001Dr Wood Dr and all in attendance we have a legal meeting let's stand for pledge [Music] of to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under godible with liy and justice for all thank you like to move to item two on our agenda approval of the October 23rd agenda so second been mov second any discussion on discuss please Mr yes Mr John Dr yes yes Z object the agenda has been approved item number three on our agenda good evening school board members Dr STS and members of the community it is always a pleasure to present this portion of the school board meeting entitled G gr snapshots it is our opportunity to shine bright light on spot District where something positive is taking place and as
002you can see on the screen recently as in last week our partners over at delivered more than 250 backpacks to the students at MAA Academy there Smiles all around and inside of those backpacks were filled with school supplies so we all focused on the beginning of school year when we get our school supplies we start to run out and so going was so inclined to visit M and deliver an increase in their school supplies we certainly thank them for that contribution and as we also know that October is marked as breast cancer Ayer this month and we did a challenge across the district to bring more attention to finding the cure for breast cancer and led by our administrator and Dixon encouraging all of our staff and volunteers and members of the administration across the
003district to where getting on last Thursday it was officially pink out day then there was a bit of a competition in the main office of whose outfit was the most attractive or the most standing out in the administrative office and we were able to vote and Melanie Morris was Victorious and she is pictured there so let us congratulate she g a gift card and I'll leave some down soing out and then last but not least we absolutely love love love our principles and October is also National principal appreciation month and so we wanted to pause for a moment I invite all you to just think back to one of your favorite principles who just maybe said a kind word or gave a word of encouragement or just make a difference in your life and say
004it thank you and then bring it forward to the principles of the G Community School Corporation we appreciate you we need you we support you this concludes my report and I turn back over to the board Mr item 3.2 Mr King good evening G Community School World members Dr stes and G Community my name is Aaron King and today I will be doing the second stepbystep tutorial on how to access and operate Bo um again Dr St feel that is very important to share all of the board meaning information to make sure that it's visible and accessible to the public um so that being said to get started the first thing you do to access board do is go to the G school corporation homepage that can be access accessed at cnc12 again that is
005g cc. k12.in.us once you arrive on the homepage you're going to go to the blue bar at the top when you get to the Blue Bar you're going uh press on school board once you press on the school board you will scroll down and once you get to the bottom of the page you will go to the board dob policy button once you click into this button this will direct you over to the board Doge platform and you will see once you get in the board do Platform you will arrive on the welcome page if at any time you get lost um feel free to hit that welcome the welcome button and you will be right back where you started so the first thing we're going to do is go over the options that we
006have to choose from on the top right and so first thing we're going to go into our meetings so once I click into meetings you will see they'll all be listed here on the left hand rail um these are all the meetings listed um since Dr sces has beened so for example purposes we will access um in all meeting go back to September 25th once you click on it it will expand over to the right side once you get to the right side you have a few options at the bottom you can view agenda if I view the agenda by clicking here it will take me to the agenda page uh and then again you can see here all the action items are listed here on the left hand rail and then if you want
007to drill in deeper you can click into them I'll click in this one then I can access PDF for the field experiences here and when I click on that all the information pop up if I want to exit I just exit here at the top press X and I am back at theend portion of meetings so to get back where I started from I go to the welcome page I go meetings and here again on September 25th so the other options that you can choose from are to download the agenda as a PDF you can print the agenda also a few minutes by click this button when I click the minutes they all come up here and you can scroll down to see them and if I want to exit out there I just put
008the X in the right corner uh the next feature that we're going to go through the policies so if I want to go to the policies I just go back to that tab at the top I click policies and as you can see here on the left hand ra um the all of them are accessible here the Z and the 5000 are all approved and updated on the site um the 3000 and 4000 have been approved we our third NE to enter all that information into the system so that will be updated shortly for everyone access um for exam purposes I went to the bys and I'll just click this plus sign once I click the plus sign I can go through and see all the polies listed and if I click into it it'll
009expand over here on the right side if I want to get of Zer and go back sign and if I want to go down again say I click the plus button and all those listed here as well and again you just press that minus sign to get back to where you were again if I get lost I can just go to the page and start complely over uh and if there are no other questions from the board that concludes presentation thank you any questions we're at item four on our agenda public comments Mr Johnson gun schol Corporation Board of Trustees wel comment from Community as a result the agenda for each meeting provides public expression perod public Expression 3 minutes per individual and 30 minutes total discussion items on the agenda Bo to express concerns
010relative to the operation of school City School Board actions and other items of General educational interest there are many people wishing to address the war Li not time person speak time shall be directed to the board not to individual board members statement should not beus ear person making comment shall not debate statements other persons it shall not be per to present our discussed complaints against individual employees of Gary School Corporation any school trust issues Personnel individual circumstances or an individual school will be referred to the building principal or an appropriate administrator in an attempt to resolve issue prior to before the war speaker cannot transfer remaining time to person Bo president will may take actions necessary to maintain order meeting such actions May are not lied to interrupt and speaker stat to UND repetive or
011otherwise VI rules the president mayate their dress there LGE people address or there large agenda of business thank you sir and just a comment we do have a full list today so we will be very aware of our policy I'd like to start off with Mary a and unfortunately I'm not reading the last name thank you good evening um Dr member Community I'm Maran is a retired licensed teacher working for Community School cooperation and I came before you probably should do it um advate for our entire teachers they need a raise and I was asking for $250 ra for the retired teachers every one of the retired teachers are life license or their license for the next 10 years so that looks good you have teachers that are licensed not with a provisional not with
012an emergency but a state license next thing I want to talk about is that I was trying to see if we can get our high school students put on a bus and take them down town to register not register but to vote I talked to Dr M she told me all the principal and I did conv that but I was unable to talk to the principal I was told to em so maybe someone else can take care of that because I did not email another thing I want to talk about is our even though I'm not a union person as far as the representative I still say that they were very hard in the classroom I have 13 autistic children and out of those 13 eight of them are in P Club so my in
013my work hard and I'm sure other par also the next thing I want to say is I'm not in favor of it I think that right now we need to concentrate on I read I ready I learn we need to concentrate on getting our teachers our parents and our community uh together and make sure that we are on the same path as to getting our school system back the way it used to be and I think we should be able to do that by concentrating on curriculum and not sell J thank you William SC a good afternoon good evening superent members of the board I was looking over my shoulder toward Mary because she made a comment regarding the very topic which I came from to bring to your attention she mentioned the students school
014I just to be inrig with the prospect of J turning the national title of the first High School IND student council president the class 2025 president try bring the go just go that every age El Gary high school student leg and flaged right serious about this I see no reason why we should student leadership in every High School in and City many program inou not I'm not but I was the senior class president ofton York City [Music] here in and I think you I'm not up or winding down I honored to be here to bring this Challenge and to back it up it's all and writing I thank superintendent St and have human resources because they came to something called Silver Monday Rosie Washington has performed on Monday morning which I commute all the way
015from Chicago on the 848 met just to be in that room she interv the movies and the shers so I hope at the next looking great I think it was called Gary ready snapshot you'll be training the title Gary brought back the go from pass first evening do stok and Bo members I'm here to speak about the uh sells I'm against it and the reason being that I H every company coming using us as G to set up programs that have not been mov um when I was teaching a retire teacher at one of the schools in I remembering as the men that came had Uniforms on to protect themselves but students were going in and out of their classrooms unprotected at that time we did not know what would happen and what the longterm
016effects were now we know because we're here at adag on TV that you can get cancer so we don't know what the longterm effects would be with those cell towers so I'm totally against them and one thing I do like though is the idea having a medical facility at West High School I was able to go down to the southern area indag and observed schools that had medical facilities in them and those schools had a lower rate of aism uh they also have that program in porage and students rather than going to a doctor to have examined to participate in sports they have it done at school so I thank you my name is ly D I'm a candidate for district three House of Representatives running in the 2024 member election and I come to
017you today to bring information to some of the issues that you will be discussing I odd that the public com is before all of your agenda items there's some things that we need to know uh and maybe parents don't know that it was a bipar bill that removes K through third grade gender identity teaching from all Indiana Public and um uh parochial schools so know that Cas through third grade they are not allowed to teach gender Iden it is now a law there's also another bill that was passed that states that men or males cannot cannot participate in women's sports and vice versa so please note it is Indiana law it is uh H Bill 1041 in case you didn't know and also um I'm here to actually comment on the stat the city of
018Gary were well below the national average the Gary stats for Island for readon and math for third to 8th grade is between 9 and 10% with the exception of three paroi schools that are at 75 to 85% and the reason for that being is because since 2009 took fining start of school well starting this school year it is now an Indiana Law house rooll at 1558 that states that uh they have to Now teach reading by using fines I want PR parents to know that because they took fin out of the school and finally I want to discuss and let everyone know that uh I have a strong component against the health centers in the education school system what parents may not realize is that I've been going to Lake County Public Health meetings and
019they are duplicating Services all of their key performance indicators are based on the CDC website which is not a government agency but it's the foundation where Dr J human Ro is also a part of Davos the World Health Organization and the world economic forum and these indicators they duplicating Services they want to hire a TV manager in these Health Centers to oversee four TV cases in Lake County in 2024 that's a waste of money also what you don't know is that when parents register their kids to school we're trying to get a copy of a letter that has the opt out thing uh it's an opt out letter that will allow parents to op their kids out so that when their kids go to school if you don't read what it is that you're signing
020you may be signing your parental rights away regarding whether or not uh your kids can be vaccinated without your uh notification so if you sign a line and don't know it you're signing your parental rights away and that the nurse and the nurse practitioners can give your child any vaccine that they are missing without contacting you we need to pay attention and be aware of everything that is going on um so I want you know I'm a strong component and I will be fighting for Education l t you do know Rel right to the evening everybody Madam Superintendent at Mr Bo president and board members thank you for 100% presence of the board today that's appreciated rather than take suggestions regarding cell tower locations from The Entity who would benefit most you are strongly encouraged
021board and superintendent to do intense research and identify locations and sites that pose the least danger to our resident students Health we hold the assets we should get the best for the buck let's stop playing ourselves cheap board hire someone proficient in marketing and gr writing put in that maybe we have may we have a working clock in our cafeteria so that everybody looking at one instrument will see the same thing we'd like for you to present to us we the people true steps true and accurate information information Excuse me give us the true teacher and student ratio rather than 17 to1 give us the true student enrollement numbers as well as math and reading statistics are we still at an 11% math position level are we still at a 5% breing proficiency level superintendent
022stes when is a community parenting training Gathering you promised us at the beginning of your time here when will that take place when is the mgt's presence in our Administration here we asked that they not be here anymore when will there be a yearbook committee for which will give a proper complimentary product when will decent bu service be in place how's the Food Service what's the discipline protocol regarding our students the air conditioning what's the word on Roofing in the pool we need a lot done here nether a lot done and it came in this body of administration came in a time when you knew we needed a lot we're expecting a lot from you and we don't want you to wait and wait and wait to present to us what we've been waiting for
023thank you much [Applause] hello uh first of all like to give honor to board the administrators teachers everyone here parents uh every schoolb me prob last year to the uh representative of Education County in ACP and I'm about collaboration and that's what we and first of all I want to thank the new superintendent I've seen you in action since July 1 you you've been all over the community keep doing what you're doing I want to put a lot of trust in the board and the superintendent to make great decisions for Gary the past is the past I've let it go and we're moving forward uh the one thing about health services I believe in whatever we can do uh we everybody know this room we went Co and other things whatever the decision between superintendent
024and the board makes on health services and that that's efficient for the city of Gary and consistent equable to what's going on in other schools in Indiana then I support that uh Improvement in School attendance that's key you know I used to work at a corporation Johnson to Johnson at very high level we had employees come in had health services there you can get almost surgery in any health services that good good but I'm just saying there's things you can do it avoids going even had a pharmacy there um the other item is capital spending I just want to thank the superintendent last week about being transparent on the issue because I kept wondering with this big lake and everything why Gary schools don't have a swim team uh like I've seen in in other
025across the country uh we need kids that can do lifeguard work in the summer and other things save lives so if we got a use collaboration the YMCA pool and others let's use them keep fixing those bathrooms put the dollars in that's first and just take you know right now you can't eat an elephant in one day just you can't eat elephant one day so all I'm saying is I support you if I see you going wrong I'm going call it if I see you going right I'm going call it so I just want people to be positive and be the solution and the answer and not always um just making recommendations around uh this is what you need to do no this is what I need to do what you need to do everybody
026in this room is part of the solution that's all I got I just want to say a few things thank you [Applause] but they call sad for almost 27 years and now that I got be on my eight children into my 10 grandchildren I'm able to pay more attention to what's going on at the school boards and that kind of thing and starting to come consistently this year just to see what's being done I'm appreciative that school board has been what appears to be transparent as far as the budget about where money want to go what decisions are going to be made I'm glad the m is coming on I'm hopeful that it's going to be a bright future because I know the Y children and that we've always reached out to them through our
027church and I've had them read bible verses to me and not be able to read them and so I'm so hopeful that the school will be going forward this year I just had questions I had to ask at the other meeting and was unable to because I had to leave the church as I'm death interpreter but I did want to ask just a couple of things there was some rents that were given because of the um Homeland Security and I know that $81,000 was given to the Gary Community School court and I didn't it wasn't clear to me about on the budget where that $81,000 was being used also I did notice in the property status that of all of the elementary schools that have closed down for which I was Grievous about that I
028used to drive School Bus La bar and D out kids to those schools all the time but they've been sold to the city of G and I'm wondering what happened with those M maybe it wasn't very significant and I will be questioning at the board for Gary as well about these schools being acquired what they want to do with properties but just wondering what has been done with those monies as I know that we're trying to bring up our budget and then one last thing for today the $1 million is being applied to vaner elementary school for the electrical system as I understand it vaner school is new and so it's kind of curious why they need $1 million to be put toward their electrical system I would think that better maybe I don't understand
029how could be wrong with this since it's a new school but hoping that more of that money would go to the pool that's been promised to the swim team to the golf team to the different um extra uh curricular type of pushes that we should do because our Gary kids do it well and it inspires them to be better students when they can do what they love so I do wonder about that and I'm hoping that it's been very carefully looked through as [Music] good evening everyone good evening Dr Stokes and board members um I'm just here uh I know you're probably tired of me every time I here I talk about the same thing but I didn't realize that this was going to come up for a final vote tonight and so I had
030to be here to reiterate to the board that I think it's a it's a very foolish idea that someone would come and present to us and think that we would agree to a 50-year contract for cell towers I mean that makes absolutely no sense at all none probably none of us would even be around uh to see what would happen after 50 years and I would hate to think about our students being exposed to cell tower radiation generation after Generation Um I don't know if cell towers cause I'm sorry cancer but we do know there is documented evidence that it interferes with memory sleep and and all other kind kinds of things that have to do with students being able to be on task at school and so I'm sure that no one in this
031room and no one on this board wants to make life more difficult for our students who are already trying to navigate childhood which is not easy for any any child so I'm hoping that the board will make a common sense decision tonight to vote this proposal down and to uh not allow uh just anyone in the future to come here and make a presentation to us that is so insulting $117,000 a school for 50 years are our children really not worth anything is that what they think it must be what they think because that's what they offered and the other thing is of course when the gentleman when when Vince was here talking about you know that he couldn't find out he couldn't find out where there were H schools that accepted these cell towers
032that was proprietary information but I told you at the last meeting I went through the list I'm not going to go through it again how many schools districts across this country have banned cell towers restricted them ban them outright whatever but they are not in huge school districts from so again I found I found their proposal outrageous and insulting and I'm sure that this board will use common sense in voting it down thank you jam [Music] good evening much like Miss MCC I'm here again uh to state my opposition to the salwer proposal to encourage you all to vote it down um one of the I was appreciating the document uh tutorial that happened earlier and I was trying to follow along and when I followed on that I went to look at the cell
033tower proposal there was not an attached um an attachment that sort of even laid out what the proposal was so I do I I'm happy to see you making some strides in transparency and having those things available but as people have stated for something like this where there are potential Health concern concerns where it is a 50-year contract um on basically you know taxpayer funded land um those sort of details should be certainly be made available for the public to view prior to the vot and so that we can all be educated um as much as you guys are um so um again I'm thankful for the progress that this board is making um in terms of accountability to the public and transparency I think this would be a great example of something that should
034get highlighted where the full proposal so people can understand the details because the presentation was very limited that was given by crown castle there wasn't a lot of information in doing some research you know I shared with a board there were considerations around like who covers the cost of you know utilities and maintenance and things like that and none of that was included in their proposal and it's the kind of things that we would want to consider um and I hope you would want to consider ever we're entering into an especially long-term contract um I would also encourage the board with issues like this um I'd love to see more involvement um in engaging parents and families and the residents that are adjacent to these schools I live adjacent to Gary Middle School um and
035I would have loved to see a public meeting happen at the school to inform a parents and let people know what this proposal considered especially you know that it would be 50 years in their backyard um for Neighbors in the community and for the children attendings so thank you for what you've done um I would also say someone brought up uh grant writing um and Partnerships and things like that and I would love to and I'm willing to help through um Gary advocates for responsible development or just as a citizen and neighbor to see more of that sort of considered before we consider things like the cell tower proposal like I don't know if this c um has a Boosters club yet but I think there's a lot of things we could do even like
036an old fashion bake sale um to help bring in funds for the school corporation that wouldn't be putting anyone at risk um or locking us into a bad deal for 50 years thank you for your time James [Applause] AB thank you Morgan good evening uh I just want to support everything that's been said so far in opposition to the cell towers uh I was here before to argue against the cell towers and there were speakers who argued for and against it even the people that argued for it conceded that some people seem to be especially sensitive to this type of radiation and so it seems like at least among the commenters there's a consensus about that now among the the kids at these schools we would have no way of knowing whether they were sensitive
037to the radiation being emitted from these towers until began affecting them and at that point I don't know what they could do because they have to go to school and they don't really have the option of moving away from the towers if they start to get headaches or memory problems and I don't think that's fair to do to our students uh I also think that 50 years is a really long time for a relatively new technology and there's no reason to think that technology is going to be static for the next 50 years and that these towers will even be relevant in 15 or 20 years so I just want to uh reinforce my opposition to the towers being placed on the schools and I thank you for your time good afternoon to members of
038the board superintendent Spokes and the Gary Community School team and the Gary Community I'm glenham 47e teacher in the Gary Community School Corporation now serving as president of the Gary teachers union Local Number Four as TL C I'm speaking on the agenda item cell tower opportunity there's been much said about this item for many Community me community members and I think the general consensus of the community would be a no vote from each of you there's mixed information about cell towers a sentence that continues to catch my attention and all my seeking of information is more research is needed there are reports that Cil Towers have been to negative Health outcomes such as headaches sleep issues and reproductive issues in local for we have Union building representatives in each building I directed my representatives in
039Marquette and Gary Middle School to poll members in regards to the cell towers cell phone towers the staff members contact the world hard know commenting that they had enough internal distractions with educating our children that they didn't need an external distraction is worrying about encountering a cell phone tower on the grounds of their workplace as State president of aft Indiana I contacted my 27 locals of District as far as Ohio River to where we reside in the region the findings are out of 27 districts two School sites have cell towers at the last meeting I felt it was disrespectful to the board that the company crown castle would not answer the question about where their towers were located seeing that this meeting is on Facebook live and everybody has the opportunity to know that if
040you vote in the affirmative there will be cell towers here in Gary there's a financial piece to this opportunity I would not want the Gary Community School Corporation to become that place where offers of all kinds are extended because there's a belief that we are in destinity of funds this community voted on and passed the referendum to help with the financial obligations of care committee School Corporation gar historically has been known by many as a Dumping Ground for projects where more research is needed the city is headed in a New Direction I asked our mayor about the cell phone tower issue I asked him in all his vision of a greater Gary is is our new theme did he Envision cell towers being placed on properties where our children and staff have a 15minute recess
041Outdoors on our beautiful playgrounds his answer was no I feel collectively the board the administration and the staff have put our best forward and make G committee schools the best choice in the region for the children and families as we do know the money comes with the children in closing we hear horor stories about what happens with wrong environmental decisions for our community children due to the fact that more research is needed about the impact cell towers I would ask this board to vot no thank you [Applause] hello I'm Christy sass it's weird that this is so far away um is one of you the secretary for the board somebody takeing notes thank you cuz this School District I used to go watch the meetings they would get back to the People by email as
042you know as opposed to just people ask questions and then they never don't get answers anyway I got three things to say one is pretty positive two is two or not so I start with a negative in case I run out of time um I'm going to give you some information references so if anybody would like to dig into why the education is uh why the scores are so low I'm going to be giving you some things you might want to look into so you need to dig out a and do it now um the three things that have to do with the curriculum and the um grades the scores are reading comprehension and math so I want to talk about comprehension first um there's a book called the knowledge Gap the knowledge Gap by
043Natalie Wexler w x l r w x l e r and it's basically about how African-American kids um in low soci socioeconomic um districts tilean School type things have a extra problems with their knowledge because everything you learn has to kind of get tagged onto something else you knew before so they're not getting anyway read it because now I'm finding that okay back to positive thing the reading is improving I mean they switched over to science reading stuff I'm sorry that M Nelson's going to be leaving because she was a big proponent of that but I'm glad to see Dr Treadwell she'll know all about this stuff so the reading is getting better with it but now the kids are scoring good on actual reading and Clinics but they're not scoring good on comprehension and
044I was at one of the schools today and we were reading a little paragraph about sea urchins well was okay that they didn't know what seizure urgant were because they were going to learn but they didn't know what murky was they didn't know what a tide poool was they didn't know what a reef was um and and other things and that was just like in the first two sentences so they're not going to comprehend because they can sound out those words they now know how to sound out murky and we but they don't know what they are so the knowledge Gap by Natalie wler and then the the third thing is the math and unfortunately I think that the same thing is going on with teaching math that was going on with reading and the
045um sold the story podcast sort of exposed the reading problem that there hasn't been anybody really do something masterful about the math problem but I have found a um podcast called chalk like on chalkboard chalk and talk and she talks about um some of the issues with teaching ma math but in one sentence they're teaching kids strategies even when they're little as opposed to making them learn the facts and they can do use the strategies later but you got to know that 8+ 3 is 11 Sandra Starling okay Robert [Music] busing Dr stopes and your staff and the audience I got three quick things I want to say the first thing I want to get some clarification legal clarification that this Bo I think I read Internet code requir this Bo before it go on
046any action items that the public must have an opportunity to say for or against I need clarification on that the other thing is attorney Darnell La has been trying to come into the school to talk to some of the students in case they wanted the career professional in law I mean in in law and every administrator has turn down so I'm asking this Administration will they allow him to come in and some other entrepreneurs to talk to the young men about and women if they that law per thing is I can't understand why the cellow was still on the agenda now it's in fact uh Senate Bill 327 has returned local control back to G and for the last few mean every citizen has got up and spoken against the cell towers so if the
047board votes for the cell towers and it is not local control because you have all these people out here you have over over voted shall I say what they want for their children the other thing is problem castle one of the asking me if they would consider up in from $177,000 a year and I think they'd raise a $200 now that's that's an insult the whole idea of 17 excuse me $177,000 is an insult but what's going to happen 50 years from now cell will be outdated cell that's not Fe but the most important thing our students deserve deserve a clean environment opportunity afternoon board and Community it's so good to see so many people in the community out here to deal with this issue and these issues with the school stand solidarity with those
048who are against this cell tower World Health Organization says if there's low confidence that there is no risk and then the question that we looked at we want to just share here is so how then can we place Towers where there's little confidence I look at this whole phenomena of vaping that so many people are doing right now especially so many of our young people are doing and they don't know the associated risk with them it's kind of new some cell towers even though we do know some of them so um Mr C talked about some municipalities and schools who banned them recently I just want to reiterate that CU I'm hoping I'm optimistic that the board do the right thing concerning the cell tower these cell towers however one day you guys may not
049be on the board and they may come back again so there's some cities and some municipalities who have put resolutions against doing this so they'll be on the books so other people come in they won't try to come back here again LA City School District P also in California we got some school districts in Maryland um mgy County Prince George's County they had they decided not to R the cell tower construction contract um Montgomery County or that Westland um in Wilsonville and Oregon and Portland Oregon schools and also some municipalities in in sonatas and Calabasas in California some uh cities in New York also just this month uh school system in mansfi Virginia they decided to both down cell towers M school systems so again enough has been said already on this again you all
050do the right thing thank you now move on to item five desent agenda on our agendas Mr President make a motion to approve items 5.1 through 56 second motion been mov in second is there any discussion on the motion he no discussion May roll call for approval Please Mr s yes Dr moud yes can I say yes as well 5 to Z with a vote of five yes and zero no motion passed consider agenda has been approved at this point I'd like to have Miss Fitch Miss Joe come up good evening Este board members Dr Stokes and Community it is my pleasure to introduce Chelsea stalling Whittington our chief public and community relations officer Mrs Whittington is a native of Gary Indiana and proud graduate of West High School where she achieved the ranking of
051salutatorian Mrs Whittington also attended Howard University where she accomplished her Bachelor of Arts in broadcast journalism graduating Magna Kum LA and Purdue University where she gained her master's of Arts in organizational Communications graduating Sumo Mrs whittington's career in public relations and Communications spans more than 30 years having worked for the Peace Court Recruiting Office in Arlington Virginia the office of congressman Charles rangal Democrat New York jwa Boys and Girls Club Lake Area United Way Horseshoe Casino the Gary Community School Corporation Johnson Publishing Company the publisher of eony and Jet magazines US Cellular city of Gary and Chicago Urban League since 2015 Chelsea has operated her own PR consulting firm C wit where she develops public relations and social media strategies for clients as well as presents workshops and trainings on social media and public speaking
052for the past 5 years she has served as the pr consultant for the Gary schools through MGT she was instrumental in helping pass the referendum and keeping stakeholders informed of the district's progress during our years of State oversight more than 20 years ago Miss Winnington served as director of public relations for the Gary Community School Corporation so this is indeed a full circle moment Mrs Whittington resides in Gary with her husband at 15 years Terell the love of her life and their lovable black labrador Pepper please help me welcome Mrs Chelsea Whittington our chief public and community relations officer [Applause] good evening once again Lord Dr stes and the community I've been doing PR for so long I didn't think that I would get choked up sitting and listening to this appointment after all I
053have been with the team and for the past few years seeing us through some to use the term earlier murky Waters and to be on the other side of it and to be a product of this amazing City this amazing school district and working with some amazing administrators teachers and then the children that we love so much and then to be a product of this District I am humble I want to thank the board and Dr Stokes and the community for having the faith in me to continue what I've already started just moving from one entity to actually being a member of the home team so I'm so excited to do that I'd also like to acknowledge my Lord and Savior for without him I amow nothing I'd also like to acknowledge my family Mama
054I'm doing it I'd like to thank my husband especially for allowing me to be me and to move throughout this community in a way that is hopefully impactful and that is indicative of the love that I have for Gary And Indiana and so in assuming this role I take it to heart it is a label of love and I promise to uphold all of the duties and responsibilities that's listed but anybody who knows me and my extra that I won't go beyond that and Dr Stokes I'm just going to go out on the limb and you can ding me later but we do have a swim team and we do they do rehearse at the YWCA and there was a pool presentation at the last school board meeting so you can jump on Garis school.org
055and watch that but I look forward to November 13th where I will get the opportunity to talk more about the different Avenues and vehicles by which you can access the information because for us pre PR practitioners the last thing we want to hear our community say is we didn't know so our team will be working hard to keep you informed to stay trans parents and to work with the community to ensure that our children get the best for they deserve it thank you moving to item number six on our agenda invite Linda zabowski up thank you good evening School Board board members Dr Stokes and community members tonight we are very excited to give you a short presentation of a request and an update on our food service uh Department uh we're requesting some updated
056equipment which is much needed in a few of our schools I would offer and like to ask demica we to come up and assist me with this presentation she is our boots on the ground person that is in all of the buildings and in the cafeterias good afternoon Dr Stokes board members and members of the community I'm here to present the Food Service update and the request to purchase equipment in an effort to comply with the guidelines established by the Indiana Department of Education and the terms of our food service contract we are required by law to spend a percentage of our food service funds on upgrading and maintaining our facilities and equipment in 2023 the previous administration initiated and approved the spend down plan which allocated the following monies on necessary improvements as you
057can see from the screen these Capital Improvements were allocated these specific monies as it relates to painting kitchen upgrades and cleaning of the equipment as well as cafeteria Furniture during this summer this past summer the following cafeterias were painted vur Marquette Glen Park Academy Williams and Maka elementary school as well as Westside Leadership Academy also this summer in partnership with sedexo our contracted food service provider the cafeterias were all upgraded with new signage in this presentation we have listed the equipment needs for two schools Glen Park Academy and Bailey Middle School the following slides will provide you with a visual comparison of these upgrades most of the equipment is more than 10 years old and has been repaired several times today these upgrades to this equipment would not only save us money but allow our
058students the best opportunities to serve themselves and be served efficiently and effectively this first sline we're going to start with the Glen Park Elementary cafeteria needs this first slide captures a picture of their actual serving lines they have two serving lines and they serve close to 600 kids daily breakfast and lunch the side picture shows you not only how our students are not able to serve themselves but if you'll pay attention to detail there are caps on the hot Wells which means they aren't in service which will lead us to our first lead for a piece of equipment the hot and cold Wells we're showing you what the new hot and cold wells look like this this is a sample our next piece of equipment would be the milk coolers we would definitely like to
059have current and functioning milk coolers these are our classroom cabinets this is where the the Food Service staff actually holds the food that is waiting to be served to the children and they're not holding their current temperatures as they should so we're showing you what the old pass through cabinets look like and terms and a comparison of what our new past through cabinets will look like we're going to move on to baile middle school and I'm sorry to do this to you guys but that is their actual milk cooler over in the side nonfunctioning we definitely need to bring them current with a new milk cooler and just like Glen Park Elementary School they have problems with their reaching heated cabinets as well so we're proposing new heated cabinets for their location with the help
060of mar Mark Baltimore and cyel Associates our equipment list was submitted and he successfully secured the three quotes that you have copies for in your packets this evening this is just the start of our equipment upgrade project please anticipate the subm of the rest of the upgrades for the other Kitchen in a future meeting you guys have any questions at this time a quick question in regards to the life cycle of the appliances you I believe you state that most of them are near 10 years or older or older or older and they've had quite a few repairs that we have been tracking for the last couple of years thank you thank you okay thank you guys for listening to me this concludes my my portion of this presentation I'm going to turn it back
061over to my CFO Miss zarowski thank you for your time guys you all have a wonderful evening than thank you Dena thank you for all your hard work on this and it will continue because we will be making further upgrades to all the other buildings too in the food service area so at this time I would like to request the board the approval to approve the bid for the Stafford Smith as as you can see two of the other bids um did not do a complete bid um and so if we assess the the cost of those additional things that they didn't submit it would actually exceed the Stafford Smith bid so I asked the board to approve the Stafford Smith bid of 8,527 there's a recommendation uh for the Stafford Smith B I'll a
062motion I'll make that motion Mr chairman is there a second second then move this second is there any discussion on this motion hearing no discussion man roll call yes Mr SS yes Mr Johnson yes Dr Woods yes Dr MCL yes can I say yes to Z with a vote of five yes and zero opposed the motion carries thank you very much thank you this time I'd like to um turn mic to superintendent STS please thank you president so we actually have two things up um 6.2 which is our field trip experiences if you can show us for just a moment we're asking that the board um approve our field trip experience for our students I keep saying build trip but it's really build experiences a new term that we're supposed to be using we also
063have a conference experience that I want to um bring to my um because it is out of state we always have to make sure that we're abiding by rules and being safe with our teachers so there is one conference experience that is in Texas so we're asking the board if you will approve what is on board here and in your packets thank you I'll entertain a motion for approval item number 6.2 so move M second second move and second it is there any discussion on this motion may I have roll call for approval Please Mr SS yes Mr Johnson yes Dr Woods yes Dr McLoud yes I say yes to zero with a vote of five yes and zero against the motion carries for the field experiences and Conference experience Mr sugs on item 6.3
064we were proposed as the district with information from Crown um my technology director whom I respect came to us and told us that there was an opportunity to be able to maybe have more supports for our students via their connectivity over in the Miller area at this time however um we have list listen to the information that cell um Crown has provided to us we have listened to information that our community members have provided we've done some of our own research and at this time as superintendent of Gary Community Schools I am respectfully requesting that the board vote no to this particular opportunity thank you Dr Stokes um at this time I'll open the floor up to see if there is a motion for approval it's a motion to accept the recommendation of Dr hi
065I'm sorry Mr chair did you hear me no I'm sorry I did I'm sorry you should be uh asking for a motion to accept the recommendation of Dr Stokes I make a motion have we accept Dr sto's recommendation second it's been moved in second is there any discussion on this motion hearing no discuss discussion I have roll call for approval Mr SS except yes Mr Johnson yes Dr Woods yes Dr M yes I say yes as well Super 5 to zero the motion carries let's move to item seven on our agenda informational items Dr Bishop [Music] moris good evening Mr chairman members of the board Dr Stokes and the community my name is Dr Karen Bishop Morris and I am the chief development and Communications officer for Edgewater health and with me is Dr Jerry
066Browning a chief medical officer uh for Edgewater Health we are so pleased to have an opportunity to present to you tonight A rationale for a school-based health clinic with Edgewater Health as the provider so on this slide is our mission statement this is what we've been up to for the last 50 years providing comprehensive physical and behavioral health care services for individuals and their families edgear health is the only Community Mental Health Center in the city of Gary and to be a Community Mental Health Center has very specialized meaning it means that the staff has the education has met the ethical requirements and the experience to be a Community Mental Health Center it also means that we have the specialized and unique specialty to deal with um children as well as adults with mental [Music]
067illnesses I won't read the slide to you but this is our vision statement uh basically it says that we are committed to continuously developing and delivering high quality affordable whole person care for patients [Music] this slide basically spells out edgewater's values and uh the acronym impact again we um try to actualize these values Integrity mutual respect professionalism accountability community and teamwork in everything that guides our organization and this is who we are Incorporated in 1974 50 years ago as the Gary Community Mental Health Health Center Edgewater health is a not for-profit this third bullet is probably the most important in that we're providing specialty services in Behavioral Health primary care and consumer social supports the average tenure of our leadership team is 10 years and we're providing Services currently across 10 locations in Northwest [Music]
068Indiana this slide outlines our very various designations certifications accreditations and affiliations on both sides of the of the health care Spectrum Primary Health Care as well as Behavioral Health Care and again I won't read them to you in the interest of time but we have long-standing relationships with PSA with the Indiana division of mental health and addictions uh we're credited by carp um as well as ongoing projects funded by samsa and others the most important takeaway again from that slide is that Edgewater as the only Community Mental Health Center look alike in the city of Gary is entrenched um in both Primary Care as well as Behavioral Health Care and with that I'm going to turn our take over to our chief medical officer Dr brownman to talk about our integrated Healthcare approach good evening
069Dr stes it's good to meet you and board it's it's a pleasure to present I've never been to this uh school board meeting all the years I've been uh practicing uh medicine and Gary I've been here for 40 years practicing family medicine and my career there were more than 80 practicing africanamerican Physicians here in the city of Gary uh as well there were other diverse uh uh people practicing medicine here now we probably got much less than a third of that maybe uh even uh less than that and uh so that presents uh a very unique opportunity for Edgewater Health to uh offer school-based Health Care to the uh Westside High School here in Gary one of the biggest uh issues in terms of healthcare is is access to quality of care and our young
070people are subject to the ills of lack thereof I don't want to read the uh slide to you but Edgewater is uniquely poised to offer Integrated Health Care we have both primary care physicians and nurse practitioners as well as Behavioral Health Physicians and nurse practitioners and clinicians offering integrated services here are uh different models of integration uh we have both a Coordinated Care where uh it's more traditional where a behavioral health uh consultant might refer a patient to the primary care and vice versa Primary Care May uh provide or refer a patient to uh Behavioral Health mostly we practice an integrated or coordinated model where we're a team approach we uh can coordinate our care and in some V in some instances have visits that are have both a primary care and Behavioral Health uh
071consultant in the visit next slide again this is just about the integrated care that we provide our services are are next slide our services are uh diverse uh we offer in general adult and uh well child care uh Internal Medicine Women's Health sick visits for the purposes of a school-based health care unit we would be providing care to our young people adolescents and teens they are not uh small adults they young people and their their needs are are very particular uh we would be planning on Staffing our uh School B Health Clinic with uh nurse practitioners both uh educated in family medicine and uh Behavioral Health as well we would uh have as a backup Physicians both in family medicine and uh Psychiatry to back up our nurse practitioners delivering day-to-day care of course we
072have uh additional services or we have all the services needed for uh true Health Care uh diagnostic Labs depression screening anxiety scening um and any other Specialty Care Services we would be able to refer uh students for that care the biggest uh thing is being able to access quality care and there's no other place that that could be better offered than right in the school where the students are The Bu of their day and with parental consent we'd be able to offer a full spectrum of of care including immunizations and other things that are preventative and help our students become young adults that are healthy and able to leave productive lives again our services are are basic Primary Medical Care preventive services are so important sometimes our young people become pregnant and we would Institute
073prenatal care and be able to refer them for appropriate long-term care during the pregnancy if that's their uh choice and situation and then uh be able to provide postnatal care and re uh as they reintegrate into the uh School curriculum again we have ongoing services including HIV screening and appropriate care as well as uh we're affiliated with Genoa Pharmacy and we have access to low or low cost uh Pharmaceuticals um with our 340b uh discount program and we uh operate that program through Walgreens and CVS uh uh retail uh centers around surround theary and surrounding areas next slide just some pictures here of our clinics uh this is the primary care clinic uh waiting room at the uh main campus on 6th Avenue next and we have ADD Addiction Services at our Turning Point uh
074Center on 6th Avenue again our Primary Care Center uh this is one of our newest centers at 5495 Broadway in mville and then our Primary Care Center in C Cedar Lake Indiana and then where I spend most of my time at uh our Griffith location I'm there two days a week on Tuesday and Thursday offering Primary Care as well and again about our Pharmacy Services we have a 340b uh program where we able to offer through Walgreens CBS and Genoa discounted Pharmaceuticals and again Edgewater has long been a behavioral health uh resource in our Gary community and now with the integration of primary care we again we are uniquely poised to offer an integrated service all of the uh depression and anxiety screenings and uh we're able to deal with death and breathing and Crisis
075Intervention we just opened a new Crisis Intervention uh Center at our at our rapid access uh Center and uh we have a lot of Behavioral Health Services that we're able to offer for uh our our patients and in particular our [Music] students so just um to to Echo some of Dr browny's comments um about the um constellation of sort of issues and challenges for uh students at this age really uh it's really the integration of primary care and Behavioral Health and and education that that seem to be uh stumbling blocks the source of this slide is the Indiana school mental health initiative that reports about 20% of Indiana high school students seriously considered suicide in 2015 which is the highest rate in the nation but I want you to know that in Indiana Indiana it's
076the second leading cause of death for students is suicide um imagine 250 students um from gcsc attempting suicide or having suicidal ideation 29.3 % of students in Indiana reported feeling um sad or hopeless imagine nearly 400 gcsc students showing up to school every day feeling sad I'll tell just a quick story about um a student I'll call him John um John was born into a family um that was in Gary living below the poverty line and John had too much responsibility as so many of our youth do taking care of younger siblings very unstable household Old Situation uh started acting out in school ended up coming to Edgewater at the age of 10 Edgewater has a day treatment program and so I should just clarify that this would be a new relationship with um Gary's
077Community Schools or Westside this would just be an expanded partnership we are already on site um offering crisis counseling services and we have been for 50 years but John as part of our day program treatment program um came to edgewalk he is now in his early 20s he is a student at Indiana University Northwest he is thriving he is working uh and he credits his the turnaround in his life to Edgewater so there there is definitely an impact here next slide this slide actually shows adverse childhood experiences um and basically we know that they are these experiences are the best predictor of poor health and the second best predictor of academic failure about nearly a third over a third of children that are School aged in Indiana exhibit some of these adverse childhood experiences meaning
078over 50% live in a family where there is trauma or and arguing 11% or one in 10 have lived with someone who is mentally ill nearly a quarter now of Indiana high school students have a parent who's um serve some time in jail or is incarcerated next month what I will say uh about uh School Bas based healthc care um often many young people are challenged with mental health issues and behavioral issues and once you're in that realm of a problem is very difficult to pay attention to General Health and uh these things are intertwined and our goal is to be able to be on the Forefront where we can offer students the opportunity to get to help to get to adulthood and have proper help both behavioral and uh medical uh in our clinics
079there's uh inability to pay is not a deterrent we have we take of course uh most uh payers as well as we have a self-paid program and sliding fee scale for those that are unable we turn away no one again our team is uh consistent of nurse practitioners both family medicine and psychiatric Behavior Health Counselors uh clinicians certified medical assistants as well as Physicians were all trained in family medicine and Psychiatry so this is uh the leadership for our school-based team our providers Dr brownie our chief medical officer and Dr dwan zah Howard Jones who's our medical director and a child psychologist psychiatrist sorry psychiatrist these are our partner services so in addition um Edgewater collaborates with Partners on all of the following Services currently we are delivering Behavioral Health Services in K through 12
080at the following locations again Gary Community School Corporation for the last 50 years um at Lighthouse tonight as we speak there's actually uh we do monthly circles that are funded by SSA there one happening tonight uh for the lighthouse district and Hammond schools partnership as well as Lake bridge we've all we've offered day we are offering day treatment counseling Cris and Trauma Services again the parenting workshops and inservice training for teachers just by example um at Westside for instance we have been called in to do um on-site crisis counseling when there's been the death for instance of a instructional staff member or teacher um we have been called out to these other districts to do on-site crisis counseling uh when there's been a suicide of a student or uh grief or other other instances next
081SL so just to reiterate these are some of the benefits of a school-based health clinic access to care to the retired teachers who spoke earlier to her Point access is a big issue um having uh a school-based health clinic allows students um athletes to be treated on site it mitigates issues of transportation for families for whom that is a barrier um families who are managing as well as all of the other things the cost Effectiveness the reduction in health disparities and family engagement next so we'll wrap by talking about Community linkages um in 2023 Edgewater Health was named the backbone organization by the national My Brothers Keeper Alliance which is sponsored by the Obama foundation and we use this school-based evidence-based approach uh six key Milestones uh to plan interventions on a community level we
082currently convene a monthly Round Table of 70 plus Community uh stakeholders uh who are working on issues from Milestone one entering School ready to learn literacy to completing post-secondary education uh in employment and uh safety next slide this slide just refers to the collective impact organization that we're building around My Brother's Keeper next SL I think we all know that gentlemen and so just some added benefits to edat uh as the provider for the school-based training exposing youth to certifications in training and careers in the Health Professions providing access to internships and practicum and participating in summer youth employment you have a student right now who had to come home uh from morous for the for the had to set out a semester we got acquainted with him through the city of Gary summer Employment
083Program he did a rotation essentially through Edgewater he worked in community health education he worked in finance and now he's working with primary care he's done such an amazing job job he's going back to morous uh in January but he'll continue to work remotely with Dr browny's team this slide addresses that 98.6% of uh special ed Educators believe that student mental health issues have become an increasing concern and one of the biggest barriers number two barrier is access to or collaboration with the community health center so we can't stress enough the importance of of having the Behavioral Health Care Primary Care linkage sort of baked into the model next slide once again the slide just restates the the benefits and whole person Health the impact which you've seen and we would like to thank you
084for your attention and ask if there are any questions I would like to just uh conclude with one thing uh after practicing medicine for 40 years it's 40 years of this year um I can see that the health disparities that affect us are not changing they've not improved and a lot of that has to do with many social determinant of Health economy education but it's access not just access to care but access to Quality Care and I retired and Dr Woods got me off of my couch and had me come back to work and I believe in Edgewater and I love what we're trying to do this would be a new Initiative for us but I'm committed to delivering quality care I want to make sure that the Legacy that we have is that there's
085affordable and available Quality Health Care in Gary Andi that's important to us and our young people deserve all of that they can become healthy adults that can contribute thank you for the presentation just one quick question could you kind of confirm with me the hours of operation that is being proposed school hours so 7:30 to to basically 3 3:30 another thing that we'd like to just say I'm not sure if it came out in the presentation is that this Clinic would be open to students first obviously but also it would serve uh staff as well flu Co TV test um and the community so um the other thing that it was a footnote on the slide is that we'd have 24hour medical emergency access as well but not just emergency but any urgency or or
086need to question your provider we're we have a an ongoing schedule so myself and other providers are rotating through that so we're available 247 Mr chair Mr chair question so the clinic is open for Westside students or the entire District correct and their parents that is correct what if I don't have a student in the gear Community School Corporation am I able to come here yes it is open to the community and then what is the cost so yeah again as our slide said we take of course all insurances Medicaid Medicare uh but if you're unable to pay we have a slight incre scale but we turn no one away we take everybody so is there cost to the school district you already we already working with you in Partnership is that yes so there's
087no cost other than providing the facility area the school deliver Serv correct okay it would be Inc and you would have an office here in the building of Westside yes the facility is already existing with separate entrance okay I think you answered all of my question well one other question is there any data that shows the benefits of having a school-based health facility as opposed to not having one yes and actually there was a slide that talked about some of those things access is the biggest one there are so many students who aren't able to to manage uh seeing a primary care behavioral health specialist just because again there are barriers for transportation for cost edge water being again a cc look alike we wouldn't turn we don't turn anyone away um wow there's also
088don't have to take off work to take you know children to school to to Physician's office uh after hours which can be difficult sometimes um so we're available right there I mean access is the biggest thing so how do the parents sign off on this how how is there something that's going to go out to the to the parents at the schools to say yes I want my child to participate in this or no I can answer that so typically what happens is that we have our in School nurses so typical things that our in School nurses can handle they will continue to handle should we partner and that would be if we partner with any agency but what happens is there are sometimes when nurses want to refer students out for other things they
089have to call parents and get permission um so they get that permission from the parents before they would ever refer them over some parents in some districts have standing permission forms they've already filled up but in essence you have to have parental consent okay thank you Dr St thank you Mr Mr and this will be the first in school Clinic that you all are operating yes it would be the first school based clinic but again we've been here 50 years providing Behavioral healthare Services as well as the other uh school districts that were're on the slide Alo you are some other school district as Oh you mean for Behavioral this would be the first Primary Care behavioral heal School based CL yes just one other thing what is the commitment if we agree to this
090now is is it sunset is it just roll over year after year or what is that term I would like to think that we would be here at in uh this is a commitment um again the way I see it we're in a health care desert uh and those of you that have been here a long time know that uh many people here are seeking Health Care outside of the city and the people who are not seeking Health Care outside of the city are those who are not able and many of us students who are here are here because they're not somewhere else this is where they live and how better to do to receive Health Care than right here in your community you have shared this during your presentation and I may have missed
091it we'll be coming into the schools absolutely absolutely yes and and if I could just dial back to your previous question we demonstrated our commitment in the longevity for 50 years I don't I I would feel very confident signing us up for another 50 very easily and all Edgewater Health Providers have background checks to provide Care at Edgewater and Mr chairman if I might I my understanding is that this is an expansion of services because for years Edgewater and gar Community Schools has had a relationship where Services have been provided primarily on the behavioral health side but this is an expansion of services and so to be able to treat the whole person based on the integrated Services model would be of benefit to the students and the persons that are served so it's not
092new it's an expanded service because we're doing day treatment with the schools right now we've done as you mentioned a lot of Crisis services and a lot of training for the teachers in terms of Crisis Intervention and that sort of thing so it's an expansion of services so it's not totally new except we're adding some new services to the Continuum thank you so much for the presentation any other questions thank you thank you item 7.2 7.3 Dr stes all right I know it's getting there supper time so for the S of time I'm going to go rather quickly but what I wanted to do is to present um for public View and of course for the board's view as well um two policy series 7,000 is for property so if we can just look at
093those on the screen for just a moment you can see that there are various um property things that go into property but I want to give a couple examples here real quick so if you look at the 7,000 for example if we were to look at 00 it's this disposition of real property and it basically talks about how the board board believes in efficient administration of the school corporation and it requires disposition of property that we no longer leave in a certain process that follows the Cod but there are types of um ways that we get rid of if some would say or move on or dispose or reinvent property and there are rules around how we do that there are other things that are here I'm just to name a few property inventory um
094use of Corporation physical fitness facilities yes there are rules around that um safety standards and hygiene management if we go on to the next series we have the 9,000 which deals with relations templates and just to look at a few if we look at 9120 so I'll look at that one for just a moment if we look at 9120 it basically speaks to public information programs and basically it talks about the fact that the board believes that reasonable means should be employed to keep the public informed of matters that are important like policies finance and programs an example of that will be what Mr King shared today when he was trying to share how to navigate our board docs there are other topics such as um relations with special interest groups um an example of
095that was given today um which with crown that was an example um partnership with businesses so on and so forth so I just wanted to bring your attention to these two series The 7,000 and the 9000s and I'll turn it back over to you Mr s thank you we're moving on to item eight on the agenda um thisit thank you again esteemed board members Dr Stokes and community at large for giving me this opportunity to talk about our role in Human Resources um I tend to be a bit Gess so for the sake of time I am going to go as quickly as I can and Dr Stokes does give me those signs sometimes and de right told me earlier take a breath Joe so I'll try to talk as quickly as I can um
096the main focus of my presentation is going to be surrounding equity and that is my main role as the Chief Human Resources officer is to make sure that everything is applied equitably across our district um this next slide shows you my team I know I am only as good as the team that supports all of us so you'll see a picture of me as your Chief Human Resources officer but I cannot speak highly enough about the three individuals that you also see on this slide that is Shante i k she is our benefit specialist you also see bar our HR payroll specialist as well as toia Lockett who is our newest member of the team she is our HR support specialist next Slide the role of the human resources department is great and if I
097stood up here and told you all that we did you would be here even longer than you want to be already so I'm going to go to the next slide and take some more time to just talk about a very important role for me that I I highlighted earlier that the main focus is about Equitable practices in order for HR to assure a safe and comfortable environment we need to ensure that there is fair treatment for all what does that mean employees are all treated without favoritism or discrimination how does that happen Equitable practices means it doesn't matter who you are it doesn't matter who you know it doesn't matter how long you've been in the district it doesn't matter what your education level is we are supposed to treat everybody again without favoritism and
098without discrimination we are assuring equal opportunities Fair playing benefits leveling that playing field and again we must do this all within legal constraints which includes making sure that we're following those agreements like our collective bargaining agreements that we have next slide please the human resources department is here for all of the employees for the Gary Community School Corporation in order for us to be here we need to make sure that we are available and accessible however there's only four of us for about 700 employees for the entire District I want you all to know that this particular um presentation was provided to the entire District on Friday in the afternoon they also receive every employee received a copy of this presentation so that they can refer back to it they have this email address that
099then will allow for all of them to access the human resources department as a whole because although Chante IB King is our benefit specialist as an example she might need to be home sick she might need to take a vac that's allotted as part of her benefits package and so if someone needs a question answered and shant IB King is unavailable we need someone else in our department to be able to answer that question so that's why this Human Resources email address is provided so that in the event that an employee needs something they can email that General email address and one of us will get back to them in the event that one of us that is the specialist in that area is not in the office because of the need for all of
100us to be able to answer these typ of questions we are all doing what's called cross training in order to assure again that if one of us let's say Barb low as an example who is our payroll specialist is not here we need someone else in the office to be able to answer those questions next slide um we also wanted to talk about this hiring process timeline now that we have our Stam board who has to make sure that there's approval by you before any person is on boarded we need to make sure that um we have all of the necessary information to you and then in a timely fashion Al also have to adhere to pre-hiring processes which include pre-hiring documents transcripts verification of previous employment and then there's this speed which we are
101holding to for background checks as well as drug screening which is imperative for all of our employees next slide we have some exciting news um and all of our employees again have heard this across the district and although every employee that works for the Gary community Community School Corporation does not carry our health insurance this does affect every employee our healthare our cost of our healthare again even if all of our employees don't carry our health care the cost of our health care in essence affects our overall budget which affects every single employee many other school districts over the past year have experienced double digigit cost percentage increases the average for the state of Indiana was an 8% increase in healthc care premiums our trust which is the northwest Indiana school Insurance trust School Corporation
102North Judson Tri Creek and the Highland School Corporation we have incurred only a 3% increase this is going to be passed on of course to not only the Gary Community School Corporation but also our employees the way that our cost structure is right now we cover 85% of that cost employees cover 15% of that cost so in essence with a 3% total increase 15% of that 3% increase will be passed on to the employees 85% of that increase will be incurred by the by the district open enrollment is coming up which is November 12th through the 26th all of our employees will be receiving information in order to make sure that they can uh apply for and change any of their products next slide again all of our employees have this information inform one of
103the reasons one of the many reasons why we have such a a great performing Insurance trust is that we have we partner with Northshore health centers in essence any employee who carries our health insurance can attend any one of our Northshore clinics free of charge which means it's a cost savings to the employee and it's a cost savings for us because our Northshore clinics in partnership with us do not charge as much as let's say your normal Health Care Providers or urgent cares or heaven forbid emergency rooms all of our employees again have these locations and in addition they have this QR code so that when they go to one of these more Shore Health Clinics they use this QR code that also waves any co- payments in addition to all of that we have
104pharmacies on site at all of these clinics for your everyday needs so you go for an ear infection they might have an antibiotic on site that again is free of charge because we have these pharmacies on site that partner with these Health with these pharmaceutical providers we Pro we then have these medicines that are provided to us at a cheaper cost again saving money for the employees as well as our district next slide uh two last things I want to talk about we also the reason we also have such a great cost savings for for our Gary Community School Corporation is the clinic but also this first stop Health which is virtual access to a doctor or mental health provider so you could be you could be at home at 2:00 in the morning wake
105up not feel well and be like oh my goodness I need to see a doctor you upload this app you get on the app you request to see a provider and the wait time has been reported to be within 5 minutes you will be in front of a provider a doctor a nurse practitioner who will be able to evaluate your condition and provide you with a prescription for you to go to fill at your local pharmacy um you also have the ability to talk to a counselor through this app again within 5 minutes you have someone that can speak to you regarding anxiety depression marital or relationship concerns substance misuse or even workplace concerns lastly we also have an EAP program an employee assistant program this is for every employee this is not solely for
106indiv individuals to carry our health insurance so the employee assistance program can be accessed to our website there's an 800 number as well as a website to call or website to access and any of our employees could access free of charge up to five sessions for needs associated with mental health any questions thank you any questions for appreciate thank you 8.2 Finance Financial update good evening again Gary School Board Dr Stokes and Community what I'd like to do is this is going to be our format I'd like to explain a little bit about the format of our cash flows I'm going to um go over the three major funds which is most of our activity our expenses and our cash excuse me you have your clipping yes I do okay yes yes um first I'd
107like to point out that this cash flow is through September of 2024 so what this is is you will note in the black bar I know it's really working in the black bar you'll see each month laid out January through September then along on the left side I don't think it's you got your finger in front of the light do I yes there it is sorry um on on the left you will you will see our beginning balances from December 31st of 2023 you'll note that we have all of our receipts which we kind of break out for you so you kind of understand what most of this is and then we have our expenses laid out here and you'll notice that the referendum fund has activity mostly in June and December in June was
108the tax money we received from The taxpayers Who approved the referendum and then you'll notice the transfers into which pays for the items that the referendum was supposed to pay for which is teacher salaries and day-to-day operations you will notice that at the end of September and this is balanced true and accurate financial data the ending balance is $2,788 400 so this is a healthy balance and then in December we have some projected numbers for the dispersement in [Music] December next we have the education fund the education fund of course you'll see the layout is exactly the same of course there's a lot more activity that happens in the education fund you will notice that our receipts to the left here are state grants which is funded by the state which is based on our
109a f a funding formula from the state based on our ADM and as you can see that this fluctuates throughout the year and it will always fluctuate because we have students coming in and we have students leaving um the other thing um this also I want to I want to note some things on here so we have a little bit higher cost in September um and in August and the reason for this under like Supply and things like that is we have contracts that renew every school year for our students for curriculum and things like that so you're going to see this kind of fluctuate you know in the beginning August September and even October and we have a very healthy balance in the education fund at the end of September of 13, 362,000 next
110we have most challenging fund which is the operation fund let me see if I can get this back all right you will see the layout this will be the consistent layout I will provide to to our board um you will notice that in June there is a portion of our tax money that is received and of course an estimated in December what you will also notice in our receipt sale of property I know there was a comment earlier about any sales of property well we actually sold Lincoln Dunbar in May and this is recording the deposit for that sale I just wanted to make sure everybody understood that um the other thing is the operation funds so these expenses fluctuate extremely so a lot of times it's hard to budget with the operations fund um
111for instance we did partner with the city of Gary um for the demolition of Norton school so so the city helped provide funding for that and then we paid a portion of it as well so you know things like that are going to come and happen in the operations Fund in order to support our buildings and things like that and you will see that in September at the end we have a balance of 6,582 are there any [Music] questions thank you sure moving on to item nine on our board report uh opportunity for the board to share any Communications oh I'm sorry that's okay I have one last slide as we move closer to the end of 202 2024 budget year it's not uncommon to have yearend close out tasks that we have to perform
112we have shared with the board in previous board meetings that we will have to request additional Appropriations that time is here the reason for the additional appropriation is to cover the costs that were not included in the 2024 budget we will follow the department of local government requirements and because of these requirements we will conduct a public hearing on the November 13th meeting we will will request on that same day board approval to request additional Appropriations in the operations fund and the education fund this will cover all of those additional expenses we have the cash we just have to request it through the department of local government any questions thank you board members inations reports like to be shared Mr chair yes please I would like to ask all parents counselors teachers family members to
113pick up the scholarship opportunities that are available from Hard Rock casino Hard Rock Casino is offering all graduation seniors that apply and are enrolled in Indiana University they will get a full ride up to 4 years tuition only so I'm asking the counselors and teachers family members to please talk with your students get them ready to apply for that um opportunity that hard rock is offering it's a about 8,000 plus dollars a year that hard rock is offering and you have have to apply for the actual application so they're up on the table there the other flyer that I just received is from The ecumenical committee uh they're offering a scholarship it's called the Martin Luther King Jr essay contest and it's also for middle school and high school so for instance middle school students
114can get first place they'll get a tablet second place they'll get $100 third place $50 High School students first place $500 that's a lot of money second place $300 this scholarship is December 18th and you have to turn that scholarship application into um St John Baptist Church 2457 uh Massachusetts uh street so those are the two scholarships and I want to make sure that Mr Scott um Dr Nicholls uh has those flyers and can share that uh with the students we have to get ready and get them ready right now they should be applying for for school voting we know voting is here it's now walk in run in fall in whatever you have to do get to uh the polls and and and vote um there's another flyer up there for people who are
115have physical challenges if you need a wheelchair assistance to get to the poll Julie and everybody counts 219 7695055 that information is up there if you need assistance for the uh physically challenged uh thank you Mr King for helping us with the board dots this is a good information to help us navigate that thank you um Miss Wright de Wright for giving us an extensive report on the pools and to my understanding that's on um uh on the website so people need to go back and refer to that as to what actually happened you gave like a 105 minute overview of everything was detailed and so we understood so let's go back to that and I'm sure our new Communications uh Chief Mrs Chelsea Woodington can help us find your information because the pool has
116always been something that we were all concerned about um last but not least um thank everybody for coming out and for sharing and I also want to extend a condolences to our board chair Mr subs and his entire family on the transition of his sister and the celebration of life will be held in Indianapolis on November 3rd thank you any other comments board members just briefly uh I just like to Mr S I just like to mention that the policy committee will meet again on uh November 4th and all all board members are invited to come it's just been um amazing watching the team work through that large number of policies and being so thorough about it so uh and I've been happy to be a part of that process because I get to see
117what the governing documents look like and how they actually are actualized in the school in the school district and the other thing I want to say is I just want to commend Dr jokes on assembling such a great team it seems like they hit the ground running and they just keep running so doing a lot of wonderful things so uh thank you all and congratulations um Miss Chelsea for the you've already been doing a great job so keep it going thank you Dr wood for your leadership with that committee uh what time of day is that meeting it's 4:00 at what at WS Side High School yeah very good and if I can I might add the is normally on Tuesdays the first Tuesday of the month however because of election it's on forth okay
118let's move to item 10 on our agenda the superintendent report thank you president sugs um I want to talk about something that is going to be really important and that will be affecting our current eighth graders so if I may I'm going to ask Dr Nicholls and principal Scott if they can come up please so I want to talk about diploma changes and if we can go to the next slide we put some handouts for the community that look at information dealing with what we call current so I'm going to use my little pointer [Music] here current what we call Core 40 based on the 40 credits here so this is what our current students will have to utilize in order to graduate but starting with our current eighth graders which will be the class
119of 2029 they will be required to have 42 credits for a basic diploma which we're calling like the future diploma now one thing I do want to say this has not been totally finalized but we've been asked to share with our boards and we're going to follow Su and do that there are meetings set up throughout the state for example Hobart I believe is it in December December 18 December 18 hogart is having a meeting and they're asking surrounding School leadership members to attend um and superintendent of state or she's Secretary of State actually um Miss Jenner will be there to answer questions that we might have but what I want you to see is that the current diploma holds 40 credits the future diploma for eighth graders is 42 credits then there are what
120we call three buckets you heard me talk about four buckets but they don't have what we call entrepreneurship but there is the um enrollment employment and enlistment buckets can get it what they're calling an honor seal there are certain criterias under each of these buckets and if you want what's called an honors plus seal there are other requirements with that being said why is this important well the reason this is important is because as you know our current eighth graders in just a few short months will be to register at the high school for course offer and we know that we we have to do some pivoting for some future activities and so what I wanted us to do is one if Dr Nichols can talk about what we're offering in the employment bucket and
121if Mr Scott can talk about what we're already offering in the enlistment and the enrollment bucket and then speak to some of the things that we may need to do differently in order to continue to support our students and when they're done I want to share something about one of the new IND codes that deals with religious education and how we might be able to use that requirement to support a bucket of pastorial ship or something like that that deals with employment so I'm going to turn it over to my two esteemed colleagues Gary School Board to um our administrators Dr Stokes and also our Community Partners um I am the inter director of the Gary Area Career Center um presently we are operating on the nlps which are the next level programs of study
122in which students can take three courses um concentrator a concentrator B and they also can um enroll in principles at the end in their senior year there's a class called the Capstone and the Capstone uh is actually a student participating in project um indicating that they have um received the skills and the knowledge in order to go into the workplace um area um our students are currently participating with the work-based learning it's embedded in our care center and also we have students that will go out to um the surrounding Community Hospital uh EMT also goes to um the hospital we also have the ECE which is our early childhood um they they're going to the schools uh to assist and then we have um our health Healthcare CNA and our ccma and our CMAs they
123are also going to the hospital so we have the wbl um it is currently operating at the Gary career center um students uh will all students that enroll next year in the career center will have um the the opportunity to apply for the work ethic certificate and if you have your um paper that would that would uh this is what this constitutes so students um would the 10 best practices for Success which was constituted by the cental of Workforce um uh Innovations um they have to show a positive attitude be honest follow dire ctions apply good listening skills maintain um safe work environment work well with others arrive to work on time recognize problems as solution manage time effectively and U respect diversity and exercise tolerance so these are the um opportunities that our students
124will be able to participate in on next year and last but not least is the attendance goal um is it's very important that our students uh make the 98% attendance goal so that uh we're really going to have to push going to have to work well with our parents um as well as our um administrators who are the attendance in the schools and at this time that completes my uh portion and at this time I would like to know if there are any questions so she spoke to the employment part do you all have any question questions regarding any of our employment opportunities um one thing I did want to share at this time related I I spoke at a previous board member about the fact that we have to allow students to um go
125out for what's called religious education so many hours a week with the permission of the principal because we don't want students to be out during what we call targeted times now all of our time in school we believe is valuable but we definitely know that you can't miss things like language arts or math so it has to be a time that's agreed upon by the principal but the reason I'm mentioning this now because as we build this plan while we're flying it for our eighth graders who will be in high school next year we need to think about that law and how can we capture on that so one of the things that we're wanting to do when we're just using this as an example tonight is we need to build Community Partnerships to have
126places for our students to go in order for them to get these seals the honor seal or the honors plus seal we have to have opportunities in the community for them to go and have gainful employment or have leadership opportunities so for example in the religious um Educational Opportunity it is our hope that maybe we can partner and have pastorial type shifts or counseling things of that nature that students might be interested in having employment in when they become an adult with that I'm going to turn it over to Mr Scott if you can talk a little bit about enrollment a course at names of University or college and then the armed coures uh good even board members Dr St every Community member in the audience on Mr sta principal at Westside Leadership Academy um
127so in in terms of enrollment uh and enlistment I I'll I'll speak to enrollment first um we are an early college um designated High School uh as recognized by the state of Indiana and so we follow the ICC and there's a little forward thinking in that that um we offer bu credit opportunities for students to earn uh college credits while in high school uh in conjunction with the career center uh students can obtain dual credits um and that is one of the requirements as you will see under the listening uh that our students in order to earn honor skills uh will need uh along with that however there are some additional uh requirements that students will need to uh obtain in order for them to meet the the requirements that set forth by enrollment um
128and so we we are expanding uh some AP course offerings uh to students uh to provide them flexibility um some things that have kind of changed or shifted uh is with students who take our AP courses in the need to pass the corresponding AP exams um and and that is a a new a wrinkle uh in this requirement that that did not exist prior to um and so uh in terms of our students who not only meet the minimum requirements as you see the minimum requirements have been um increased and not only increase there's been some shifts in each one of those subcategories of what is needed um additionally in order for students to earn honors seal and honors plus seals there needs to be some amount of hours that they receive um of work-based
129learning that has taken place um and and has been monitored so it's a collaboration in conjunction with our career center um and as students and trick through uh programming to have opportunities internships and other which they can experience in in in some cases up to a th000 hours if not more um of time that students have to have work based learning experience um in terms of our enlistment and service um we have began our RC program a junior ROTC um and it is a program that is growing um and so uh it the enrollment for that program has increased over the last three years uh and and our instructors have um begin aligning not only how to increase en roolling but how to fulfill some of the requirements uh that the students will be required
130to to meet in order to meet those um honors seals and honors plus seals um there are some areas in which a student in RC can fulfill some of these requirements simply by being in RTC um addition along with that um as we have our students who um intend on in listing into the Armed Forces uh it is an opportunity for them to take the asab assessment uh in which they can show proficiency and earn honor sales as long as uh we know that they are enlisting in Armed Forces uh and so you know I think I think there's been some uh work um in in as these came out last year year before as the talk began in order to be prepared for um you know what will happen with our eighth graders and
131as they were seventh graders uh so we do have some courses that we do have offerings for uh that students will be able to take advantage of uh but we will need to look at what we have and what we will need to to add in order to have uh students be able to fulfill our minimum require that are shifting and then the honor seals and honors CRS thank you board members any questions thank you appreciate the presentation okay I think the last thing I have is our draft agenda um so if we're looking at our agenda we do have some of the things I just wanted to highlight I don't see the entire agenda here but there are just a couple things that I wanted to highlight on this portion of it we do
132have a public hearing and it's regarding the additional 2024 budget appropriation for operations and education so I did want to um make that known the other thing is that our next meeting we will have um an informational session on the document that Mr Johnson reads we want to be transparent so um we will have information around that particular document provided for the public and I'll turn it back over to you thank you Dr Stokes I want to thank the community for being here and participating and being engaged through this meeting thank you to all those who have shared at this point I entertain the motion to adjourn so Mo second second all the favor say I I have a great evening [Music]