001So, thank you. And with that, I'll be calling the meeting to order. If I can have everyone rise for the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And before we get to the business of having our reorganization meeting, I will ask, do we have any blue cards on the agenda? >> No, Madam President, we do not. >> Excellent. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Andrew Mana, and we will have our election of officers. >> Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. On behalf of Church, Church Hill, and Antrum, uh we are here for your annual reorganization meeting. And the first um order of business by Indiana Code is
002to elect officers. would entertain a motion for nomination of president. >> I sola triplet move that we accept Cherry Amos as our um 2026 president. >> Board member triplet and nominates board member Amos for president. Is there a second? >> Second >> and seconded by board member Burke. So we have a a motion for president. Um and a first and a second. Any other nominations? All right. All those in favor of board member Amos for president say I. >> I. >> Congratulations. Next board nominations for vice president. Is there a motion for nomination of vice president? >> I would like to nominate Kevin Humphrey for vice president. >> I triplet second that nomination. >> All right. We have a motion and it's seconded by board member Burke and board member triplet for Mr. Humphrey as
003vice president. Any other nominations? All right. With that, all those in favor of board member Humphrey for vice president say I. >> I. >> Opposed. >> Congratulations, Vice President. And finally, take a board motion for nomination of secretary. >> I, how Dorsy would nominate LSA triplet, secretary of the board? >> Board member Dorsy is the nomination for board member triplet for secretary. Is there a second? >> A second. >> Second by Mr. Humphrey. Correct. >> Yes. >> Okay. Any other nominations? Okay. You have a nomination and a first and a second for board member triplet as secretary. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Congratulations um board members and your election of officers. I'll turn it back over to you, Madame President. >> Good evening and welcome. We are going to start
004with our appointment of legislation or our le liaison. And I'd like to appoint Julie French for our policy. I would like to for our ISBA policy. I would like to have Rachel Burke and Miss Lana Triplet as our waif representative. scroll. Um, at this time our we have our organization meetings of the board of education meetings and dates. All meetings begin at 6:30 in the boardroom here at the War and Education Community Center at 975 North Post Road. Also streamed online. Our agendas and meetings can be viewed on board docs throughout through the website. Board conflicts of interest have been placed in your folders. Um we've asked that those be turned in tonight. And that moves us on to um is this our Do you take that? >> Sure. I will make the motion to
005pass board resolution. Reading is hard 647.26 which establishes board salary. >> Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Any discussion? With that, we'll go forward with the vote. Next, we have resolution 64826. to approve reimbursement of health premiums for board members. Do I have a motion? >> I'll make the motion. >> Second. >> Someone second. >> I'll second discussion. All right, we'll go to the vote. It passes. Moving on to our treasur and deputy treasurer. Um, the school board must appoint a treasurer who is not a member of the board nor the superintendent of schools. The deputy treasurer is also appointed to act in the absence of a treasure. The recommendation is to appoint Katie Dalling, treasurer, and Annne Lewis, deputy treasurer. >> So moved. I wish triple a second. >> Any discussion? >>
006No discussion. That passes. Our attorney of record. It is recommended that we keep the law firm of Church Church Hill and Antrum representing our district as our attorney of record. >> So moved. Lana Triplet. Second. Any discussion? We'll move to the vote. That also passes. Now we'll move on to our regular school board meeting with starting with our superintendent report. >> Good evening, President Amos, members of the board, community members tonight. Thanks for joining us. Um board, following up from our January 7th board work session. Uh I wanted to share with you that we are continuing to explore the four models that we discussed uh that evening. Just a reminder for all of us, that was a fifth grade academy, the renovation of Highlander Park to either host a kindergarten center or a 10th elementary
007school, the renovation of an intermediate middle school, which would hold a fourth, fifth, or fifth sixth grade academy. and looking at renovation of adding space to selected elementary schools to accommodate K through five models in all of our elementarymentaries. I want to share with you updates on the process. Um we've had multiple meetings uh since the 7th. We've met with our transportation team to discuss um what would the conditions be needed to accommodate those four models. We've had meetings with our teaching and learning team to see what impact um each of those models would have on teaching and learning. Um I met with Allison Woods um assistant superintendent for exceptional learners. You know, we've had lots of conversations around um high ability special education and our multilingual students. I met with Natalie Rutder from Adult
008Education and Michelle Guyire from Warren Online Academy. those two programs are hosted at our Highlander Park right now. So, if we were to move into that facility, um letting them know that, you know, we would um be looking for the appropriate placement for them. I did share with Karen Jackson from Walpert um kind of where we are in the process. Um she understands this, you know, these things do come up and and they're willing to work with us as as long as it doesn't require new data research on their end. If it did require new data research on their end, then we would need to look at a different scope. Um, but for right now, that's not needed. Um, met with our new CFO, Katie Dowling, and Marcus Clayton, our COO, to look at both
009operational costs from transportation and also staffing. And then finally, um, and the biggest piece that we're waiting for, we've engaged with an architect firm and a construction firm to identify what the scope and the cost would be on any of the renovation projects. Um, we have a board work session, just a reminder, uh, next Wednesday, the 28th from 6:00 to 8. It is our hope that we will have all of the necessary information um, that evening, particularly from our architect and construction teams. We have a follow-up work session on February 9th from 6:00 to 8. Um, just as a as a followup to get that on the on the schedule. Are there any questions that I can answer around um the enrollment management redistring at this time? Okay. In my one-on- ones with um a
010couple of the board members, you've asked great questions around the Lily endowment. Um, briefly I I want to share with you phase two is continuing to work. We were we received that money last July. Um, if you remember, we use that money for additional social workers at our intermediate middle schools, accelerate acceleration specialists at our intermediate middle schools, removing barriers for our students to engage in extracurricular activities, introducing and implementing AVID in our intermediate middle schools, and providing ELA and math instructional support. Um phase three, we were notified of phase three December 1st. Grant funds were received in mid December, January 16th. Last week, we had a reporting overview meeting with Lily to get um that reporting process started. I've included a booklet of the grant um for you to uh review. And then at
011our February board meeting, we will provide an update report on phase two and phase three. I want to thank those um community members, staff, uh board for engagement in the legislative forum. Um I I know we went over time again. Um but I'm really glad that we got to hear multiple voices during that. I I will say we've had lots of engagement with our community and our legislators since that time. Um so I think going early helped everyone with that. Um if you have you'll hear tonight from Julie French a legislative update. If you want information or have information for us, please let us know. It feels like it was forever ago, but I just want to give a shout out to uh Miss Triplet, uh James Taylor, our MCRC team, all of our school
012teams for the holiday outreach um that we did um prior to winter break and and over winter break. It's happy appreciation month. So, happy appreciation to you. Um hopefully you saw some of the things we put out on social media. um you know the way I I I view um the leadership you guys provide you you continually show up for our kids in many different ways and on behalf of our of our students and our staff I want to say thank you for your leadership and your advocacy for Warren students. At this time I would invite David Brooks to the podium. Uh David Brooks is a band director for us at Raymond Park and had the honor of being invited to the Rose Parade uh in January where I was telling him earlier tonight. It
013was what a great story that we're going to hear tonight, but even a greater story that he was there to watch IU win the Rose Bowl. So David, um I'll invite you to share your presentation with us. Thanks for being here tonight. >> The Rose Parade in Pasadena, California is the morning of the Rose Bowl. It is one of the biggest traditions in the country and a local band director will have a once ina-lifetime opportunity. David Brooks is the director of bands for Raymond Park Middle School in Warren Township. He's participating in the Rose Parade as a member of the band director's marching band. They'll be one of 13 snare drum players. >> Once in a-lifetime opportunity. Gotta get back in the game again. Uh Rosebull Parade is one of the things that I've never
014done through Warren B. Uh this is my 18th year here at Raymond Park. Before that, I was at Warren Central High School as the assistant band director and we've done a lot of parades across the United States, but I've never done the Rose Bowl parade. So, this is kind of that that one opportunity to kind of fulfill that life dream. >> The Rose Parade is January 1st. starts at 11 in the morning on WRTV. The Rose Plan B. That's okay. Um, my name is David Brooks. I'm the director of bands at Raymond Park Middle School. Uh 2008 to current. I was the assistant band director at Warren Central High School in 1992 to08. So this is year, what's the math? 34th year in Warren Township. Uh I had the privilege of being selected and participate
015in the Rosebull parade uh this past January 1st in Pasadena, California. I was in a group called Band Directors Marching Band uh as a part to salute to America's band directors. Uh this group was made up of band directors, middle school, high school, and college uh from all 50 states and a few from Canada and a few from Mexico. Uh I saw this group initially in 2024 in the Rose Bowl parade, their first time in existence with about 100 people in it. Then I saw them again last year in May's parade in Thanksgiving. Then I got on a wait list just to see if I could do this. And then all of a sudden, um, one year in the making, uh, the wait list became active and we got, they said, "We get an email
016saying they're going to get the band back together." They had over 800 applicants and I was one of 363, uh, people that were selected for this, uh, four from the state of Indiana. Uh, as a drummer, uh, there was over a 100 percussion applicants. So they made us do a video performance of ourselves which I completed in the Raymond Park band room to narrow it down to 40 which I was selected to play one of the 13 snare drums. Uh from there they said understand that this is the longest parade in the country and it's 5.5 miles from start to finish but they don't tell you it's a mile from when the bus drops you off to get to the start and then another mile from the finish to get back to the bus. And
017on parade day, my phone said I took over 22,000 steps, which was 10.2 miles as a 62 year old guy. Uh, from there, how do I prep for that? They said, all summer long, I cut my grass, wearing a 20 pound weighted vest. I, uh, did many walks. They said, get in your 10,000 steps, which that wasn't even close. Uh from there uh on uh the bus rides to and from all of our events was collaboration time. We had educators from all across the United States and if people were talking about the programs, people were turning around and saying at my school we fixed it this way and it was a great collaboration time with educators from all 50 states which is awesome. Uh from there we had main service projects including one called Bandfest
018where all the bands perform for each other. We had one an honors performance for California firefighters and first responders. But the one I think that touched most everybody was one a performance for a group called Legacy Donors which had to do with organ donation which they had a float in the performance or in the peruse parade 2. We got notification this past Saturday that uh NBC Nightly News picked up this story and it was on the Nightly News featuring one of our trombone players that was in the group where his daughter was an organ donor and they had her portrait actually on the parade and they were the float right after our float. So their donor parents came in and we played Amazing Grace for them. Not a dry eye in the house at that
019point. So, uh, let's see if we can get this one going. There we go. Um, me as a 62 year old guy. This is me in the corner. I was deemed the old man on the end. Um, the next year this guy was, uh, so that's me on the end with this video that's here. Um, the first time in 22 years, the Rose Bowl parade, it rained. So, this is all in the rain. We were soaked. But it was a fantastic time. a great again collaboration. Uh at the same time, uh I'd like to thank in closing uh it's a once in a-lifetime opportunity for me uh representing one Warren Township in Raymond Park as well as the state of Indiana. I'd like to have special thanks to Dennis Jarrett uh for without him none
020of this would have been possible, writing the article, setting up a lot of different things, uh having WRTV Channel 6 come to my school and do an interview, which that was incredible. Uh, the craziest one is the bands are lined up about ready to go and Rich Knight from Channel 13 shows up and goes, "Are you David Brooks from Warren Central in Indianapolis?" I went, "Yes, Rich Nye, Channel 13, can we do a quick interview?" And then all of a sudden passing the mic back and forth and back and forth and then all of a sudden we had to go. Uh, but then also Dr. Klene, uh, principal at Raymond Park, Kim Asbury, Logan Hunt with his IT, and then Dr. Hansen and schoolboard members. So, I thank you for this opportunity to come to
021kind of tell you about my crazy adventure in the Rose Bowl parade. It's a once in a-lifetime opportunity. Uh, pretty much knocked me out with the physicalness of it, but I hung in there pretty well. So, thank you for this opportunity to speak today. And the drum heads that were there, the white one is the one that I played on and like NASCAR at the end of the parade was they took all those off and the other one was kind of one of the bass drum heads that they used in the parade itself. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you, David. >> Congratulations. I love >> David. How did the kids respond when you when you shared with them what >> um most were like, "Wow, >> that's cool." >> Yeah. Other kids were
022like, I saw you on TV or Instagram or in I don't do Instagram. I thought it's kind of interesting how how it exploded especially once we started do the service projects. This is kind of a pretty cool thing. The kids are excited. That's for sure. >> Proud of you and thanks for making us proud. >> Thank you. >> Um real quick board just a couple other highlights. Want to recognize some students. Congratulations to Journey Wells. Um she was a girls wrestling state qualifier. Um she finished second in regionals and I think third in sectionals. Unfortunately, she did not place at um state, but outstanding season. Congratulations to our boys wrestling team. They were the MC champions last weekend. And um many of you know that we have an Indianapolis East Rotary Club. It's been around
023since 1989. Uh this year we identified six of our seniors um for scholarship winners. We had 38 applicants, which is the most we've ever had. So, congratulations to Allison Jeff, Carson Asher, Brilen Horn, Isaiah Gilbert, Isaac Wilson, and Richard Barnes. >> All right. Thank you. Exciting. All right. We'll go on to our board comments. We'll start first with Mr. Dorsy. >> Uh, good evening everyone. Uh, thank you. Uh, I I do so enjoy schoolboard meetings. I really do. Um, I guess I could say, you know, IU um, talk about IU football, but I'm not going to do that. Everybody's been talking about IU football, but know everybody in the world been talking about it, so I'm not even going to get into that. The legislative forum was really great. Uh, what I really particularly liked
024about the legislative forum was the the community involvement. That's the first time we had that many people come up from the community and want to talk about it about things and ask ask questions. Normally it uh it's it's we just don't have that kind of crowd, but uh we had people back and forth coming up going and I thought that was really good and I enjoyed enjoyed it and I uh appreciate the legislators coming out and uh uh you know collaborating with us and enjoining with us on our our forums. That's a good thing. Uh second semester is upon us. Let's make it a good one. Uh great presentation by uh David Brooks. Uh um and I know he was, you know, over the moon uh with with that and uh it's it's really great
025to see that we've got some folks that participated in the Rose Bowl parade. Thank you. >> Um welcome back everybody. I hope your second semester has started well. Um, I have a confession to make. I did not watch the IU game. I'm lucky to know that actually happened. But congratulations to IU. And um I'm going to stop there because I've got a little bit of a long legislative report. So, well, I will not um be as quiet as Howard was. Go. They won. Um, national champions is no small thing. Um, 31 members of their roster are from Indiana high schools, including Tyrone Burus Jr. from here at Warren Township that went to Warren Central. I mean, that is a homegrown team that did the thing that no one thought they could do. So, um, go
026IU. You know, they have to what was it? Another 20 years they win every game. They're still not at 50%, right? So, >> that's a heck of a turnaround. Um, I thought the legislative forum was amazing. Um, I I do definitely think that getting out there early, especially in um a season that is going to be this fast, was a was a great idea. Um, welcome everyone back. Um, another kudos to David Brooks, who was my daughter's band director and is just an amazing human being and now the Rosebull knows that as well. I should have went first. I like to echo everything that was said. The legislative forum was great. And Tyrone Burs is one of our players that was on that championship team and we're extremely excited for him as we continue to
027send those boys out there into the world. Um, again, Mr. Brooks, outstanding job representing Warren, the district, making us nationally known on other things also. And uh with that, I will turn it over to Mr. >> Good evening everyone. Um I want to thank you all as well um Dr. Henson for coming aboard and helping with the holiday um program. As you guys know, his funding has been cut a lot of sponsors and donors. So, it was really kind of frightening if we were going to be able to pull this off. Um, and I'm going to name some names cuz they did a great job. And if I forget a name, please forgive me. I want to um thank Marcus and Jordan for all of their execution of planning and helping pull everything together. Jordan
028going in and completing um the facility usage. Uh, she's not in the room, I don't think, because I was horrible at doing that. Um, and Raymond, Carrie, and John in our transportation, they picked up over 20,000 toys for us to be able to distribute, as well as over 15,000 pounds of produce. That was amazing. Twoman show. Um, Airmark came in and stay true to their capi commitment to um, invest in our community assisted with fresh produce. The city of Indianapolis with Miss Tequila who oversees the food distribution for the city. Our Warren police showed up and also volunteered. Student council, ROC, our football team and coaches were amazing. And last but not least, Miss Regina Murray. Can you just stand up for a sec? Stay standing for one sec. I got the mic until they
029turn it off. She printed off with her team over 800 individual slips, alphabetized them, and had them ready for registration, stayed up late, some was a lot of errors, and this year she kicked me out of registration. She said, "We don't need you. I'm not letting you up here because you going to let other people in and I'm sticking to your rules." I said, "Well, so," but they rented smoothly. Every time I went in to check in, I got kicked out. Her and my mom double teamed me. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Warren Township, MSD Warren Township, thank you for being able to still come through for families, not only with gifts, but with nutritious food. We had um t Adidas donated. We had coaches donate a brand new
030Adidas tennis shoes. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Words cannot express the gratitude for the families that were really in need this year. And lastly, the legislation forum was wonderful. I want to give a shout out to our community. Thank you for showing up. Keep showing up. Keep us accountable. We're only in these seats because of you. We keep us accountable to what you elected us in these seats for. I appreciate you. I appreciate your accountability and look forward to seeing you for the rest of this year in our meetings to help us remain accountable. Thank you. >> I just want to give a big shout out to Lana and her team and everyone who helped her out with her community outreach. It was absolutely incredible. I've been able to volunteer a couple years in
031a row and just seeing our families of how grateful and how thankful they are for what they have, what they're allowed to get. Um, I only got to stand at the exit collecting the slips that you so generously made. But, um, just seeing our families walk out with bagfuls and just everything they needed um, just warmed my heart and I think it's one of the best days of the year and thank you for letting me be a part of it. Um, the legislative forum was very informative. loved hearing our community members bring their concerns and addressing those. Um really thankful for the um cabinet members um Mr. Taylor for presenting and making sure the voices and the concerns of our community were heard and so that our legislators will make good decisions in the best
032interest of our community and our students. With that, we'll move on to board correspondents. >> Yes, Madam President, we do have one. It is a thank you card. It says, "Members of the school board, thank you for granting me the privilege to serve as CFO at a wonderful school district for the last four and a half years. I enjoy getting to know each and every one of you and I'm grateful for your leadership. Grateful for your leadership. Each of you bring a unique skill trait and philosophy to the table but unlin thread that is that you all believe that our students deserve the the best outstanding uplifting experience in our schools. I believe in Warren's best days are yet to come and I'm looking forward to rooting for Warren from now and into the future.
033Thank you, Matt Parkinson. Thank you, Kevin. We'll now move on to our consent agenda which has approval of minutes, financial report claims, um claim register and electronic payments, year-to- date summary, human resource report, supplemental personnel report, work agreements, permission to accept gifts and grants, change orders, contracts, use of school property, um special events, and conflict of interest. May I have a motion, please? >> Triplet. So, move that we accept the consent agenda. >> Second discussion. We'll move on to a vote. and it is approved. We'll now move on to field trip request. >> I'll make the motion. >> I'll second. >> Any discussion? I'll move to the vote. That passes. We'll now move on to our legislative update. We know the state house has been busy. It has. um uh you know, for a session
034that's supposed to be short and was supposed to be real easy and not much educationally, there's still um some things that we need to keep an eye on. Uh House Bill 1423, we talked about that at the legislative forum. Um, I'm going to kind of go through this again, not completely, but I I think it's very important um that those that were not able to be in attendance or hear it um that they hear this information so that they know that if they want to contact their legislators to please do so and I highly recommend it. um um created Indianapolis Local Education Alliance and they were their goal was to study transportation facilities uh governance and collaboration among IPS and charter schools. Um that stated goal ensured students would have safe transportation and quality facilities
035which is one we would support. Um, families face real barriers in these areas and thoughtful solutions matter. The problem with it is, uh, the fact that it creates a new municipal corporation that is governed by an appointed board with authorities over facilities, transportation, tax levies, and accountability. And this would shift significant power away from your locally elected school board, us um into the hands of appointed officials. Now, we firmly believe that governance should remain accountable to families and taxpayers that it serves. So, um elected boards are directly answerable to you, the community. Um appointed boards are not. Um the deci decision about school closures, transportation routes, budgets, long-term planning should remain in the hands of leaders that you can hold accountable. Um you know, when I was asked to be on the board, um I'm
036just I was just a PTA mom and um another PTA mom asked me to be on the board and I said, "Okay, I'll do it." And I didn't tell anybody that I was doing that. I had a few friends that helped me at the polls. Um, and I had a lot of people come up to me afterwards and say, you know, Julie, I saw your name on there. I didn't know if it was you, but I voted for you just in case because I wanted you to win. which is great because then come to this point if they decide I don't do what they think I should be doing. If you guys don't think any of us are doing what we should be doing for your children or uh your school district because taxpayers u
037may not have children in our district. I mean I'm a taxpayer and my kids have all graduated. um you have the right to say, you know, you did a great job before or maybe you didn't, but I don't think you need to be in that position anymore because you're not doing what I need you to do now and to vote me out. You can't do that with an appointed board. You can say you're not doing well, but that's it. You know, there's nothing you can do about it. So it is very very important that we uh let our legislators know that this should be appointed I mean be elected positions. Um and I would highly recommend that you uh contact your legislators. You know, when I was I was sitting listening to everything they were
038saying and there were so many people that came and testified and they were the majority of them were like no, no, no, no, no, yes. They voted yes, you know. Well, and even today when I was listening to other bills, you know, they would say, but but all these people are saying let's not do this and then they say, well, you know, let's do it anyway. and they they're just they need to be held accountable as well as we do. So, um I'm just saying think about that. Um contact your legislators, let them know that you want us to be held legis uh um accountable because you you have to think about this one question. Are we willing to weaken the democratic principle at this time when trust in public education matters more than ever?
039Our kids are our future. Um, that one passed. 1123 passed 9 to4 along party lines. House Bill 10:04 is a deregulation bill. Moving on, it's a deregulation bill. Um, it's it just does what the other deregulation bill did last year. It's just taking things and making them so that um school districts don't have to have as much paperwork and as many as much accountability, wrong word, um stuff because there's just so much paperwork that we could be doing so many other great things helping our students, but we have um people that are bogged down filling out all this paperwork. But they went a little bit crazy and they um wanted to repeal the requirements for AEDs in school. Now, I don't know about you, I think AEDs are very important. Uh great thing is they
040realized it when they did have a an out a backlash of people saying, "Hey, uh don't um I don't know if you guys know, I'm an old LOL person and it saved a a LOL a very loved LOL person um those AEDs and that was long time ago. We've had them for a very long time. Um that one passed 12 to one. Um the with the amendment taking out um the fact that they didn't have to repeal the AEDs. They still has have it set up where um only a single AED needs to be present at a school with athletic events and uh practices. H Bill uh 1325 um it passed out of the Senate. Uh I'm not sorry. It passed out um 12 to1. No. Oh, no. No. It's going to be heard on
041Monday. Um it is a special ed uh bill that um brings a lot of services together. The department of social services, the department of health, the official the office for secretary and family social services, school districts, and their goal is to make recommendations concerning behavioral intervent intervention for children and uh special ed. Uh the goal is to improve support for students with behavioral health needs, encourage data informed improvements to policy and practice, promote cross agency collaboration, elevate policy conversations around special ed and behavioral inter intervention. I think in October is when they're saying that it should be done if it if this bill passes, which I expect it probably will. Um October and then and then um I think by December they want to have information back on that. Um there were several um electronic
042bills um personal uh electronic devices for students um their cell phones, smartwatches, computers. Um that passed out of the Senate itself 28-19. Senate Bill 88. Um all right. It's a civics bill that teaches the importance of obtaining a dipl a diploma, finding a job, and it requires public schools to integrate certain personal and family expectations, such as the idea that students should wait until marriage before having children into regular instruction. Now, for our diverse classrooms with students from many backgrounds, beliefs, and lived experience, this raises fairness and inclusivity issues. Students may feel their own family structures or cultural norms are being judged or sidelined. Um this is not a neutral education is not neutral education and crosses into promotional or promoting specific personal and moral viewpoints rather than teaching students how to think critically and
043academically about life choices. It also the bill also adds the classic learning test um as an approved college entrance exam along with the SAT and ACT. uh despite concerns that the CLT disadvantages uh urban students due to differences in curriculum alignment and access. And the bill explicitly expands historical documents instruction to include the ten commandments which would teach the meaning and significance of this alongside the US Constitution and the de declaration of independence. Now our community as you know is a diverse urban district. We have many students. Um, we have non-Christian faith traditions. Uh, we have secular human humanist backgrounds. And we have multi multifaith and interfaith families. Um, presenting the ten commandments in the classroom as if they were the same category of secular foundational texts risk blurring the lines between religious instruction and
044public and more importantly marginalizes students from non-Christian faith traditions and those who do not practice any religion. Um, I'm going to tell you, I'm I'm a Christian. I go to church every Sunday. I'm our Sunday school superintendent. I teach. I sing in the choir. I'm on our altar guild. Uh, I do our AV for um our online services. I do not think public schools and um religion should mix. I mean, we have we have kids who um are Islams, uh Hinduism, Buddhism. um we need to uh realize that they are all important. Um this bill proposes that the shift would would shift public education away from inclusive evidence-based civic instruction into a space where specific moral and religious viewpoints are embedded into the curriculum. teaching the ten commandments as a historic document alongside secular founding
045texts teach children that they should wait teaching children they should wait until marriage to have children uh risks privileging a single religious tradition and world view in public schools. Uh this is especially troubling in our diverse district where students come from many cultures, faiths and family structures. is our public schools should respect religious freedoms fostering critical thinking and provide neutral civic education not to promote particular doctrines. Um and this passed out 7 to3 and it was another one where there was a large large major majority of the people testifying that was against it and very few for it. Um but yet um they didn't really tend to listen to um the people. So, um, that's all I have. Oh, um, the 29th, I think, is the last day, um, for anything before it switches houses.
046So, >> thank you, Julie. And with that, we'll move on to Mr. James Taylor with the Morehead Community Resource Center update. Evening. Good evening everyone. Congratulations to our new board members, officers. Welcome to all the people here today. I told you the next time I would come in front of you, I would have theme music. Thank you. >> Hot dog. Give a round of applause, Dennis Jared. Thank you. >> All right, >> I'm done for the day. >> Good evening. Go IU, of course. All right, we just want to take the time out to just say thank you to the board here and to all of our community partners. We are so grateful for the work that you do. What we're able to do at Morehead would not be possible without you. Thank you Dr.
047Janetti who always is the backbone of our of our data and we are so grateful for what she brings to the table as well as we want to thank Miss Claudia for the work that she does with our non-English-speaking families and how they are so engaged in the programs that we do at Morhead. They work out with us, they hang out with us, they work with us, they volunteer, and they give back just like any of our other families do. And we don't take that for granted. We want to thank one of our families, Miss Barker and her family for coming today. I want you to stand up and we just thank them for what they've done, what they've taught us as students in the district, as a family of what it means to really
048be community oriented and focused on on making sure that our families are successful. Today, I want to highlight a couple things for you. In your hand, you should have a packet from the Indiana Youth Service Association. We know that you all are big on data. So are we. And so this 62page packet that you have is a culmination of the data that I collect or our team collects on a monthly basis. And so with the information that you have, you have questions after we end today, feel free to reach out to me so that we can talk about it. Yes, a lot of those numbers are huge, but we look forward to doing making a huge impact in the community. And with the small team of five that we have, everyone steps up to the
049plate and contributes to that number. Even our custodian contributes to the numbers that we have in our building. And we don't take that for granted either. We want to thank Mr. Jared for the work that he's doing. And we're just so grateful for ISA for giving us the opportunity to be able to collect our data in a way that we do so we can pull it out at any time. If you want to see it for the summer, if you want to see it for the fall semester or spring semester, or over the course of three years, we can provide that to ensure that we're giving the best service possible to the families that we serve to strengthen them, to uplift them, to motivate them, and encourage the family as a whole and to success,
050not just the student. We are thankful for our community partners again because they make things happen. And today you're going to get to hear some of the great things that some of our community partners do because we are a place where people can come feel welcome, feel supported, feel loved, and feel eager to give back. So we're going to kick things off with Crystal Hines with New Boy and In Beauty. We're going to follow it up with Miss Kieran with Bright Lane, Lisa Hopper with Indie Summer Learning Lab, Miss Melissa Laggler with Girl Scouts Troop 8037, Fi Delta Kappa, Mr. Bob Sergeant of My Board Realy Group, Mr. David Westenberger of ISA, Miss Catherine, and then we're going to have one of our families come, Miss Barker. Will you give them a round of applause
051in advance? >> Greetings, Madame President, to the school board, and to all of you in the community. I'm Crystal Hines. I represent the Inner Beauty program as well as the New Boy program. New Boy stands for New Breed of Youth and we are just um a couple of partners of Morehead Community Resource Center and I want to kind of give a testament to what we are doing on the ESP committee for students who are walking in on seemingly one of the worst days when they are um told that they may not be able to continue the school year and they come in, you know, with a lot of fear and anxiety and what they walk out with is resources And when I say resources, a lot of people just automatically think, okay, they're going to
052get some bread and some water and, you know, they might get some tutoring, but there are so many different service providers that are providing things like counseling and and tutoring and family counseling. not just for the one student that walks into the room, but also for the entire family um to to first see what are the needs, what are the barriers, how can we help you, how can we assist in making your family better so that this child is equipped to go to school and and be motivated to do what they're supposed to do. And so, um, just to kind of name some of the awards that have been provided to the ESP, um, committee and to Morehead in general, we've got the Brent Ping McKenna Vento student services award, Brent Ping Trauma Informed Care,
053um, IYSA award, Make a Difference Award, CPLI, and several others. Um, and and notably even the Cafe Community Legend Award. And I think that just kind of speaks for all of the wonderful work that is being provided so that the students can go back uh well can continue their education during the the time that they're with the ESP committee but then go back stronger and greater. Um for our particular programs with the inner beauty program and new boy program some of the additional services that they receive outside of um of what's provided with like the counseling and tutoring and things they end up with mentoring programming. They have group programming that they can go to. Sometimes we have students that come every day for day reporting, evening reporting where they're able to sit with staff
054and continue their education to get everything completed so that they successfully complete the school year. Um, we have taken multiple youth from the the program on out ofstate college tours. They've gone skiing, they've gone camping, um, they've done our inner beauty pageant, our new boy night of sophistication. They have we've had several youth who have secured summer jobs through our programs. um and they are on our young entrepreneur program um committees and even with the CPLI committee and CPLI children's policy and law initiative we have a um a partnership with them and so they're able to speak their voices as well and so I just wanted to make sure I was able to give a testament to what they're doing outside of just coming to get resources. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening board. Uh
055my name is Karen Route and I'm the vice president of program impact for Bright Lane Learning. Um for those of you who maybe not heard of Bright Lane, we are a local not forprofit. We've been in the Indianapolis area since 2001, so we are almost 25 years old now. Um, we work tirelessly to support kindergarten through 12th grade students by providing tutoring and academic support for students who need a little extra one-on-one support. Um, we rigorously train volunteer tutors and they alongside our staff um, meet with students in over 30 locations around Indianapolis. Um, one of our outstanding partner locations is the Morehead Community Resource Center. We run an afterchool tutoring program there two days a week and Kayla on my staff um is there um from 4:30 to 5:30 those two days. um she
056meets with students, she communicates with teachers and with parents to plan tutoring sessions that are unique and tailored to each student's individual academic needs. So in addition to the weekly tutoring sessions that take place with Bright Lane at Morehead, we also work to help parents be the best supporters of their students education. And we recently hosted a parent family night where we invited the parents and caregivers to come in. They got to experience what happens during tutoring. We shared resources and fun games, activities, ideas so that parents could carry on learning at home. Um ways to work with your students in out of school hours. Um, and I know I don't have a ton of time, but I absolutely want to mention an incredible event that took place last December at Morehead. Um, Bright Lane
057Learning hosts an educational panel three times a year. Um, it's called Sparking Conversations and we are bringing light to the Indianapolis community with the great things that are happen happening in education and in our schools. And so these are panel events. And so we came to Mr. James Taylor and Miss Regina and asked, could we host one of our panel events at Morehead and they very generously accepted. And not only that, Miss Regina Murray agreed to be on that panel and it was an it was a morning and it was um we had coffee and treats. We invited Indianapolis community members. We invited the media and that particular topic was students and out of school time and how the community could come around and know what's happening here in Indianapolis before and after school that
058supports students and how we can better support them. It was an excellent um event. I loved it. And I just would like to say thank you to Warren Township, to the board, and very specifically to Morehead and that team there for hosting the event and for being just truly outstanding partners all year long. Thank you. Good evening. Um, my name is Lisa Hopper and I teach at Pleasant Run Elementary, but tonight I'm here as part of another Warren family, the Morehead Community Resource Center. I don't think that they know this, but years ago, back when I was a new to Warren teacher, I got really courageous and I signed up for a chat um with Dr. Hansen when he was going around to schools and I was really excited to talk to him about reading
059a book called Beyond the Bake Sale. Um little did I know he'd already read it and was very excited about the ideas in the book as well. And one of them was uh to have a community center very much like we have now. And um so it's been amazing to see that come to fruition. um they probably also don't know that I had been wanting to be a part of it but too shy to come over and ask. So when I got a call asking to um me to be a part of the indie summer learning lab at Morehead, I was thrilled. So the learning lab has given me a chance to form relationships with families from all over Warren, not just my school. And it's been so fun to bump into them in the
060community during the year. We've learned a lot in the last two summers that we've been doing this and I'm really hoping that we'll have an opportunity to make it even better this summer. Um I know our families have really appreciated um probably especially having an accepting and safe spot for their multiple age children to go to one place together in the summer to get help with their math and ELA skills. Um, as a third grade ELA teacher at the lab, um, I've been, um, using the provided Levvenia curriculum, which I have found to be very rich, meaty, and, um, like capturing the kids interest. Uh, I have seen a lot of growth in their reading abilities and even more so an amazing growth in their writing and response to reading. Besides academic help, they get
061exposure to community artists and other partners for some really exciting opportunities. And in my opinion, the best part, and a lot of the parents have told me this too, um the best part was the weekly field trips that we took um where kids got to experience things that they had never experienced before or seen before. And from a teacher's um point of view, it gave some really great writing topics. Um it also gave us teachers and students um time to wear our matching t-shirts um and really feel like a family and um to really bond at a deeper level to sit and talk and get to know each other a lot better. Um, so I just want to say thank you to Morehead for this meaningful opportunity to interact with more Warren families. >> My
062girls are at a cookie booth, so they told me I had to hurry. It's cookies. Little did I know when my son started there in 2000. So I've been part of one since 2000. graduated in 2012 and I have no children or grandchildren. But I have been a Girl Scout leader now for eight years. So I'm going to say that horrible Cword CO because postco the resource center has been our saving grace the place to go have our meetings. Um, Regina's been like over the top. Make sure I know we have a meeting, we don't have a meeting, and has just really been a great source for us because we have our own room in there that we've decorated. You come see it, you can definitely tell that is a Girl Scout room. And with
063that, I'm not Did I forget something? Oh, no, now we got to do something else because we don't have those supplies. So, it's just great having one place to go and in the meantime, then we can give back. So, I don't know if you've ever been there during the holidays time and seen the tree with everything, the hats and the gloves. That's our troop. Um, we tried to once a year to do something for sunny days. Our girls did a bronze project where they made um cookbooks and in those were recipes that were all things that can be made out of things that are always in stock at sunny days. So, you got the same old same old thing. Um, so it's just been an honor. It's great that it's been here. Ironically, we are
064doing government badge this month and their job this week is to find out what the school board has done for them the past four years. So, if you get a phone call and Rachel B, I think you were even like three years ago came and talked to see kind of like what you've done. So, thank you for giving us a place to go because My little troop of four has outgrown my salon because now we are troop of 18 and the salon doesn't hold 18 girls anymore. So, thank you for letting me have this chance to talk. I've even got a food order from them. So, they've told me they've worked really hard and they deserve food. So, thank you. Have a great night. Thanks for coming to meeting. If you want to come to
065our meeting on the 27th, we're learning about government. >> Good evening, superintendent, madame president, board members. My name is Sherlin Martin and I am the proud president of the national sorority of Fi Delta Kappa chapter. We are uh a sorority of education professionals. We are not part of the divine nine. So don't get us twisted. We are the ladies in the red jackets, but we're not part of the Divine Nine. We are actually educators. Uh our national sorority is 102 years old and the chapter here in Indianapolis just celebrated our 90th anniversary as a chapter. Our mission um if you're not familiar is that we serve students, educate students, we uplift the teaching profession, and we serve our community. And that is where Morehead comes in. Um because we have a special bond with Mr.
066Taylor uh who can call anytime, day or night, and say, "I need." And we come to the rescue. We have helped out at the concerts as hostesses. We have been out on that parking lot on those hot hot hot summer days passing out book bags and and believe it or not, it is a joy. It's a joy for my soror to come and give the time and effort to help support everything that Mr. Taylor wants that center to be. We also um because we have such a good partnership. Wink wink. Um we also have our sorority meetings there. So we are actually a part of the Warren community even though many of our teachers come from various school districts here in the city. And I would like to thank Mr. Taylor. I would like to
067thank Regina and all the people over at Morehead. We we love them. Um they're very gracious to us and what we stand for. We love serving your community on the far east side, but we want to thank you for allowing us to utilize the facility to continue on with our work and our mission. Thank you very much. >> Hello everybody. How you doing tonight? What was that? Come on. It's having a good night. >> Well, I got some surprises for everybody. I'm Bob Sergeant. I'm the uh chair for the Eastern My Board Division. U I've been East Side all my life. All my kids went to school there. I had I had to say I I left I left to Heritage Christian, but I got my base. Guess where? Pleasure Run. So this lady right
068here give us the opportunity to come in that school once a month to have our meetings. So what we try to do is what we can do anytime we can help out we will. So Regina says we're going to have a day where we need to pack guess what the backpacks. Well I figured 20 or 30 right? No, there was 10 of us and we were there for I don't know how long, three hours and we didn't even finish. But this is a great location. If nobody in there has ever seen this location, please please come visit it. I was amazed at what I what I saw there. Wonderful people there. Clean, safe. When you come in that door, they make you feel wanted. That's important because I I represent the east side for uh
069my board division. Well, my board division is is metropolitan realtors. We sell real estate, but we try to give back to the community. This mic, this mic sucks, but what we try to do is help out. She gives us the opportunity to do that. So, every month we try to raise a little money, some canned goods. At the end of the year, we give her a nice We try to give her a nice check. That's one of our goals. Two, what we want to do is educate anybody. So, anybody wants to know about real estate the first one, first Wednesday every month, come on over. We'll talk to you. We don't want to sell you anything. It's a meeting time. Also, I have six tickets to the home. Regina and I don't know how many
070tickets I got to the garden show. So, how about that? You come maybe get some. So, you give those out to them. But please, this facility is great. We want more activity with them. you as the board. Thank you for letting us have the opportunity to be there. Thanks. Good evening. My name is David Westonberger. I'm the CEO of IISA. I am not responsible for all 64 pages of that data. I'm going to condense it quite a bit for you. If you don't know about our organization, Indiana Youth Services was formed in 1973. So just over 50 years old. And the reason for that was because in 1973, Indiana incarcerated more young people than any state in the country. Just think about that for a second. And we know educational attainment is tied to incarceration.
071So, a group of organizations got together. They advocated at the state house and they were able to put into statute youth service bureaus. We're so proud of Morehead as a youth service bureau in the state of Indiana, one of 26 youth service bureaus. Youth service bureaus are in statute. They have four statutory obligations to provide to their communities. advocacy, prevention, programming, in information and referral, and community education. And I'm going to tell you a little bit about the impact they have in those areas. Through a grant that we're able to award to Morehead, they receive about $48,000 for school intervention programs. Again, that's resources that help keep kids out of the juvenile justice system because they're participating in constructive activities and Morhead's keeping those kids helping those kids stay in school. Morehead did outreach and
072community education to 5,378 people. That means they educated the community about youth various youth issues. Large number advocacy. This is impressive. Morehead advocated on behalf of 278 young people last year. That means they stuck up. They stuck up for over 2,000 people. Information and referral. One thing about youth service bureaus is we like for youth service bureaus to be the driver of quality of life for young people in the area that they serve. And that means when you think of a need for your kid or youth, they're who comes to mind first. And there's no doubt Morehead is that organization on the east side. These are just last year's statistics. they provided information and referral to 3,226 families. So in addition, a lot of that other data is about things like recidivism. Our purpose is
073to keep kids out of the juvenile justice system. Um kids that participate in programs at Morehead will have almost no repeat offenses, which is unheard of. A national recidivism rate is over half of kids will will get into trouble again. almost no kids that attend programs at Morehead get into trouble. So ISA's uh proud to be a partner with you. We we supply we help you with some things. I think you help us with more than what we help you with. Um but we are able to provide some professional development. We look at latest trends thinking globally so that they can deliver impact locally things like trauma informed care, credentiing of youth workers. Uh we were fortunate enough to be able to spotlight Morehead on Wish TV on both Lifestyle Live and across Indiana. A
074lot of traction there, a lot of viewership. In fact, Wish uh moved those segments up on their website because of the number of hits they got. Morehead was a big one of those. Um just last week had some young people at the state house uh legislators there. Dr. Hansen and I were talking before. What a great opportunity for young people to overcome those fears and understand how to advocate and go talk to policy makers, especially about some of the bills that are pretty scary right now. Um, and I think young people have an impact when they hear from them, maybe not so much from us. So, thank you for bringing those young people there. Um, we hosted uh we bring all the youth service bureaus together. There are 26 serving 64 counties in the state.
075Last year, Morehead was named the Youth Service Bureau of the Year. That's statewide. Yeah, that's most kids deepest impact metrics, not a popularity vote. That's data that gives them that designation. Um, we've hosted all of our directors there and there's always an antidote that tells you how significant and what the impact is from an organization. And last year after some of our staff visited, they came back and said, "We want our holiday. We don't want to have a holiday party. We want to go to Morehead and volunteer all day and put together care packages and holiday packages for kids," which we did. We were there all day, help build a hoop house, all kinds of things. So, um, thank you for all that you do for your community and thank you what you do for
076us. Um, I think you you drive everybody across the the state, the other youth service bureaus to do a better job. You certainly set an example and I thank the board and and the school corporation for your support. Good evening. My name is Katherine Basham and I am one of eight coordinators at Sunny Day Food Pantry. Uh the Sunny Sunny Day Food Pantry is very grateful for our partnership with Morehead Community Resource Center. We started out five years ago, what started out five years ago as a request to move into a new space at the Morhead Community Resource Center turned into an opportunity for us to create a real home. Mr. Taylor and his amazing staff make our pantry coordinators and patrons feel welcome each time we enter through the doors. Our pantry has experienced
077amazing growth since we arrived in October 2020. Not only are we seeing more patrons during our distribution times, but MCRC gives our community the opportunity to walk through their doors in emergency situations Monday through Friday and receive assistance. In December alone, Morehead assisted 38 families on our behalf. We have also seen an increase in volunteer help. Individuals and groups reach out to Morehead for assistance and for opportunities to give back to their community. In turn, Morehead does a wonderful job explaining how our pantry operates solely on volunteers, and as a result, we have seen more of our community giving back their time to help us. I cannot begin to explain how important they are as a financial resource. Just recently, Morehead provided Big Sandy Superstore with a tour of their building, and they spoke so
078highly of our pantry and other resources that as a result, we received a $2,500 dollar donation to our pantry. We cannot express how grateful we are for Morehead advocating on our behalf. From a personal standpoint, Morehead has made my responsibilities at the pantry so much easier. Thank you for allowing me to use your white band to pick up donations. For the use of the pallet stacker so that me and my friends, all of which are over 50 years old, can unload eight pallets of food from Midwest Food Bank every month without needing to purchase stock in Advil and Tylenol. To Jesus for cleaning up after us constantly. to Tiffany, Regina, and Claudia for running our pantry during the day. Thank you. You always have our best interests at heart, and we appreciate all that you
079do for us. Thank you. >> We're going to bring this to a conclusion with our parent. I'm coming with you. >> I know I may look like this big mean guy. Tell him I'm not. >> Not at all. Okay. >> Not at all. >> This lady ran away from me. She ran away from my help. >> Yes. >> And I'm going to tell part of her story because we're pressed on time and I'll let her tell the rest. Um, COVID, evictions, and other life things happened to our families. And, um, she got put out of her house and they moved her to the west side, the airport. And as many of you know with McKenna Vento, I'll say I'm not going way out there to pick you up. Okay, but I have to. Okay, she
080ignored me. She ignored my police. I sent our police chief to her door and she she said, "Mr. Taylor, you did that, didn't you?" I said, "I did." I happened to run into her. She was shopping at Kroger's and I saw her car and I'm like, "There's Miss Barber." So I walked up to her car like this like >> right to the driver door, >> right? I said, "Are you mad at me?" And she said, "Damn right, I'm mad at you." And I said, "I don't care. Get out your car." So she excused the kids and she got out the car. And of course, I moved back like, "Don't hurt me." You know, and what she did, she hugged me and she said, "Thank you, and I'll let you take it from here. Um, I
081just want to leave with that. Mr. Taylor and Mr. Gina have created a bridge between school and community for me. Uh, my children's attendance was a problem. I was working overnight and it was just hard. They were fighting bedtimes and just so much more. And um, I thank Miss Regina and Mr. Taylor for not giving up on me because since then they've utilized tutoring. Um, the lowest grade my daughter has now is a C. And before it was it was D's and S's. And they're on their way to u perfect attendance. Miss Regina going out of her way to make sure uh while transportation was being set up that my children uh were still getting uh to school. They've helped me gain access to therapy for myself so that I can help my family create
082a more um stable life, something that I did not come from. Um, and I'm just thankful because they're just the closest thing to family that I have right now. And I couldn't imagine if Mr. Taylor wouldn't have stopped me in that Kroger's that day if he would have just acted like he didn't see me. Where I would be right now from utilizing food resources to public transportation. Um the way that they have helped me is truly endless. So I am really thankful for the Morehead Community Center and Miss Regina and Mr. Taylor uh for their support and encouragement for me and my children. And my children now they are excited to go to school. they get up motivated. Um, I don't have problems and they want to make them proud. So, I'm I'm very thankful.
083I got 30 seconds. Could I have my staff stand? Come forward, please. I'm gonna skip that, doc. I know I'm behind schedule. Sorry. I just want you all to see these lovely, lovely women that work tirelessly every single day and night. And um they're the most beautiful thing and sometimes we don't want to go home. But I'm serious, we love the resource center so much that we stay there and we make sure we get the job done. And uh can you all give them a round of applause? And I'll end on this. I was driving to the Martin Luther King program Monday. It was the program that IU canled for their Black Student Union students. I picked up the phone and I called one of our partners, the Marriott. The Marriott gave them the building
084for free. And within one week, we had a hundred people attending the Dr. Martin Luther King program. This is what we do with our partnership. But most importantly, on the way to the to the hotel, I called my mama and I asked my mom. I said, "Mom, am I the man that you wanted me to be?" She said, "Baby, where'd that come from?" Dr. Hansen, just as you reflect all the time, he's a very reflective gentleman. I reflect also on my life and my mom said, "Baby, you help a lot of people. Some people appreciate it, some people don't. But for 60 years, as long as I've known you, you've helped people. So, I say this to my board. I take collective responsibility for you, Julie. You've done everything for us at Morehead. Howard, you
085and your wife are beyond reproach. All of you all, Rachel, you do things for us that people don't even know about. And Lana, I need not say you. We know what you do. I will follow your lead. I'm a leader, but I'm also a great follower. And one thing that my mom taught me is to stand proud and represent. I represent Warren. I represent you, but you also represent us. And for that, we love you. And there's nothing that you can do about it. Thank you all so much. I know our time is running over, but as Morehead um staff is sitting and we get ready, uh Madame President, um I just want to take this time nonapologetically. It doesn't matter if people think I was coached. This is just something that has felt in
086my spirit. All of these programs are have to come from funding to be able to give the services to our families for free. I'll repeat that. All of the programming has to be funded somehow to be able to give to our families for free. It is a lot of things growing around us. A lot of organizations, a lot of pantries, a lot of community centers. I challenge my board members to let's build MCRC and make sure that we are supporting and bridging that gap to ensure that our resource center is the pride of the west side. It east side. Where did I get west side from? I've never even been on west side. Sorry. East side is the pride of the east side. And Marcus, I made a mistake. East side. East side. I just
087seriously the we must ensure that we wrap our resources around MCRC and pull together to make sure that that facility continues to run and service our families. That's a legacy in our community and it needs renovations. I know we didn't even get to this because we needed to hear the impact, the lived experiences. I challenge you to look this over. Look at it. See what's needed. Let's pull together all of our skill sets, all of our resources to ensure that we can make the things on this PowerPoint possible. Marcus, east side for life. East side. There it is. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Taylor and everyone who spoke. Um, I absolutely love our community resource center. And we're going to just keep our meeting rolling on with Mr. Clayton with our construction update. All right.
088Congratulations, President Amos, Dr. Hansen, members of the board. I'd like to present to you our January edition of Inside Warren. or not. >> Welcome back. We are in the prestigious Walker Career Center, specifically in the cosmetology in the new Barber School. And we are here with our new instructor of this new program, Mr. Dexter Payne. Dexter, how you doing, sir? >> I'm doing great. Doing great. >> Welcome to Inside Warren. >> Thank you. >> So, um you may have heard or maybe not, but we uh we came here months ago once we finished construction and there was a memorable um video shoot that took place, but we'll have to tell you about that later. >> But nevertheless, man, you've been here now. um first semester is over. Um just talk about first off this this
089semester. >> One of the greatest experiences that I've had is just uh sitting back um just seeing um a bunch of the my students just watching them grow. um watching them from the first day coming in until this day, which is the end of of the semester that really came kind of quick. Um and as the actual program has been going, um it's been going and growing at the same time. coming over here on the far east side of Indianapolis here in Warren Township working with Warren students and you know you have a lot of students that um that are just like what you were meaning they had the the barber mentality but they didn't necessar starting off but they didn't necessarily have the credentials. So, how impactful is that for you now to be
090able to serve um a community and a group of very talented kids that you know have it in them, but now you get a chance to teach them to be professionals. They have a lot of opportunity. They have a lot that they can do right now. And um I just love it because um it's not just baring cosmetologist. It's like the whole Walker Career Center gives those opportunities for the students. Um, we are literally trying to set these students up for success. What is the ultimate goal? What do you want this program to be known for around not just the city, but around the state? >> I would love for this to be known as uh a thing that that can bring dreams, you know, dreams can come true. And that means that them stepping
091out and having a career as soon as they graduate. Well, you mentioned dreams and creating pathways, opportunities, and opening doors. And um you know, Mr. Payne, with you here, we know that we're headed in the right direction. So, we want to formally welcome you to Warren the Career Center. You're a warrior now and we know the best is yet to come. So, thank you for coming inside, Warren. Okay, we have a great opportunity to see one of our students in action here in the new barber school in the Walker Career Center. And um if you can introduce yourself, I know you're you're busy right now, but Jada, Jada, can you introduce yourself? >> Uh, hi, I'm Jada. I go to Warren and I cut here in the barber program. And Jada's a junior and so
092this is her first year as well as her classmates in the program. So, so Jada, if you could um what type of cut are you you given at this moment? >> Well, at this moment I'm giving a ball head and shaping up and trimming up his beard. >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. >> You think you might be able to I got to grow my stuff back, but yeah. You got But you got me, though. >> Yeah, I got you. >> Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. What benefit do you have being able to work towards your barber license in high school instead of having to wait till after high school? >> Um, well, I'm really glad that it started now because I really wanted to, you know, do this now instead of doing it, you know,
093later in life because it's going to cost it's going to cost money. It's a huge amount of money. So, I'm glad that it really started now so I can, you know, build up my momentum and build up skills to do this. So, >> so how does this benefit having this program here? >> Um, it benefits a lot. It really helps you with life skills. Life skills and you know, communication, getting out there, putting yourself out there for people who don't know you and yeah, really just have faith in your work and the time will come and yeah. >> All right. Well, you keep um set my man up here for success. We appreciate it. >> All right. Thank you so much. >> All right, Warrior Nation. We are here in our brand new weight room,
094newly renovated. And we also have our brand new strength and conditioning coach, very experienced former student athlete, so he understands what this room can do for the overall development of the student athlete. I want to introduce to the word nation coach Chris Smith. Coach, how you doing? >> Doing well. >> You started back in June. >> Yes, sir. >> And at this time, at that time, the weight room was under construction. Now, obviously, we have the finished product. So, what does a room like this do for not only Warren Central High School, but for our athletics? I want to thank the school board. I want to thank the school administration, the superintendent for making this investment and making this room possible for us to have. Um, not only is it one of the best in
095the state, high school level, but college level also. Um, SORX is a great brand that has been um supporting schools like IU, Alabama, Georgia, Clemson, all of them have this same organization that has sponsored their program. So for that at a high school level, having the best of the best. Thank y'all for making that possible. Um, and then number two, you said what does this room mean? This room means discipline, accountability, work ethic, attitude, resiliency. So with this being said, for the next generation, this is going to mean everything for the Warrior Nation because this is where the develop, the mental toughness, all of those characteristics that you want to be a part of your program where they're developed at. And not only is this the room for the development, but it's also a room
096of togetherness. And many of those attributes that you just uh listed are very consistent with our journey of the graduate. You know, what we talk about, you know, as a district. So those life skills that that you have the opportunity through coaching, you have the opportunity to teach the game of life. With that being said, I know the last time I was on the team, that was 25 years ago, my senior year in in college at Indiana State, and weight rooms look a lot different today than what they did 25 years ago. Not to mention 30 years ago when I was in high school. First off, our weight room was probably about 10% of of the current space that we have now. But just from your experience, uh, coach, how have weight rooms changed and
097and evolved? >> Well, they evolved. So, back in the day was a lot of clanging and banging. Um, really like how much weight can I lift? Putting a lot of stress on the joints, the tendons and things like that. But now we are testing speed. How fast can you grab a weight and react with the weight? How fast can you control your body movement and explode right back out? All of those different things are different components which give us a edge on our competition. So with the weight room that they have sponsored for us, we have VBT which is velocity based training. It's another coach in a room that gives us kids like in today's time media is very big, technology is very big, but the VBT gives them a instant gratification reading of like
098this is how fast I'm moving the bar. So a lot of colleges I've been to and been around don't have that. So that already gives Warren Central an edge on a lot of people. >> Coach, we want to have we want to ask you, is there uh an opportunity for us to see what a workout looks like? >> Oh, for sure. Yes, sir. We're graded on the five A's. Um, and if you want to A, you got to do the five A's. Number one, attendance. You have to be here. Number two is your attire. T-shirt, shorts, tennis shoes. Number three is your attitude. You got to have a positive attitude. Number four, accountability. Accountability. What's that mean? A lot of people say you got to be accountable. They don't actually explain what it means. That
099means that every set and rep should be completed with intent and purpose. If I have to ask you to that's not you're not being accountable because you should be doing that. Athletes give 100% effort at all times. Last one. Attention to detail. Y see y'all bless us with this beautiful weight room. We got to make sure that the weight room is clean. If you look at the dove, every dove should be up on the plates. Every dove should be up. Each band has two colors of the band and they should have two at each rack at the end of the class. That's how you grade on your five. >> All right, let's do it. Good. Drop that heel though. Don't let it control you. You control that band. Don't let it control you. Good. >>
100Yes, sir. Push forward. Push forward. Yeah, that's that's what we looking for right there. There it is. There it is. Little better. Good. Sit back. Yes, sir. Extend that. Good. Good. Good. >> You know what? Some of these movements I haven't done in a while, but now it feels great. Like I'm ready to go. >> Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Good. Um, and would you say that you emptied the tank today? >> Uh, so you know, you got to walk before you crawl. I felt like we were walking today. But in terms of focus, attitude, all those things that you mentioned, accountability. Absolutely. >> For sure. And that's a true assessment of the mental piece and how we act mental. So now I'm holding myself and I'm coaching myself on a daily basis. I
101know that I got more to give. And that's how you get better. So again, you either getting better or you're getting worse. You never stay the same. Empty the take and give all hundreds. No 50s or 20s. >> You're either getting better or you getting worse. >> Never stay the same. >> And you giving >> 100. All hundreds. No what? >> 50s or 20s. >> No 50s or 20s. You heard that, coach. We appreciate it, man. You're doing a great job here. And um we'll definitely uh continue to invest in this program. Invest in what you're doing here. And uh we want to thank you for coming inside warm. >> Two quick things, board. Um first and foremost, our barbering program in the career center. You guys did that. We came to you three or
102four years ago. That project, that program was outside the scope of what we had allocated. and we came to you and we said, "Hey, this is a very important part of what we want to do, the opportunities we want to provide for our students moving forward." And you guys allocated the funds for us to make it happen. After spending time with with uh Mr. campaign with Dexter. Uh we come to realize quick that we didn't make it big enough because we already have a weight list. The second part is the the investment we made in our weight room. Thank you. The number of kids that are instantly impacted by that facility. But with that being said, facilities are facilities. adults. Surrounding our kids with quality adults is what bring those investments to life. So, something
103a little bit different this evening. I invited Mr. Dexter Payne, director of our instructor of our barber school, as well as our strength and conditioning coach, Chris Smith. These two individuals, stand up, please. I invited them. Yes, I invited the two of them because they are both stars. They are both part of who we are now and what we will become in the future through their programs, through their influence, through their impact, they will help lead Warren Township and their respective areas into the future. So, I want to thank those individuals for being here. I want to make sure that you had an opportunity to see because of decisions we make here. This is part of the impact that we're able to make on our school community and our and our overall community. So, gentlemen,
104thank you for being here. >> Marcus, I I really thought it should have been the Rocky theme music when you were out there exercising. >> I used that last year. Remember when I ran up on the roof? >> Yeah. See, I can't I can't do that again. >> Felt like it again. And I just really felt like it. >> Yeah, I'm still sore from that too, Julie, in case you're wondering. >> Marcus, like always, thank you for bringing us the updates. They're always creative and Mr. Logan, we need to assist, but um seeing our kids doing something that's give going to help them provide for their life, that's what we're here to do, too. >> And and again, our our barber school and Dexter would tell you those numbers are going through the roof already
105now that kids know that that program is available and accessible. Um, and we already talked about it just um yeah, that's that's something we want to keep eye on because we want to continue to provide opportunities for kids to be involved something that's going to give them an immediate career path. Um, as well as for some of our kids, we know the activities that they're involved in, whether it's on the performing arts side, whether it's on the athletic side or just the relationship they have with the teacher, that motivates and become a school every day. So, the more programs and quality adults we can surround them with, uh, the better we will be as a school district. So, again, thank you. Uh, I'd like to um chime in just a little comment of a eyewitness
106account because I do just about on a daily see what coach Smith is giving to our students and as definitely one of the older athletes in this room if not in in the school system to see it progress in the way it is in the future in the training he is. And when I first met him, that's one of the things I told him because as a coach and I've been training kids, one of my things was to see what that what's out there and what's going on. And he is bringing a level of training that is far beyond anything we've had before. And I've I've fortunately I've had three sons come through the program and were fortunate enough to receive uh scholar scholarships from this program. and what he is doing now exceeds anything
107that they had they was given. So our future is definitely looking good with coach Smith here and and and coach Humphrey. I won't take that disrespectfully because I actually trained your kids when they were here. So >> way to go Chris. >> Do we have any yellow cards? Sorry. >> Getting used to switching roles back. >> Not at this time. Madam President, >> we'll now move on to We'll now move on to closing comments. Kevin, we'll start with you. >> Well, uh, thank you for all coming out. Thank you for, uh, joining us once again. And we're back, as they said before, our second semester. We're on and running. We're going to um continue to grow and be strong. And Morehead that that center is amazing and the things they've done. I could tell you
108stories that that shocked me that that I was just amazed because once I was introduced to it, um I just didn't know all the things they were accomplishing and they just were unbelievable. I can definitely remember the first day I walked in that building um to to talk to uh Mr. Taylor and it was just so happened that one of our families had a fire and I walked in and they were like, "You got four kids, right? The kids are here. They had food. Such and such is a girl. They a boy. They had clothes." And I was like, "How did they was just on it?" And I was like, "Wow, that's how this system works." and they're talking about, well, we're going to place you here. We're going to got the transportation arranged for
109the kids and all the things. They was just going through it and I was like, wow, this is amazing. And every time I go over there, I learn something new. I see something different and how to help the community. So, that is a true true blessing. And um as far as uh what we do and what we give, you know, I've seen that dedication in everybody. And it's amazing from the teachers, principal, support, how everybody truly believes in what they doing and truly loves what they doing. So yeah, it's it's it's just a great time to hear more and I love it. Thank you. I've talked enough tonight. Good night. Safe travels home. I had to take up some of Miss Gloria's space so you guys could, you know, still feel her presence here, but
110be safe and I'll see you in the morning. No, I won't. Um, Dr. Hansen will see you in the morning, Miss Burke. >> My bad. Sorry. Um, so I messed up earlier when we had our opening comments and I forgot to discuss the Science Olympiad Invitational. Um, and I want to be able to go to practice tomorrow and still survive it. So, I'm going to do that right now. Um, I want to thank everyone. Um, we had to cancel because of weather and then put the entire thing back together in under a week. I want to thank Jennifer Pope who made sure people were able to eat which was going to be a real concern. She got staff. there was a switch over in staff. Um, I want to thank ROC and student council and
111honors society. Um, because that was the same day as the big holiday thing at MCRC. And so I tell you, every single student volunteer in this district was somewhere that Saturday. We picked up people as she released. I had great people coming into grade. Um, I want to thank everyone who came to hand out awards and just really help us put that event back together on one week. Um, that was crazy. Hope to never have to do that again, but thank you so much to everyone in the district that helped support us so that we could do that. That is our big fundraiser for the year. Um, it's our kids' first event that they go to and participate in, and so I really appreciate that. Um, other than that, um, there I I spend a
112lot of time talking to a lot of people who go to different schools, um, in the state of Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, the Midwest. And there's a lot of talk about being there for the whole child. There's a lot of talk about being there for every child. And a lot of it is just talk. That is not what we do here in Warren. Here in Warren, when we say those things, we mean them. and we mean them with a sincerity whether and and that is a fundamentally important part of who we are. That's that's the DNA of this district. Um and it is something that never fails to make me proud. So, thank you all for all of your pieces in that. >> Thank you, Rachel. I couldn't have said it better myself, so
113I won't because that was perfect. Um, I'm gonna move on because we still have another meeting to go. >> Yeah. Let me let me say um I want to recognize Julie for her her presentation of the House bills and reminding us of the very u critical ones that we need to be paying attention to. Um, we don't need to be waiting until after the bills get pushed through for us to wake up and u and get involved. We need to get involved now. She brought up quite a few bills that are right there and looking us in the face and uh we need to be paying attention and u we need to be calling our representatives and let them know what we feel about our voices need to be heard. So, Julie, thanks for showing
114that, telling that that they all need to know that. Uh, congrats to Caddy Katie for uh for being a member of our u our administrative leadership and family. I didn't say that to you last time. I just hadn't gotten to that. But, welcome aboard again. And we're going to be hearing from her here in a few minutes. Uh, supporting an MCRC goes without saying. Great facility. be careful going home. >> Thank you, board. You've all said everything. Um, just Julie, we do appreciate what you do and keeping us informed. Definitely love our MCRC and putting the support there. Um, and everyone who spoke tonight, we thank you for that and sharing that. Um, we are going to go ahead and close this meeting and move on to our board of finance. So this meeting is
115officially adjourned. Welcome back community. We are now opening our board of finance meeting. Before I get to the serious stuff, I just want to point out no one shared with me that pre-recorded videos were an option because I could make a killer statemandated financial report presentation on a video. just saying >> preferable on my part. >> So, um, just wanted to share that Dr. Hansen for transition purposes for others because I'm feeling left out. >> This has a copyright on it, but we'll see. >> Oh, I'm sure. >> Got to get that headband though. Um, good evening. Thank you, Dr. Hansen and board members. It's a pleasure to be in front of you this evening. uh want to share with you. I'm not sure um if anyone's ever tried to prepare a financial report for
116a time when you were not here. It's kind of like cooking in someone else's kitchen, but also a great way to learn. So, I appreciate your grace and patience as I work through these reports as part of the annual um state required board of finance meeting. Um this hits directly on one of the pillars of the strategic plan focus area being the safety and operational excellence. Um, we're required to do this report annually. Um, the data is for the calendar year 2025 and this is a supplement Matt always had from his traditional. Uh, you'll see this will be very familiar to what you've seen from uh, Mr. Parkinson in prior years. So, it should be familiar to help with the consistency. Um, our interest overall was just over $2.8 million. This breakdown for the community
117shows where we invested by fund is where those funds were credited. Um we did condense the construction funds. Uh correction for the Lily grant. All Lily grant funds interest funds go into the Lily fund. This was actually phase two interest. We're good but we're not that good for 100,000 in about 12 days since we had the funds. Um but it does go back to the fund of origin which is um I think important. Um historic interest earnings I think for you all and for the community just to understand what goes up does come down. There was a time uh after COVID when interest rates were near nothing. Um the fact that we have seen two and three million dollars in interest but we're on the back end of that as interest rates are adjusted. Um
118we're going to start to see that decline. Um, so we're looking to diversify those investments a little bit just to um try to make up some of the difference for for our programs. Um, the policy we have, we're not proposing any changes. It's been um the same policy in place for a period of time. Um, it allows us to invest, I know you guys are all want to know this, the short-term investments, no longer than two years, all the fun stuff that I know you just want to keep up with. Um the big part I like is that the earnings investment becomes part of the fund which the investment was made. Um I think that's important. Um little evaluation for you all. I started with the interest earnings or credit the fund of origin. Why
119that's important I think for us is you're not using bond funds and lily grant funds to then support your operations fund because then when that money starts to fluctuate it becomes detrimental to the fund. So you're keeping to what generated it keeps it. I think that's a strength. Um interest earnings are one time and they're obviously volatile. So we just want to make sure we're investing those in non-recurrent expenses not in staff which the district has done. Um our opportunity um there's been a large diversification of investment options. So you know there's trust Indiana which is a local government pool. We also work with Fifth Third Bank. So that has made banking investment more competitive which I think will play well for us as a corporation. Um and our threat we have no control over
120the decrease in interest rates but we know it'll result in um lower returns on investments. That includes my interest investment report if there are questions. Dr. I thought this was what everybody was waiting fiscal indicators report. Another uh one that we do do annually as required by law. um it really hits those two pillars of investing in our people and our safety and operational excellence. But in the end, I would tell you you need those two to be met in order to do all five pillars that are the strategic goals here. Um there are six metrics. Um the data here predominantly is on the calendar year basis ending December of 2024, not 25. Just keep that in mind. There's a lag. Um, and the enrollment data is the only thing reported on the school year
121just for for your information as we fly through this because I think we're talking about every time period we can over the last um two or three years. Uh, the first indicator is our average daily membership. Um, you can see over this three-year period overall it's been pretty stable. Um the footnote would be that we did see a population uh we saw a loss of students in the fall ADM average daily membership count of just over 300 students. Um that's not reflected in this data yet, but um Matt had footnoted that from the year before when we saw a little dip. So just keep that in mind because that will come up again during our fiscal year 27 budget. Um fund balances. So, a flaw in my opinion in the fiscal indicators is it looks
122at all funds. Um, Matt condensed it into primary funds, which are your primary operating funds plus your debt. Just so it gives you guys an idea of the real impact. Um, I say that because if we were just looking at all funds, imagine if the $75 million bond we received that cash the last day of a reporting period. It would look wonderful, but it wouldn't be an accurate representation of our financial position. Um, this shows um increases over the last three years, which I think has been part of the overall um district plan to insulate ourselves from some of the fluctuations that we can't control like SEA1, like if there's a drop in student population. Um this depicts, you can see this is why the top section is the surplus of all funds. uh that
123looks kind of bad when you first look at it. That's reflective of we issued debt, then we spent it all down. So again, we grouped the primary funds to show um the surplus over the last three years. You can see we saw growth um going into calendar year 23 and saw a little bit of decline into going calendar year 24. That's really attributable to the change in student population we experienced. I believe it might have been the spring of 25 perhaps. um net changes for your record, we saw a net change in the education fund that was a negative. Um nothing catastrophic. It's manageable and then adjustments have been made since to reflect that change in the student population, which you wouldn't then see until we go into fiscal year 25. Um but you can
124see overall the funds are healthy and going um in the right direction to give us fiscal stability. This is just the fund balances. Um not surprising if our annual uh surplus of funds went up then obviously we would expect that our fan fund balance percent would increase overall. Um funds have their targets 12% being in education. Um and then that positive balance speaks to we only receive distribution twice a year in those property tax funds. So, we're making sure we have enough cash on hand to cover us cash flow-wise um to get us through the two distributions in June and December so we don't have to borrow um and then pay interest on temporary borrowing. This is just a breakdown of all the revenue by type. Um really these are all seeing positive change. The
125only exception to that is the federal stimulus which we all expected. We knew ESER, you know, was going to end at some point and it now has. nice to see an increase in our overall federal funds um because that offsets a little bit of what we're losing in stimulus in the big picture. Um so you can see we have um seen an increase um overall. We've debt we've reduced the debt from that just to give you an idea of what the actual primary fund kind of is revenue-wise because that's really what's supporting your operational function um in the corporation. Um that change in the debt revenue uh is which skewed one year is the timing of those bond issuances. Um revenue growth in our primary operational funds has been it's a it's one of the
126biggest contributors for us. You have to remember even though we get distributions monthly, state budget is every two years. And so we're trying to protect ourself from uh the $150 million cut that we have resources to cover us in the interim so that we can keep continuity for our kids and for our families. Um the last factor is the operating referendum revenue as a percent of total revenue. You can see that number actually went up significantly from calendar year 23 to 24. It's directly related to the increase in the assessed value that we've seen. Um, right now we're at the high point of the operating referendum. Senate enrolled act one is going to change what that looks like from a property tax standpoint. And then there's other things to consider with any type of a
127renewal um that will impact us as well. Um, two strengths for us, the stability. Um, the district has been able to pivot very well through the years. that extends long long long long before I was ever here for the last seven days. Um, you know, when we lose students, we make adjustments um to the the programs the way that we need to. If we have new restrictions, we pivot, we figure it out. I mean, and I think, you know, flexibility is a life skill. So, um, that is a strength because some people get stuck in the mud and then you can't go anywhere. And that's, I think, a great thing about here. And then our growth in operations and operating referendum um fund balances help us too knowing some of the uncertainty we're going into.
128Um biggest weakness would be our rainy day fund balance. That's something um we'll probably want to address if we want to start getting some more funds in there. That'll be part of an overall district plan. I think we're really waiting to see the full impact of SEA1 um to really understand um our opportunity. will be investing those operations and operating referendum funds uh as well as Lily 3 in a way that maximizes the revenue in a uncertain interest rate market. Um our threats I don't think this is any surprise to anybody. Uh legislative changes that have impacts on our revenue sources are never um helpful. Um but our cash balance protects us and the fluctuation in enrollment like just this fall um for over the 10-year period I think there was overall a 6 and
129a half% reduction but the last several years it's been more stable. This year that dip um you know we are able to continue services because we have resources um in place and then we will talk about that more I'm sure in the fiscal year 27 budget process which I know you guys all can't wait for. That concludes my fiscal indicators report. We're twothirds of the way there unless anyone has any questions. I know it's because my presentation is so thorough that we're just moving right on through. Um by annual referendum update. So every six months I'll come before you to review uh the referendum planned expenditures versus actual. Um this period is actually for the most current period of July 1 of 25 through December 31st. It hits all of our strategic plan focus areas.
130Obviously it supports you guys know that during that referendum process um you hit all of those and it was important for it to be passed. this information. Uh some of this is new, right? You're aware we approved one in 2018. Um we did a repeal and replace. Um I think the big thing is understanding 2031 and what that means for us from a renewal factor. Uh the fact that a referendum in the future will require revenue sharing that was not anticipated when we had this approved. Um and I think our big one is just seeing the actual impact of SEA1. I think we all know it's going to happen. We've done our best to predict that with data, but we won't really know till we know. Um, and that is scary for us. But it,
131you know, it'll be a huge cut to the corporation if there isn't a referendum. Well, I kind of got ahead of myself there. Fiscal year budget. The fiscal year budget was 14 million um focused in school safety and security, staff retention, uh recruitment, PD, family engagement, our prek through grade 12 transportation, student staff tech, um and student learning, college, K12 college and career readiness and K to2 enrichment. Um M Dr. Russell shared that he thought all of the referendum money was going just for that because he is a curriculum purist or an educational purist but um I told him I couldn't help it it wasn't my budget. Um we really anticipate as you know this budget has gone up as the AV has gone up and we've re we've allocated those resources in the same
132way that it was originally intended to try to maintain those separations in terms of if it's 12.86% safety and security that sort of thing. Um, we anticipate ending the year between 13 and 13 and a.5 million. Um, year to date, these expenditures, you can see we're only uh we're probably just over a third of the way there. Some things we'll point out when we go through them individually. The big one is student staff tech when that gets purchased is the second six months of the year, which is why that is so um skewed, which it makes me kind of sad to look at 83,614 with a budget of 1.9, but I promise that we will spend it. Um but to date, we're we're about 5.4 million in. Um but we anticipate we're going to spend
133most of those funds when I come back to you in six more months. Um the safety and security, those expenditures are about 900,000. all of the SRO's as well as the SSOs. Um, that has not changed. Um, I do know from Miss Diane, they have a couple positions I think they're filling and such, but generally if somebody is replaced, they still come out of the same fund. That's the intent of it and that's how they've set it up with payroll. Um, the retention and recruitment, PD, family engagement. Um, the big thing here, that $1.70 that's built in a per hour for all our all hourly support staff is actually right there all the time. We're always taking it out. The 80 cents is only for the people hired as a man 23. So that's really
134like a longevity bonus. And so that's essentially funds that in its entirety. Um just a note, the family engagement staff were moved out of SR 3 into the referendum fund in 24. Uh and then they were only in there until 12:31 of 25 because I believe then they went into Lily 3 as I understand it. So that's on our radar down the road to see what what in 5 years where those folks will go. Um transportation um currently between the operations fund allocation and the operating referendum um we have spent budgeted excuse me 4.33 million. Um, and 32% of all of transportation wages and benefits come out of the referendum fund, which I think we all know is important because you can't if you can't get kids to school, you can't have school. And so,
135um, that's pretty similar to last year. I think last year might have been 34%. Um, so it'll level out. I'm sure we'll have some more overtime in there to get kids to school. student tech. Um I had to round that number to 100,000 just to feel a little bit better about it. But again, most of those expenditures are going to occur in the second half of the year for iPads, Chromebooks. Um we estimate that number to be a little higher. Inflation has had an impact on the cost of those devices overall. Um so we'll keep moving forward and I'm sure Kent is looking forward to talking about his replacement plan ordering schedule for sure. Um, our student learning college career readiness. They're laughing because they know he is waiting. Um, expenditures are at 1.18 million.
136This covers all the middle school and high school counseling positions. The numbers at the beginning of the school year were more around 314 from what Matt's data showed me. I did have a conversation with Miss Laura who said year to date yesterday they were at 339 to1. Either way, it's still half of what the the state average is. So, we're still in in good position and we'll we'll monitor that and keep it aware. Uh my graphic clearly didn't work. I apologize for that. I tried to use I tried to use a color like our our um branding color and I used dots and stuff on my little graphic and it did not go to plan. So if I would have pre-recorded it, it would have been a lot better. I'm quite sure. Um referendum fund
137is 9% of all district operating budgets. Um this really just breaks down that that education fund is 98 million or 65%. The little dot one, that's your operations fund, which is 39 million and 26%. And then their leftover that looks like a weird little square would be the referendum fund that represents 9%. Um, the support of our community allows, you know, people can't learn, kids can't learn if they aren't safe. This helps us with that piece. Transportation to and from school safely. Um, competitive wages for approximately 800 staff. one to one devices and that student to counselor ratio that's half of the state average I think really allows us to make a difference um in the impact for our kids um analysis of the referendum generally we have a strong uh fund balance that protects
138our cash flow um so we don't have to borrow need and pay needless interest um weakness is um after talking to our payroll supervisor that application of the longevity hourly rate is a manual process process. So, not that that means it's not important, but we'll look to find a way to streamline that to maybe make that a little more manageable. Um, opportunity assessed value is not impacted um or reduced by tax increment financing areas, which is always kind of a little bonus because our operating fund is um and our threat really is the operating referendum revenue sharing that will be required in the future because that wasn't contemplated when you all went out for this referendum. And so we didn't build in that we might lose a million dollars to other entities. Um, this is
139the referendum page. I'm going to be working with Mr. Logan to update it. I wanted to make sure if there was feedback or questions, I wanted to make sure it would be reflected in the change before I made it. Um, but that will be available uh for the community at large. And I know everybody has tons of questions because this is the most interesting presentation you've had all evening. That wasn't pre-recorded with a headband. >> Dr. Hansen, board, any questions? >> No. Thank you very much. Um, at this time, we are going to elect the president of the board of finance. >> Sorry, that's okay. >> I would like to nominate Miss Amos to be the president of sports finance. Second. >> Any comment on the discussion? All right. Here we go. it. >> It's
140unanimous. >> All right. And now to Secretary for the Board of Finance. >> And I'd love to nominate Miss Triplet. >> I'll second that. Anybody? Come back. Did she put it in? I don't have it. It's not on my screen. Yeah. And that is unanimous. Miss Darling, thank you so much for uh informing us of the things you found in the last seven days. Thank you. Technically eight. I did work Monday. All right. Well, thank you. Um with that, we are going to close the board of finance meeting and wish everybody a great evening.