have I'll talk more about it. Okay. Yes. Um that are in need of additional support. Thank you. Okay. Um so what I'm going to talk a little bit about now is um some preliminary data. And I say preliminary on purpose because um some of our data is still being um cycled through um and it's not yet complete. But what I will be sharing today
119is data that we do have um for your review. And so before I go into the data, I'm going to talk a little bit about a balance assessment system and why that is important. Um, and it'll actually answer your question earlier about other ways that we assess beyond the annual um, which talks about it goes deeper into the balance assessment system. We're going to look at some preliminary data and then we'll talk about some current interventions that we're doing to ensure not ensure but to put our students on the right path to meeting their their goals um, and passing high three. Next slide. And so when we think about balance assessments um there are three different types and generally um when we look at only annual data it tells a story but it's not the
120only story that we want to tell about how our students are doing. Um and I would just insert um I have I had an opportunity to be a part of a data conversation with a principal and a coach about a group of students that they were monitoring and tracking um their progress over time. And this was just about a couple of weeks ago. And we were looking at our Dibbles data and how those students were doing. At the beginning of the year, they were indicated as being well below. Currently, they're still well below. However, when we dig into that data a little bit deeper, what we see is that the students are growing. It's just taking them a little longer to get those pieces um that they need to move beyond well below into the
121other categories. There are many pieces that go into um how um data is assessed on a student. Oftent times student attendance is impacting how well a student does. Teacher attendance impacts how well a student does. Um student wellness also impacts those things. And so we don't want one data set to tell the story about how well we are or not doing. And we know from the outside that's the number that they look at. But we like to dig in deeper um because there are moments to celebrate what is happening in a positive manner um while realizing we still have a ways to go. Okay. So I just wanted to say that right so looking at this balance assessment system you can go to the next slide. Um there are three different assessment types. The first
122one is that formative assessment which generally happens in an ongoing matter. Um real time in a classroom. Um the teacher might be using exit tickets, observations, anecdotal data. Um those are formative assessments that the teacher can use to pivot instruction in the moment to really support students. Right? That's normally low stakes feedback. Um it might be a test or a quiz, things of that nature. Then we have sumitive assessment, which is what you were mentioning earlier about that annual data where we're evaluating at the end of a term how well students did or did not do on something. And the last one, which is my favorite, is really that benchmark as well as that form tip because what it tells me is I can monitor your progress over time at different points in time to
123see how well you're doing. So that student that I shared earlier, while yet still they were still well below, they're making progress, right? They just need more time. Sometimes their gaps are a little bit wider than time allows. And so it's predictive. We can track growth. We can really see how well students are doing. Um, this is what makes up all of the assessments that we utilize in the district and we call that a balanced assessing system. If we only relied on sumitative, it tells a story, but it would really um hinder our viewpoint on our district at large. Next slide. So, what you see here are a list. This is not all. We have many assessments, many of which are mandated by IDOE, others are teacher um recommended and then others are district recommended.
124And so we have um bucketed out for you our summitative, our benchmark and our formative assessments that we use um throughout the year and we have an assessment calendar um so that teachers are aware of when these assessments should be done and then school leaders work with their teachers to do that deadly. can't get that word out today. Data analysis, keep turning on that um throughout the year to really make those decisions about where we need to go. Next slide. So, I'm going talk to us first about our SAT data. Right? So, SAT is an assessment that is given um in October as a preassessment and then again in March for our 11th grade students at Westside. And what SAT assesses is evidence-based reading and writing, math, and then they get a summitative score of
125about 1600. They can get up to 1,600 um on this assessment. Now, I need to note for you that prior to 2023, this was optional for students, only if they were interested in going to college. But since 2023, it is now mandatory that every student in our district takes this assessment in 11th grade. That is important to note because many of our students who did not see themselves as college um didn't find it necessary to take this assessment and so uh Mr. Scott has done a lot of work this year to really put some supports in place to really get our kids on track with um SAT and the requirements of the assessment. Next slide. So what you're going to see here um is our students that are meeting benchmark. Okay. And so there is
126a reading and writing component as well as a math component. What's on the screen is our 2024 data where we only had about 16.7% of our students meeting benchmark for reading and writing. And currently this year we did demonstrate some growth. 21% of our students are meeting um benchmark for reading and writing. Now it's not where we want to be but there is growth and movement in the right direction. Again, this was not a mandatory assessment and so students mindset around how they even perform on the test um was impacted, right? How well they could or could not do their belief system, their mindset. And so those are things we have been tackling this year um and ongoing conversations um with counselors and teachers um at Westside. On this next slide, you're going to look
127at our math. Um we were at 1% in 2024. Um and we're now at 9% of our students meeting benchmark. Again, not where we want to be, but definitely an improvement in the right direction. And remember, this is 11th graders. Yes. And so when we think about our students metriculating through the district, as Dr. So our cohort of students um we really want to look at how well they've been doing over time and showing readiness for this very rigorous assessment that they have to take in the 11th grade. You can keep going. One other assessment data set that I want to talk to us about tonight and Dr. Stokes um preface by talking about fourth grade promotion is our I read three assessment. So, I talked a little bit about this some months ago when
128we were discussing um tutoring programs and things of that nature that we were going to provide for our students to provide support, intervention, um enrichment, and acceleration for them. And so, I read 3 is a mandatory assessment for third grade. As of last year, I'm sorry, this year, it is now mandatory for second grade students as well. Last year for second grade, it was optional. um and third graders did have to take the assessment. However, there was not um a requirement for summer school, which I'm going to talk a little bit about in a moment. And so, again, beginning this year, all second grade students had to take IV3. And as Dr. Stokes said a moment ago, beginning this year, um let me go back. Last year, third grade students had two opportunities to take
129the assessment. once in March and then again in the summer. This year IDE probably about February, March, maybe January, um don't quote me, um announced that they were giving students a third opportunity to take Ivory 3 one. they had there's a window between May um 12th through June 27th which means we have an opportunity before they leave this school year to take opportunity two um to prevent a certain number of students um from going to summer school. What I do want to note is that all students um who do not pass after the spring and the summer administration for third grade, they must be retained, which means they will have to go to third grade again next year. Um And I'll talk a little bit in a moment about good cause exemptions because that's the
130only way a student um can that may not have passed to be promoted to the fourth grade. Students who do not pass, they have to continue to take I read three through seventh grade. Fourth and fifth grade students who did not pass must attend summer school as well and take that assessment again in the summer. And I'll talk a little bit about summer school in a moment. Um so at the um the board meeting uh school board meeting that we had the other night, one of the things that was discussed is that the state has reverted back to the letter performance grade for the schools and the I read results were a key part of those letter grades. Um, I learn I learn I learn. I read is important in terms of us having an
131understanding really a key about how well they may do on their iLearn assessments. They may take I learn in the third grade moving forward um third through 8th. However, um the traditional old A throughF system was relying heavy on iLearn data um and attendance and things of that nature. There were percentages. They haven't really said how the IDLE is going to develop the new system, but it will be an A through F accountability system. And I 3 while I learn assesses grade level content, I read 3 is assessing those foundational skills that students must have, which actually goes back to the curriculum adoption, ensuring that we have a robust curriculum that will meet those needs of of those humans. Additionally, a few months ago, IDE also mandated that every student who is retained um they
132must have an individualized learning plan in the following school year. And so any student who did not pass um each school, each teacher, each classroom will have to have an individualized learning plan um that must be in implemented and monitored in the upcoming school year. Okay, next slide. So, I mentioned a moment ago about a few reasons a student that may not have passed why they could receive what we're calling a good cause exemption. Um, the first one is if the student has been retained um for more than one school year, um they can be passed on. The student has an intellectual disability. The student might be an EL. Um the student has received intensive tier 2 intervention for two or more years. Again, all of these things must be monitored and documented. um which
133we can do in our Skyward student information system. Um and one of the responsibilities of Miss Adams is really building out what that tier 2 tier three support looks like. And please tell so our community is aware. E stands for English learner. And the uh the fourth one, I'm sorry, is the at or above proficiency on I learn math. And so it's a a pairing. So they look at I learn data math specifically and if a student passed math in the same year although they could have failed the um I read three they could receive a good cause exemption and be passed to the fourth grade. Okay. So I thought it was necessary to give you this background because this is a lot of information that we've been grappling with um and really building the
134capacity and the understanding of everyone across the district to make sure we're all on the same page. Also wanted to share with you the performance level descriptors. I won't read that those but I do want to note for second grade there are three categories. You have a passing score. So second and third grade have the same passing threshold of 446. Um that indicates that they are on level. They have those basic foundational skills. Second grade also has a designation of on track and you can see the number range for that category. And last but not least at risk. The at risk second graders are those that have to go to summer school. So if they're on track, they will they do not have to attend summer school. Only those students designated as at risk. For
135third grade is if there are only two categories is either pass or did not pass. Again, that pass threshold is the same as second grade of 446. And any student below that um did not pass, they have another opportunity in May. And then if not, they will have to go to summer school. you can go to the next slide. I thought it was also important to break down how IE calculates our data, which is why I said this data is preliminary. There's so many factors that go into our final number, which we don't get into July or August. Um, and so there's a numerator and a denominator. The numerator um specifically for second grade is they look at that second grade cohort. So those students who would have taken it in second grade, they have
136to stay with us for the duration of their third grade year. That's one category. Okay? They took it in second, they have and they pass, they have to stay with us through the duration of their third grade year. Plus the first time those students in their third grade year who pass, plus grade three students who passed in summer school and who stayed with us. Um, correct me if I'm wrong. I believe it's 162 days that they have to be in the district in order to count for our data. Right. Then that is divided by the count of all firsttime third grade students in the district for the current school year. Okay. Hopefully I didn't confuse you there. No. Yeah. They have to be enrolled 162. Yes. Yes. from before testing. So what you're going to
137look at here and um if you look at the titles um we have passed and promoted and did not pass and promoted from our 2023 24 school year. At the end of that year 123 students were passed. They passed the assessment and they were promoted meaning they're our current fourth grade students. We also had 219 students who did not pass, but they are our current fourth grade students because last year there was no retention conversation on the table. If students passed or did not pass, they were promoted to fourth grade. If you go to the next slide for 2024, 2024 25, currently we have 153 students that will be promoted to the fourth grade already in our um corporation and 182 not yet promoted. And I said not yet promoted again because they have a
138second opportunity in a few short weeks um to take opportunity 2 for Ivy 3. and we are um excited that we believe that they're going to do well um and that number will increase when they will be promoting. Go to the next slide. So, one of the ways that we have been supporting our students to do their best is for the last seven or so weeks and throughout the year, but these last seven weeks after we got our data back, um we uh reconfigured our support plan to really drill down to ensure that um instruction and intervention and small group was being provided on a daily basis um in alignment with what students needed to know. We had some students that were one point away. Um, and unfortunately there was no rescoring which meant if
139they had a 445 they had they have to retake it. Um, and so we have been talking with principles and teachers and coaches to ensure that intervention is happening on a daily basis to meet the individual needs of students. And so the groups are much smaller. Um, we have four to five students in each group. Um and we have been tracking that data over the last seven or so weeks to really see where we need to remediate or provide additional support for students. Again, attendance is sometimes a challenge um if students miss multiple days, they've missed um a bulk of instruction that may have happened to support those needs. And so summer school will be required, as I stated earlier, for all students identified at risk. We currently have 241 second grade students that must
140attend um summer school. Third grade students, again, we'll have that final number after they take the assessment um June 23rd through 26th. Um we they will have three weeks of summer school. Um many of these students are already in our remediation cycle. Um but summer school will be scheduled for them um in June at Glen Park. And then again, fourth and fifth grade students who did not pass will also need to attend summer school to retake the assessment. You go to the next side. No, that was a lot. Any questions for you from you? Yes. All right. Thank you for your comprehensive presentation. You definitely covered a lot. Just a few questions. One thing that you talked about at least with the SAT test that um the principal, Mr. uh Scott had put in some
141supports there. I'm just curious to know what those supports are to help the students um in that respect with the SAT test. So embedded in their daily schedule is a uh SAT prep course um where students go so split between their lunch. So they'll have 30 minutes for lunch and the other 30 minutes they'll go to their SAT prep course um where they have utilize Edenum as a tool and a resource. So teachers are in there to provide intervention, to provide small group instruction um to those students. Um and what we're going to talk a little bit about in a moment in a in a subsequent presentation will give you insight to where we're headed for next year to ensure that we get more students to passing um and meeting benchmark on SAT. All right.
142Thank you for that. In addition to that, I know part of the I believe it was the the vision it talked about having students ready for entrepreneurship. I know that one of our um school partners um Purdue Northwest, they have a 5-day um entrepreneurship camp um in June. If there are students in our Gary School Corporation who are interested, would you be the contact to pass on that information to try to get um students in our district those benefits and resources? Yes, we just did a survey of all of our students in high school to identify what they're interested in. So, we have that data and we can definitely um support those students in applying for that. All right, thank you. Just a couple other questions. Um in addition to that, you talked about the
143requirements for summer school and how important that is. What do we do to ensure that parents make it a priority to make sure that their children aren't participating in the summer school program? So, um we have been in contact with parents and we have asked school leaders and staff to communicate using three different communication channels. Um we didn't want to solely rely on phone calls um as the one means. So, we are mailing out um the notifications. We're also emailing the notifications. our face are speaking with them um when they arrive. Um so we're using multiple modes of communication to ensure that they are aware. Um yeah. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? I do have one to ask this. You brought up the um individualized learning plans um that will be um a
144part of the ongoing process. Who would be the team that works with the families and the teachers to ensure that not only is this plan made but it's also carried out? Can I speak to that before you share Dr. Shwell? Um when we well when I first started groups on the ground I don't know eight nine months ago. We met with what's the group? Um Marian University Marian University. I met with them and I explained before any of this even became a law that I wanted students to have their own individualized learning plan. every kid. It didn't matter if you passed or didn't pass. So, I know there was supposed to be some work that was done around trying to make sure that teachers and students could own their learning, know where they are, know
145what their shortfalls were and the type of support they needed. I'll be honest to say that it didn't go as well as what we wanted. But now, um with the with the mandates, we know that it's going to go better, you know. So, if you want to go ahead and share now. Sure. So, one of the um pieces that we are working with schools this summer on is creating a team what we're calling our MTSS team. And this team will be gathered um it will be principles, teachers, support staff um coming together to look at the resources, create the plans, and then track the plan over time because it's not just it won't be enough to create the plan. We're going to have to monitor the plan. Um, Miss Adams is already looking through Skyward
146to make sure that the the system um will be comprehensive enough for us to capture all of that data in there so that as we're looking at fiveweek data, 10 week data, we can have conversations about the progress of students way before we get to an IE3 um assessment in March. Um, we really want to begin to put interventions in place early on so that we can respond to students. And so you've probably heard that term response to intervention. Um essentially that's what this team will consist of and really be looking at on an ongoing basis to make decisions about what supports we need to put in place. Additionally um with that team we will be inviting families to the table um so that they are aware this is what we're doing but also to
147ensure that there are resources that they can take home to provide support for their students at home. All right. Thank you. And just one other question. I really appreciate the presentation as well. that was done by Miss Adams talking about families in being involved in our community for our business community. What can we do to assist in terms of giving support to the district and definitely when you talked about the science of reading and literacy I remember that presentation being done some time ago as well. Can you talk about what we can do as a business community to support the initiatives that are happening? So I I would say initially it is um the awareness right like this is a heavy lift um and it's a great mandate that we have so ensuring that everyone
148understands what's at stake and what's required of us um because it's not just about the students it's really about building the capacity of the teachers in the classroom to provide this level of instruction required. It's a lot of moving pieces. I would say also we invite you to the table to be a part of those conversations. Um because there might be a need for a resource that the district cannot fund but uh businesses might have a way to do that. Um for example, we're looking to um engage with universities around offering the GED course for our parents um so that we can remove that barrier um from them feeling like I can't support my child because I am challenged with reading. Um, so we might need resources um from business partners to fund that um
149if necessary. And so those those are just a few ways off of the top of my head, but those are some of the things we're looking to do and it's a part of the parent engagement efforts. Um we actually shared it in a conference yesterday with the grant um because it's a goal of ours to build literacy capacity um not only for our staff but also our parents as well. Thank you so much to to piggyback on one of the observations from attorney Irving. Um he he spoke about the importance of uh making sure we have our families engaged and involved. Um how are our um participation rates and uh teacher parent conference is going are we getting the support we need? the participation it's increasing. Um this last report card pickup I came in
150right at the conclusion of the last one in October. So I didn't have that data but I did have schools um calculate or capture that data this year so that we have numbers to really gauge are we doing a better job with engaging with our families. And I'll be honest some of our schools had over 50 60% of their parents to show up. Um it looks different in every school community for a variety of reasons. they're already thinking about um what are the barriers to getting families into the setting. Um and so this year we offered a virtual um option and some of our parents did take advantage of that. So we're looking to do that more but um one of the I believe in our district discussion that we discussed possibly needing to change
151the time frame because many of our parents work um and so it's during the school day but we might need to extend it to an evening option so that we can get more parents out. So we are looking um for multiple ways to engage with our families, but it did increase from October to I certainly support whatever we can do to seek those best practices and get that participation because that engagement is is key. I will tell you that you know this year when I talked to the team about allowing parents to digitally feed in, you know, however they needed to Facebook or whatever and you don't really need a lot of time. You can actually give them a 10-minute slot and you'd be surprised how much information parents can glean and they could be
152at work and just go take a break real quick as long as they're on their time slot and they can hear a lot. Thank you. You have me one more time invite my colleague. Okay, perfect. So, um my last presentation and I'll be out of your way. Um so we have been doing a lot of reflecting on um what's happening in our schools and ways that we can better support our students at large. Um and so as we began to look at the new graduation requirements um mandated by elite said that several times this evening. Um we have a charge at hand um to ensure that our incoming freshmen can graduate on time. And I'll just start by saying um as a part of this discussion right now the way we currently do school we
153would have to make summer school mandatory for our incoming freshmen because they would not graduate on time. Okay. So I want to just preface with starting there as we talk a little bit about um our ideas of moving to block scheduling to support the new um graduation pathways. We want our students to be able to compete globally with their peers across Indiana and right now they will be at a deficit and we don't want that for our scholars. So next slide. So these are the objectives we're going to quickly go through. We're going to talk a little bit about the graduation requirements. Um the differences between traditional and block scheduling um look at some of the limitations of traditional scheduling models um and how it does not support the new graduation pathways. and then looking
154at um some scheduling solutions that will support those Oklahoma pathways. And so what we know is that the current landscape or the current um graduation requirement um poses several challenges for a traditional seven um schedule, seven period schedule, right? And so the new diploma requirement is enforcing and our pre presenters in chartwell said it earlier they need more opportunities for work-based learning right and we have to ensure that they can get to those opportunities and keep going. So when you look at on the screen on the left hand side I guess I can use the maybe no okay there. Um that is the current model that we're under. That's the current diploma that um beginning uh their incoming freshmen, they automatically opt into the future new Indiana diploma. As you can see, they only have
155to have 40 credits now, but moving into the future diploma, they have to have 42 credits by the time they graduate. Um there are several things that increase or change over the course of the diploma. Um, and I won't read them all to you, but I do want to point out that students have um, in the current model um, six, they only need six credits for personalized electives, but now they will need 12 credits under the personalized elective. And so that big jump changed how we need to do school and how we look at our scheduling practices to ensure that they have opportunities to access those 12 credits. Additionally, under those four E, enrollment, employment, enlistment, and entrepreneurship, they have the opportunity to get honor skills and honors plus seal. Why is this important? This
156sets them up for college and college opportunities and resources for college just by obtaining these seals. Okay, that's important to know. We want our students to have access to that. We do have copies of um the diploma requirements on the table so that you can take it with you um as a writing may be. Can you bring some over so they can look at them? I know they had them at a a previous board meeting, but I'm sure they didn't bring them with them. Um you can take a deeper look at what's required for the honors seal and the honors plus seal. But I just wanted to bring this to your attention as we um center this conversation this evening. Next slide. And so these are a few of the limitations of the seven period
157schedule um that we're grappling with currently. Um the ability to accumulate the number the necessary credits in order to graduate. Um as I spoke earlier the workbased learning opportunities for our students and then course availability. Um when we talk a little bit about the block scheduling in a moment and Mr. Scott will go through that. Um when we look at blocks, students can take eight courses over the course of two days. Um whereas now they might be only able to take six or seven, right? Which gives them access to take more classes um sooner. Um and this is all happening now in a traditional seven period schedule. Next slide. As we begin to think about this, we wanted to take a moment and survey our staff. We don't want to just do things because we
158think it's a great idea. We wanted to take a moment to hear from our staff that will be impacted by this change, meaning our middle school staff and our high school staff. Um, and they had some things to say about the traditional schedule, which were some of the challenges. Um, one being it's um challenging for teachers to differentiate instruction. They currently have 55 minutes for each block and oftent times by the time students get there that's down to about 40 minutes. um if students are tardy, things of that nature, is deeply impacted because they just don't have enough time to go in depth with the content. Um which takes me to the next point. Shorter class periods hinder their ability to go deep into the content that they must teach, which means um over time
159um students are not getting the depth and the breadth of what they need. Um, again, time spent moving between classes minimizes the amount of time they actually have in the classroom um to actually be engaging that content. And students are juggling six to eight contents or subjects per day every day, which means they might be getting homework from all of those subjects um which is a lot to juggle um in this day. And so what you see, and Mr. Scott will talk more about this, is our current schedule that we're currently operating on. Now good evening. Good evening board members, President Suggs and Dr. Stokes and community members. So currently this is our traditional schedule uh that we currently have. We have six periods but it's really seven because one one period is a shortened
160period that includes split with lunch. It includes our SAT prep. Uh and I want to step back just a little bit in terms of some things that we did in and preparing students for SAT. We also looked at some small group and looked at those students who were our priority students within 200 points of benchmark and really targeting those students while also supporting those that were a little bit further away from benchmark. U and so uh our SAT prep is an identified time within their schedule in which they focus in on SAT. Um however there are some limiting uh limitations to a traditional schedule and and one thing I really want to highlight you know as as this was uh preliminary in terms of the the new diploma uh requirements and as we kind of
161looked at it um one thing that kind of stood out to me was the limitations that um we currently lived under uh as we are moving towards more work based experiences. Uh offering students an opportunity to kind of frontload and have things taken care of in the first two years of high school that would allow them access to the number of hours that you see under the uh honors seal and honors plus seal. Uh and and many may know that uh many institutions in Indiana has now moved to a uh pre-admissions for students that are in our honors plus and honors seal. And so uh those students who obtain an honors plus seal, they have pre-missions to Indiana schools. And so um that is essential for us to make sure that our students have access.
162And so um as you look some things that you that you will see uh each period is kind of uh blocked in at 55 minutes that includes a 30-minute lunch and SAT prep um and as to do as Dr. Tillwell spoke to there is a lot of movement within this this day uh that students have depending on grade level. Um those students that that do not metriculate over to the career center uh in their junior and senior year um we have to kind of field their day uh after their required courses. And so um they become fillers uh they may be mandatory for graduation uh but may not be focused on what students plan on doing post secondary. Next slide please. So some comparatives between some comparisons between traditional block scheduling just at a glance.
163Um traditional you know you can think of 6 to eight uh periods per day roughly 45 minutes to an hour each. Um every class meets daily. Uh, and so as we kind of looked at and did some research into some some block options, um, I'll just tell you I I I started to nerd out a little bit in terms of options for students in that that are attainable. And so as we looked at a block, there's there's plenty of options that are available for block scheduling. some some a block schedule that we kind of landed on that works for our students looking at their needs is a rotating block um what we call a AB or blue orange day uh with a support day for students and so when we look at frequency I think
164it's important for students to see their teachers and I think it's important for students especially as they transition into high school to get into a routine and so um what we looked that if you can transition to the next slide. Um, in terms of transitioning from our traditional schedule into a blue, orange AB day for students where their periods would change based on the day. And so you don't have the same class every day, every block. So these are 85 minute blocks. However, you will see your teacher three days a week for each class. Wednesday is a time in which classes can meet for enrichment um support tutoring. It is a 45 minute period of time uh that that teachers can have small group and really support students in that class after they've met in
165their in their longer block sessions. And so this this afforded our students opportunities to still metriculate over to the career center uh in their 11th grade year and 12th grade year. But still as they have uh completed many of the requirements on that first portion of the graduation requirements and obtain those 42 credits. then they have time for the workbased um experience that that the honors sees and honors plus sales require. So, some benefits to block scheduling. Um, like I stated, some deeper learning opportunities, some opportunities to then chunk those courses, those blocks into smaller pieces, uh, where teachers can do smaller groups. There's some enrichment, acceleration, and intervention that can take place in an identified intervention, enrichment, um, and and support block uh, within a student's week. within a student's school day. Uh that
166does not extend the school day for students. Uh which many students see as sometimes a punishment that I'm extending the day because I'm struggling in a particular course. Um it also reduces the cognitive load and overload for some students. And as we think of students who are on our college track who may be in um more extensive AP and dual credit courses, they need time and and um many students have expressed that they feel rushed and they feel overbearing with the workload that they have. And so what the block schedule models is similar to what they will see in in their post-secary uh careers and as they metriculate on institutions and colleges. Um additionally some some benefits to block scheduling scheduling are improved attendance and behavior um and especially as it relates to the frequency
167at which you may see a particular class u in a particular day. Um, and it it enhances teacher and student relationships because it allows that time between and allows teachers to have those small groups where they really build relationships with students uh to help them accelerate and to help them um be enriched and and and supported and then overall some increased academic performance for students in particular classes. Um, one one portion of the schedule I did want to highlight and I'll I'll step back to it in green there is an advisory and that was something that um we wanted to highlight. We wanted a period where all students landed. Every student in the building was in a place with a trusted adult and um we can support them with some SEAL support that students need.
168Speakers, we can target our FASA completion. Uh we can also look at our credit recovery. We can also look at some uh SAT uh remediation and SAT supports targeting our priority students and also looking at during that advisory time having a time where we have a common message that goes out to all students within the building. So some things that we need to consider um as we shift you know it it is some professional learning uh for some teachers will be needed um into what do I do with the additional time? How do I do small group effectively? How do I provide some support for students? Um, additionally, some focus on instructional design and looking at those lesson plans and those that planning. How do I chunk this time? How can I now cover more
169content? What does projects look like? You know, what do what do I do on that Wednesday time when I have my enrichment and support? And then teacher collaboration, I think, is really important. Um because during that time, you know, as we team teach, I may have a colleague that is supporting some students in a certain c certain content that I am teaching. And so being able to have collaborative PLC's where we look at what's best for students and how do we support those [Music] students? I do. Thank you. Any questions? I have one question. Well, actually I have questions um in regards to the traditional and versus the blocked when we are measured as far as um student um instruction time. Is there minimum ties by uh IDOE that a student has to be under
170supervisor instruction? And if they are, how does the two different traditional versus block compare? Are we losing some of that uh student instruction time? And I I do apologize. He's talking about the seat time. There used to be a law about required seat time. I think that's what he's asking me about. Okay. So we did look at instructional minutes and looking at how many instructional minutes u is encompassed in a student's day in a week given the traditional and given a block. Okay. And so uh we're looking at a difference of about 50 minutes. Okay. Um of instructional time and and 10 minutes per day that we're looking at gaining. Are we gaining that time because we're losing the time in the hallway that 15 minutes or whatever? Yes. So, currently we have five minutes
171passing time. Uh there is some passing time but it's not as as much as as in as it is in traditional school. [Music] I do I do have a question if I might on your block schedule. How did that impact your SAT prep? Because on the other schedule it was like a half hour. So our our SAT will will land in our advisory periods um as well as Wednesday. And so what you may notice is the advisory is the same time every day. Um and and it happens every day. And so um our SAT prep it will be encompassed in our advisory but the fact that it's advisory allows us to do some other things during that time. Um and so you know just sometimes working on our SAT skills with students can become repetitive
172and so allowing some other things to take place within that week. So, it may be a three-day a week SAT prep while we work on some SA some SEAL skills and uh support students in other in other ways. Can you please tell everyone what SEAL is? I know you know, but I'm sorry. It's social emotional learning. [Music] Any other questions? Thank you. Okay, we're going to move to item nine on our agenda, board reports and communications. I'd like to open up for our board members opportunity to share. Mr. Mr. President, I do have a couple of things and I know you can't hear Dr. Allen really well, so I agreed to give a couple of her uh words that she wanted to present this evening. Um, so she did want me to report to you
173that the library has partnered with the Gary Community School Corporation to be at the kindergarten roundup roundup on Wednesday, May 14th and the parent the power parent conference on May 31st at Westside Leadership Academy to sign up families for library cards. Um, also and I would like to uh just chime in on this as well. We, you know, we want to continue to offer prayers to the families of Mr. Richard Watkins, um, Miss Cheeks, and Mr. James Piggy, who was um he was with the schools for for several years, several decades, I might say. So, I just continue to offer praise for them and a special thanks and appreciation to all Gary Community School Corporation teachers. Um, additionally, I just wanted to make a few comments about the program last week where the um auditorium
174was renamed to the Mark Spencer Westside Theater Guild. um what a wonderful honor for him. But also I think that the opportunity again it's always just a joy to see all the students. I mean they are so talented with the dancing, the singing. They're just really talented young people and the speaking. I mean I'm just amazed at how well some of them present in public. I mean I used to be scared to death to get up and speak. So I know that u those those kids do quite well with that. And um also I just thought the fireside chat sort of thing with uh Bernice King was really quite great because it gave us an opportunity to see her in a different light, not what we see on television. But also what I was impressed
175with was the fact that she shared her experience growing up and the trauma that she experienced and you know how she kind of got off track a few times. And I think it's sometimes nice for our students to hear that even the best of us can get off track, but we can regroup and continue to do more and better and to become great people and great leaders in our in our community. So I was really pleased with that. So I was happy to be there. Well, I I just have a couple of comments. uh one first of all you know Tuesday night we did have our regional school board meeting I just want to let Dr. Stokes know that because of her keen observation that the presentation has been changed for the rest of the
176state. And so she caught the fact that uh the the under new law uh property tax revenue our revenue has to our operating fund revenue and and any referendum revenue has to be shared with the charter school with at least 100 students and at least 2% of APM Yeah. And Dr. Stoopes caught the and part that was left out presentation that was given to us and so now it's being changed to so the rest of the state essay here law schools to think they don't have to get% now. No no we don't. And so it's it's uh definitely want to give her kudos for that. And then, you know, I want to thank um Senator Spencer for his presentation on the new laws that that are coming about. And as we heard tonight and we
177heard Tuesday night, there were 87 new laws dealing with education this year alone. Did y'all hear that? 87. 87. And so when and that that mean that is funding that is educational mandates and and different things like that. And so it is one it's a lot to stay on top of and I I just want to thank Dr. Stokes and her team for staying on top of that and and keeping us a breast of everything that's going on. But as Senator Spencer said, we need to be proactive in letting the state know uh how we feel about certain laws and and proposals that they're coming up with. And then lastly, I I just I appreciate the the the push to improve, upgrade, and and bring in new technology. Uh so, you know, Thank Mr. Richards,
178Dr. Nicholls, Colonel Wigan. Uh that is we know that it's it's not the future, it's now. It's uh you know when you start talking AI because it is AI not A1. uh it you you know you it it's it's changing not every day it's changing every minute and so we have to stay on top of that and and to be perfectly honest I was a student here at the career center back in I graduated back in 1985 my I was a computer programming student here and I I came here for two years the two years that I spent here in computer programming classes were equivalent to my first year at Purdue University. And you don't know how that makes it so much easier to transition from high school to college, you know, a college with
17935,000 students. and you know, [Music] you're lost like a deer in headlights, but then you walk in and you're doing stuff that you did in high school. And so it's it's that helps tremendously. And so I I definitely uh appreciate that. I have ideas for other curriculum that you could teach just because I see it in the workforce and and know things that are needed. But, uh, Python programming is a is a great start. And so, I definitely appreciate that. And so, that's all I have for tonight. I just want to briefly apologize for having to leave the room, but secondly, um, thank you for tonight's meeting. Um the content here is the content that we need as we as a community move the needle on the quality of uh outcome with our students. Um
180and so I appreciate your effort and energy. Thank you for the presenters for the work that you put in to get prepared for tonight. Uh so thank you for today. I'd like to move on now to item 10, superintendence report. Dr. Stokes, thank you so much. So, matters of corporation interest. Um, just to remind us, these are things that we believe are important for our community internally and externally to be aware of. So, the first thing I want to say is thank you to our amazing teachers. I know that sometimes across Indiana and probably quite frankly across many states, teachers feel devalued. And we can say to teachers that we think you're amazing and we appreciate you, but I think that it's more important when we can collaborate with you and show you that you're
181important to us. I think some of the things you heard tonight through all of what was shared by my colleagues, my my coaches and my um chiefs was that, you know, I've heard several times we didn't want to just do something to teachers. We wanted to hear from them, do something with them. With that being said, I want teachers to know that we do value you and that, you know, it is definitely apparent to us that teachers and our students enter our environment with varying skill sets and mindsets. So, let me say that again. Our students and our staff do enter the school environment with varying skill sets and mindset. It is incumbent upon us to make sure that we try to meet our students and staff where they are so that we can create
182an environment that is conducive to the main thing teaching and learning. It is important for our educators to know their skill set to these very degrees to support our students. It's also important for our students to come in with skill sets and mindsets to be be able to retain the information that they're receiving. And I say that to say this. We appreciate our teachers, but I want to put a call out to not just our internal staff, but to our parents and community. Parents, when you send your children to school, we know, we believe that you are believing that you're sending us the best student every single day. But we ask you to please help us help your students show up with a mindset ready to learn so that we can increase their skill set.
183It really does. I know people hear me saying that, but it does take you, me, it does take all of us. We can't do this by ourselves. Teachers can't do this by themselves. We appreciate our teachers, but I believe we can show more appreciation if we can make sure our main thing, which is teaching and learning of our students, is supported by not just staff, students, parents, and community, but by all of us. So teachers, we appreciate you. I wanted to say that. The next thing I wanted to say is that 21st Century has an afterchool program where they are going to be celebrating um I believe this is our middle school. So they want you to come join them for a fun free day of gifts. It's May 15th, 2025 at the middle schools
184from 3:30 to 6:00. And yes, there's food, fun, and activities. So please join the 21st century after school program as they celebrate at our middle schools. I wanted to read this to you because I think often times we hear things that might not always be um impressive about sportsmanship or things like that, but it's always important for us to hear something that is important. So, I want to read something to you that came from Cliff Walsh. And you got to understand he is the assistant baseball coach at Marquette High School. He said, "I left the ball field last night feeling appreciative of the chance to share the field with your team, meaning the Gary Community Schools team. The weather was terrible for a game with wind and cold. Your boys never gave in, never dropped
185their heads, and kept grinding till it was over. The head coach stayed positive during play and kept trying to encourage his boys. Playing the game of baseball is really hard. It's even harder when you have nonest players and you have to play in terrible conditions. I was proud. Let me repeat this. I was proud to share the field with your team and just wanted to share this with you, the coach and the boys. They might not realize it, but they are inspiring those that watch them. Good work over there at Gary Westside. See you next [Applause] season. I think it's important sometimes for us to hear this. So, thank you. um Cliff Walsh for sharing this with us. We really appreciate it. And then last but not least, you know, we always like to give
186you a draft of things to come. I think it is pretty much um routine. Do know that we will be coming back again with some information about um our curricular needs and things of that nature. With that, I turn it back over to our board. Thank you, Dr. Stokes, and appreciate that good news. Um I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. May I have a second? Second. All in favor say I. I. Meetings adjourned. Thank you for your attendance here. We appreciate your support.