001so if you uh all have a copy of the agenda and you have a a comment on one of those items uh you may speak on those now you'll have three minutes if you will just stand and state your name and your address uh and then we can uh we can have those comments on the agenda items at the end uh we'll open it up as well uh for comments on any thing and you'll have three minutes again then so if anyone has any comments on agenda items we'll we can take those now all right we'll take that as a no uh next is the approval of the agenda and uh this item requires approval so uh has the agenda uh been amended uh no no amendments I move to approve the agenda is presented
002I'll second all in favor I uh next we will move to the uh approval minutes uh for the regular session of last month on February 10th uh do we have any edits or additions that we need to make to those minutes we all had those minutes in our board packets now I'll move to approve the minutes as presented second all in favor uh now we'll move on to item two which is the uh Communications routine consent items and regular uh regular whoa regularly recurring Reports say that three times no I can't say it once uh item a is uh the rout routine consent items uh of of reports does anybody have any questions uh over that I had a couple of things um is our preschool Co-op our preschool a co-op our preschool is not
003but we do have um a co-op with our special ed preschool so prek special I got you they're in they're in the co-op okay that's that's what it was okay okay and um do we what is our current program for substitutes will sub okay that's what it's been in three years that's that's no change and I should know this and I'm kind of embarrassed FSA what is FSA a flexible spending account oh okay well that wasn't what I thought it was yeah they kind of went away um a decent amount when we went to the high deductible but we still have limited ones for vision and general okay that's it thank you I move to approve the routine consent items all in favor uh next we have the submission of monthly Corporation extracurricular receipts and
004dispersements and fun the funds report uh these don't get approved just something that we uh we review and go over if we have any questions does anybody have any questions about those reports they continue to be very thorough I like it okay so uh next we'll have item uh number three which is our new business and item a is our retiree recognition and I'll turn it over to Dr Shoemaker all right so um just before the retiree recognition uh Kathy and Rex Crabtree were here and they presented me with a a plaque um Thanking us for the partnership with um evening Optimist in the basketball league so um do want to thank them for that we got a picture out there so hopefully can you get that all right all right okay for Ken sorry
005um I I I do want to speak on behalf of that I'm a part of that group and it's been around way before I was and uh it's only grown and we've went through es and flows a little bit over the last uh five years but uh it's a great thing and our High School coaches uh for those sports are very involved with what we do and provide opportunities to kids who may not be able to travel as we've implemented different travel teams in the community uh a lot of them do both so uh they're getting all the Full Experience uh so it's it's been a great thing and they use our elementary schools to practice uh when they're are available so um it's been an awesome thing and it's been over over 60 years
006now for for the boys and over 25 years for for the girls so so um in no particular order um I would like to recognize uh the individuals that are retiring so Gan mallister Ganan has been with us for 15 years and um principal at Wilbur W PR prior to that was at Sunnyside and um I I I don't want to can can you tell us a little bit about the um Lighthouse leadership I know I'm going to put I'm not going to ask any I don't won't but all the rest of you like oh my he's gonna ask us questions oh my gosh I did not come pray no it's it's really it's really cool and I've gotten so many um positive comments from that and that really is 100% your baby and it's
007nice to see something in your career that blossoms like that and grows um and produces the fruit that it has so tell us just a little bit about it can you just when I first started at Wilbur we I came together with the teachers and we needed to do something to improve our school culture and that was what came up we did a year of kind of Dipping our toe into it and and searching so we've it's called leader and me it's out of the Franklin Cy Institute and it's based on Seven Habits of Highly Effective People we have a coach that comes and helps us and um as part of the leadership one of the goals to attain is to be a lighthouse school there are about it's a global initiative so um last
008year we had two reviewers come in from not anywhere in Indiana and they spent the whole day with our students and reviewed our school and they gave us that distinction which was is a huge honor and a testament to the staff I have it's not anything I've done but I I just work with great people it's awesome don't some of our other elementaries do this yes I thought I have a daughter at Westwood is a part of that program and and because of things that you've LED has filtered our other schools and it's uh been an amazing uh thing for her to get to be a part of so it's really special people go to Wilbur and they see the difference in the kids and they're like I want that and so that's that's a
009real credit to G so where do you where do you want it's right I was just video oh com right here say cheese cheese thank you [Applause] okay next we have Janelle wllo kindergarten teacher at Parker Elementary and how many years how many 14 14 14 years so um thank you so [Applause] much thank you any plans any plans for retirement I'm gonna take the summer to think about it g any PL probably visiting my grandkids in Colorado is that official where oh good Colorado's Sher Remington L blind Vision teacher 24 years brought you want to give her the flower a plant too back and life the Greer um 25 years [Applause] all smile any plans noch me you're off to the side oh I'll be in touch I'm glad I remembered um I want
010to thank not only the employees for your years of service but also your families because it is a family deal and when you when you teach or when you work in education you bring stuff home with you um and they get to enjoy it with you so I want to thank I always I always feel bad when I don't thank the family members because it's a package deal and we get you along with so we thank you for the sacrifices that you make on behalf of um the family because we know it's grading papers and you know stories on end and you know yeah so it's a lot because we live it is what it is so any anything else so we usually have this at the very beginning so that you can either enjoy
011the rest of the meeting with or um you can leave this time so I'm not kicking you out thank you so much [Music] thank you thank you for your support all right at this time we'll move on to uh Item B and that's the uh the approval of the E rate Category 2 Jacob uh SCH to uh present on that I don't have too much switches is it switches so in simple terms they're like splits for our and it's about a $29,000 purchase but we get reimbursed 85% is that what correct okay so what we will pay is r000 okay so can I get a motion to approve the E rate category two sorry Jackie second all in favor uh next we'll have Mr Ammon speaking on early college presentation here we do nothing [Laughter]
012about go back to the no go back go back to the meat you got to share go bottom little arrow Inside the Box the middle the middle bottom keep going down down down down right there there you go and you're gonna early col with presentation over on the left has the yellow box next to it there you go and then share and then go to and then go back to that tab oh man pretty good out well the cool thing is we're officially in early college now so um we're a lot of schools in state say they offer early college or the early college or whatever um but there's only 60 that are truly recognize official early college high schools that go through a process interviews applications School visits really a lot lot of um
013work went into it um and that's that's one of our logos we're playing so hopefully our station are will look good and have that logo or maybe some other logos that we're playing with now that we're officially an early college high school we're the only School in Henry County to have it besides the career center has that distinction um it's it's sponsored sponsored by the University of Indianapolis um a program called cell which is the center of excellence and Leadership of learning um like I said it's a lengthy process to get endorsed and um it isn't just a oneandone thing it's continue like all things in education where we want to continually improve continually work to to keep earning this endorsement as an official Early College okay these are some of the key people that
014helped with this I mean there were more but um you'll notice some of are teachers on there what I'm really proud of is that some of these are newer people too uh they're only in their first or second year with us it's a nice cross-section of teachers Abraham haer's here doing board he's one of them he's our career coach but nice mix of teachers counselors administrators um and it wasn't one of the things that they were impressed with it wasn't just top down like Administration would did knew it all did it all um the teachers knew what they were talking about when they were interviewed and shown around our school so um that really proud moment for our school and but this our school had tried this again before like 10 years ago and we
015we didn't get it because we didn't have enough people involved and having more people involved and more teamwork uh was probably the key to push us over the top um what they do is they kind of rank you on eight core principles and they give you a very detailed report um of strengths that you have in these areas and then areas to um to work on so those are things we're going to continuously work on to get um credited again here in a few years and keep it going um but some of the things targeting students population you know we we really they were impressed that we really try to get our students to to our students are opting in automatically we're trying to get a more diverse group of students to take high level
016classes we look at our subgroups foring reduced lunch other groups trying to make sure everybody's getting a chance that that that can do it um and they were very impressed with that in our targeted student population um our curriculum and plan of study go back back um they're impressed that our most of our classes our high level college classes are taught by staff that we have that are certified on our campus some schools have to bring people in or use video or um Outsource or whatever and we've got teach teachers that are certified that are IB Tech dual credit instructors uh college going culture um we've done a lot to try to make it more of an atmosphere of college and um they really like this college early college Lounge that we have um that's
017where we met with them so that's kind of exciting rigorous instruction um we're doing a lot of things with Marzano which is best practice instruction and our four T's and and they were very impressed with that so that was kind of an exciting um thing to work on um next slide supports for Student Success we have a lot of we have a daily advisory period for people to get help kind of a resource period for students to get help called TCT and we also have some Labs set up for students that U might need extra help that are in these Early College some of these are first generation students that are really trying to take really hard classes and um we've got to give them some support not just throw them in there leave them
018alone so we're excited about that supports for Student Success that's why I just mentioned collaboration Partnerships they rank this number one on this actually uh for you know our lunch and we had last week for all the partnership going on right now with business and Community the internships that we have and um they said you know continue to to seek and build those relationships with the community our small businesses here in Newcastle and surrounding areas so very excited about that um leadership and Staffing they feel like everybody's buying in um and like I said earlier we've got a a team of people that are really interested in in building this early college program and that teachers have a strong voice in the process and then our last one data collection analysis we're constantly updating our
019data we have a lot of graphs and charts to kind of show different groups of people how they're doing um different subgroups and trying to really um get our data to be consistent and Improvement as we go so that's that's just a huge thing so those are like eight core principles that uh they're very lengthy in detail but I just want to maybe mention one or two things about each of those but um so you might hear those principles as we talk about Early College okay the last slide there basically what does this mean what's it mean for students well first all the status is nice to have it's nice to have a status just say we're official hey you're part of an official Early College High School it solidifies really a lot of what
020we're already doing and it shows that our classes are going to continue we're going to continue to offer college level courses even more than we've ever offered each year um I've got a daughter at sophomore in college and then I've got a daughter that's junior in high school and a junior in high school has so many more opportunities just being three years behind um the older daughter you can each year we're adding more and more and constantly re-evaluating what we can offer and how we can help students get ahead save money for college you know if they get two years of college um College done while they're in high school that's a savings of typically about $50,000 and like Dr Sher said before and bar is sit for maybe they'll spend that money in our
021economy in our town maybe this maybe some of this can help our economy in in Newcastle and that's what we're really trying for um our teachers will be continuously trained there'll be a lot of networking um just to try to get better and try to offer a better education for our students and like I said earlier there's an ongoing review so we're not just going to um sit down and celebrate and not do anything on this we want to keep building and each year we're we're looked at for our early college to make sure we're keeping up with the high standards and principles and every two or three years we go through a more official review to continue to to be known as an early college high school but uh just it's been really exciting
022they came and visited Us February 18th um this committee from from cell is network from neapolis a professors former principles administrators people like that um and usually they take a couple weeks to tell you they basically told us the next day that got it so that was that was pretty special and then they officially told us a few days later so we've been trying to publicize it Raymond's help with that and we just want to spread the good word that we're an official Early College High [Applause] School questions yes I do um in order to do dual credit you have to have a master's degree in your subject area right yes all right moving forward or 18 hours or 18 hours okay so moving forward are we going to have any trouble um having teachers
023that are um have that qualification we're constantly um pushing and prodding and and asking teachers but a lot of teachers are just doing it on their own because there are programs through cell and stuff that offers Master's classes for free okay and so we do have kind of a new generation that uh anet goggin is gonna be a huge loss as a retired teacher in English but we have another teacher that's taking classes okay you know and thinking we've got a lot of these teachers that do this are getting they are to that age I just wondered if in the pipeline if we have teachers that will meet that criteria we do and that's something we want to continue to work on it isn't um it isn't easy but but but it's happening thank you
024y okay now moving on uh to the next item letter D here um approval of the final reading of the Newcastle School Board policies so these came over and as the board knows but the public might not we're in the process of transitioning from Neola to church church H and antrum church church H and Anum is a an Indiana firm um that's very good with keeping track of Indiana Law and Indiana policies legislation Etc and so um you know we even talked to the point where if there were to be uh litigation against us favorable if you have a firm that also is working with us in in other ways so um batch one and batch two came along and um first reading was last month and as we always do we would do a
025first reading uh that does not require a vote the second reading does require a vote and so um there were a few modifications um to some of those policies not much um mostly grammatical and um you know some style Cho choices and whatnot but there was a couple of sub substantive um changes but really not much um so we just need a a vote on batch one and batch two and you can see the list of of policies now I will say um throughout this week what we will do is we will insert these um onto our website and when we take off or when we put these onto our website we're going to need to take off the existing Neola policies that are commensurate with what these are so we've already the nice thing
026is when church church H and antrum does that they will give us and they have provided that list of these are the ones that you take off so by the end of this week these will be on and the ones that were similar to this and theol will be taken on full disclosure I never did get my first batch which was on me because I was supposed to go to Destin and I didn't I do have a question about A200 the firearm weapons and destructive device MH um what and and this isn't you know a grammatical thing I was just aware not aware of what our word policy is surrounding that does anybody have it that they could kind of I don't have it memorized it outlines it outlines what um student staff you know
027because it is permissible to have a firearm for example in a locked car in in on campus some states it's not that way um but you and per it is permissible I'm not saying it's advised but it's permissible um so in Indiana um and so um but it says that you're not to have you know a weapon of any kind in any um school facility okay thank you I appreciate that I don't have anything more than that okay that's that's fine I I read batch two I guess Y in batch three well that's next I'll make a motion that we approve batch one and batch two for uh our board policies I'll second that all in favor uh next we have the uh letter e and that's the first reading of the newcast or New
028School Board policies uh batch three uh yeah so batch three here's the I believe that's fire wow so this one is just first reading it does not require a vote um and I should have mentioned this that the batch one and batch two were prioritized in terms of number of times people access so church church hin Anum prioritize batch one and batch two is kind of like the critical ones and then as we go on to batch three four five six um they're going to be one the Lesser um of the the policies this one does not need a um um a motion or approval because that it'll be for next month now I will say that um if you want U modifications or want modific modifications considered then um get that information to me
029I've already had one board member uh present some changes so uh okay never mind okay so as he said we don't have to vote on that it's just the first reading uh for us to go over uh even more and uh reconsider so at this time that takes us to item four which is our building grounds transportation and support services and Mr Daniel Prett yeah not a lot to talk about today couple updates for you Fieldhouse signage we're uh working with the architect team we have been meeting with the committee on that and we're working uh with the the architects now to get that finalized and make sure everything is what we want it to be couple things we want to tweak on that so we're working with them diligently to get that completed High
030School restroom project is underway uh all three floors are now shut down uh those those restrooms in the be hallway um all are being are currently in demo phase and working on getting those completed around May uh is when it's it's uh scheduled to be completed so excited for that to happen thank you to the administration of the high school as well as the teachers done a wonderful job being patient through this process and understanding and flexible as they move forward with this work um one to also mention that uh with legislation there is the uh what Senate bill one now moved to the house working on it in ways and means currently that will impact uh our funding on our operation standpoint for our school district and many other local entities um a the
031way it's described right now it's not necessarily a reduction of what we currently have it's going to be a reduction of what we're going to get um so any increases will be reduced into the future so um it has changed and it's a little bit more palatable um right now but it's still a reduction that will cause us to have to make some some decisions about what we do as a school district in terms of services and our facilities so just want to keep that on the front burner for everybody so everyone's aware of how that could impact Newcastle schools the bathrooms de will be completed by May or the project will be the schedule says may what the schedule says you and I those could be but that's what the schedule currently says that's
032it for me thank you all right so uh next we have the superintendent report so first off um I want to thank Sher and lean Micki we did get the um 30,000 and man we did get the $30,000 necessar for our infant and toddler program for our um uh for our staff and also for our um student parents yeah and that's a big deal for me and I think it is for you as well but um it's it's something that we can do that we haven't been able to do before so that will start next year and anybody that's got an infant or toddler um then they can sign up for that now we'll be at at a cost for our staff and um we're have to find a way to to cover it for
033our students but we need to do that so um what I'd like to do next is um provide you with an an update um and so um I'm gonna stand up for this so I can go over here um and it's the it's the ca update um now you need to go back to your click it on nope up top top one sure sorry slideshow this this will kind of take us through our journey here so um so a little bit of background uh the first bullet point Senate Bill won um in many you know but when when the Senate bill is is the lower the number the higher the priority and so this was their main priority um last year and that was that every reading series will contain in the state of Indiana
034will contain science of reading and be on the approved list by the idoe by the 2425 school year that is not a whole lot of time to make these to make changes um so uh we had um we knew that we could write a waiver for uh for because it was so soon we could write a waiver but we could not write write a waiver for Eastwood Elementary because it um only achieved 69% pass rate for third grade um on the IR and the requirment was 70% so we had to have it a a An approved sence of reading curriculum uh in place because we were part of the literacy coverre States literacy cover um and so uh I just want to make sure that people know that s the one the flexibility that we've
035had in the past so for example we had a um a science series that we adopted a couple of years ago and that was wide open where people could submit you know uh series that they wanted to see um and um and so um that was wide open this uh only had five core programs that were possible and then um only two were complete meaning uh uh you would need to subsidize it and our teacher would need to subsidize our staff that basically our teachers would need to subsidize if we pick the other three other three programs so it was a different setup than we've ever had before it was required and it was narrowed um so we piloted the program in 13 classrooms with 13 teachers and they got us typen for that uh
036support and preparation for the new curriculum upon uh piloting it um we uh we met and on April 12th and I met with the teachers um Sher did and uh so some of the most prevalent findings um concerns the time required for CLA we've done a lot of work with Marzano and there was concern some concern on how do we get everything in and there was genuine anxiety about that um the difficulty level appeared to be too rigorous for some students now these these were comments that were made and it was what I say prevalent findings it's more than one person setting so it's you know if it came out of two or three people then I I it's waited a little bit differently it wasn't just one person's opinion so these are all at
037least a couple of people's opinion then the lack of background knowledge content was too advanced and then there was some lessons that were believed to be not appropriate for community so um uh after discussion and we had a lengthy discussion I'm going to go back to those those items and tell you how we addressed them but um we uh there was a vote Sher sent out a Google form and uh the voting was Anonymous the pil committee voted 70% in favor of moving forward for the adoption um and so but that was with the caveat that we could modify the lessons to meet our needs and so um Sher would you read the um the options that they had the teachers and it was a teachers vote it wasn't anybody else um so basically a
038two option Google form survey first option to vote on was move forward with adopting CK K5 as presented order materials and get initial training and planning completed for the start of the next school year with possible elimination of certain lessons as determined by teachers admin input or remain using wonders Core Curriculum in 2425 and revisit the entire adoption process exploring all programs on the approved adoption list while following recommendations of the literacy Cadre for Eastwood so 70% um voted in favor of mve forward for the adoption but it was very clear and we were we were very um we're on the same page in terms of uh we're going to need to modify the lessons as they come in so um so 100% of the elementary administrators were in favor 100% of instructional coaches were
039in favor uh so 78 Indiana corporations have adopted CPL so far 78 so obviously there's a lot to that list but I I tried to put in um corporations that were similar to us so South and re they're on their third year um of cpla same same exact curriculum that we're using Nettle Creek Monroe Central Yorktown Mony Batesville Lebanon you can read the rest so and the let goes on and on um and last year I think there were about 60 a little over 60 so 18 have been added to the um this year there will be more um I think at the end of this year as well um where am I where am I aiming so this is one of the things that I shared during that April um during that April meeting
040and you know I anybody knows I'm competitive I I like for us to win at everything and I like for our kids to do the best at everything so what this is is um um let me get over here so I can kind of so that 100 this is grades three four and five and we got this information um was I ready growth so it really determines the growth it reflects the growth of our students and so um this right here says that um if they meet this or above that means that um at the beginning of the year there's three assessments that they take the third assessment indicates that they've grown one year or more so this this line right here means they've grown one year or more MSY Community Schools um and we
041were tracking them because they actually implemented cpla um we had not so this is the year before we implemented this is last year's um wonders and and really it was more than wonders they about 80% 70% were not using wonders it was a supplemental resources for the most part and these are all your mie elementary schools so you can see that every Elementary School in MSY gained um at least one year of growth whereas we did not using what we were using so you you start to think um what are the what are the differences we we have the same number of hours in the day because we expanded our days uh we have better teachers we have better kids performing well it's got to be um something that's outside of those so I would
042say um uh we have the smallest class sizes at least in h County I didn't didn't compare MSY so um one would conclude there's a good chance that it's it's the curriculum so when and I don't have a graph for this but when when I looked at and I didn't really want to put a graph on it um but when I looked at try try over the last two years has gained on us each each year um and so they're also using CA um time requirements that's one of the ones that were um that was a concern so we created a pacing committee to help relieve anxiety um uh because there was you know genuinely um there was angst about that we also with the pacing committee and the Teachers Association we reviewed the programs
043if we could eliminate or revise and I think um what were this there were a couple of things that because that was one of things that came out there's too much we got to take something off the plate um and so we there were a couple of things that we I know we restructured um eight steps uh we do two two we collect data and the assessments and then some of the platforms that some schools were using but others weren't and that type of thing yeah um we gave pause we added there are pause points already in there but we added more pause points to get time to process and really so that there could be some additional reteaching um some enrichment Etc uh we employed two retired um because one of the concerns was
044um as we're going through it to pre-ad it and um to go through it uh while we're evaluating all of the components that we want to look the content it was stressful so what we did was we hired two retired teachers to to read in advance so that if there's anything that they could see that we needed to review in terms of content we would be not with that um and then uh so and one was one was a primary and one was an intermediate teacher at the elementary level and then um ongoing support from Melissa Burton we paid quite a bit out of title two uh for that support uh and she kind of came as a package deal um she had worked with at least one other CLA school corporation in terms of
045implementation difficulty level um this was one that came up a couple of times and this was this is really a concern because um CA is written on grade level um but if we don't teach the students to um the grade level and I know it's difficult the further they get behind the harder it is I I I understand that but we've got to make sure that those expectations are are at grade level because otherwise we'll never get them to grade level um and uh I I liken it to um if the example I would add is if we've got a basketball team and um a 10- foot Rim is too hard too hard for them and we put it down to an 8ot Rim then we feel good about that um but when it comes
046time to play against the standard or play a game it's all 10-ft rims and we don't we don't feel good about it at that point and that would be the test so we've got to make sure that we're we're pushing it and it that is hard work and it's that's a simplification but that's hard work um also to help address concerns um that it was not some was not appropriate for our kids our communi so we established the content Review Committee um and met monthly 11 teachers were on that um and those teachers were recommended by the principles uh plus the association president two parents and they were invited to sit on the committee and participate um and all of them accepted uh the uh the invitations uh so what happened was is that every
047month um we would have a Google doc and Melissa would go gather information teachers would put information on that in terms of what were the concerns um the committee was facilitated by by Melissa and um members voted anonymously Sharon and I didn't didn't vote there was no Administration voting Melissa didn't vote uh and so what was the conclusion of that is we had 38 lessons that were submitted um at the elementary level two lessons were um were pulled one poem was pulled 15 lessons were modified and at the secondary two units were pulled so um a lot of them were teacher read alouds which the kids don't get um but we can those are a little bit easier to modify because we can change the wording in that to meet our needs so the takeaways
048were um Senate bill one required a new Adoption um you know we weren't essentially planning on that um but you make the best of it um and so we collaborated with teachers as we always do with everything um they voted for cpla uh with modifications where necessary um we did form the pacing uh and content committees and we came up with a support plan so the rest of that's kind of review what I just said on the previous slide I do I would ask um for Sher to read a quote by Susie she's one of the pre-readers and it it just came in today yeah um she said and this was not solicited we didn't ask for this we material we didn't say how's it going or anything we um she just responded back after
049I let them know how to get their materials back to me she said um quote I have heard numerous positive comments from teachers concerning how they and their students are enjoying the content of the selection so this is an encouraging win-win situation afforded by the newly adopted curriculum anytime we have a curriculum um a new curriculum it's always an adjustment it's a lot of work um and uh not everybody is going to say that's the best ever it's just kind of like the room that we had in here previously you know not everybody's going to say you know if we say we're GNA have 2A some people don't like that if we're gonna have this not everybody's going to be on the same page it's you know we we're given a task Senate bill one
050comes through and we're making the best of it yeah have anything to add I was paying attention Okay I was paying attention she didn't know you that yes no I was paying attention no I'm I don't Noe no comment okay all right any any questions from the board no obviously uh when when we made this change I was a big part of um some of the voicing some of the concerns that I had heard and that's how you know part of the reason that it got delayed originally and uh that's why the commit you know part of the reason why the committee got put in place was to be able to catch those things uh at least given the due diligence not that things still can't slip through but um there's a legitimate effort to
051make sure that things are uh at least content appropriate you know you can debate on if it's great appropriate or not you know I'm not that's not my own but I am a parent and I know uh if there's controversial things to me uh I have a right to to voice that concern absolutely so I mean that's a little bit of the full history of how we moved through this process that it wasn't you know just a knee-jerk uh thing it was it was what it was and like you said trying to make the best of of what's been dictated to us in so many so in talking to other superintendents um there has not been uh the level of um attention I think G given in their corporations um but what I told I
052called Senator rosz and um just let him know that we're going through this process at the end we'll have a document that lists 38 38 um lessons that we identified as needing oversight um and I'm not saying that you know what we've got right now we could go back and change um but I did did tell him that uh I would be willing to share that uh to other corporations and just so you know it probably be at a at a small cost because we are kind of a business model on that um uh but um the other thing is is that there were some lessons in there that I've heard were were were taught but they weren't they were pulled so you know I don't I don't think that they were actually taught but
053having them in the curriculum was enough of alarm for people to be upset so um and and will say one of them was a good lie and I pulled that one so one of the things that will probably be be judged on with this and and they are going to start grading schools again there's legislation on that which is moving forward thank you very much but these tests um and unfortunately those are a moving Target so it's it's it's very difficult to get good data in in um and also it takes time to have a strong scope and sequence that you're all following you're adding to that meeting Target and that's what we were doing before we adopted a a core that we all are using that makes sense we were just adding to that
054scenario that Dr Sher talked about when we don't follow the same scope and sequence and just to your point third grade retention and mandatory third grade to retention you know without you know good and just cause is is back in play so we we we want to make sure that we're giving our kids the best opportunity the hard I will say the hard thing is if everybody's doing something a little bit slightly different and doesn't mean that the lessons are bad but if they're not aligned to the standards it's very hard for our kids to um demonstrate Mastery of Standards yeah I it's sometimes I think the test they the stand I don't philosophically I don't disagree with that at all it's what we it's what we have but it's it's what it's legislated and
055we really don't have choices so it's not necessarily what we want it is what we're given and what we have to it's it's the field we're in go back to some more Athletics that's that's our playground game we have to play you just have to know what the rules are so they're giving us the rules well it's still kind of a moving Target in summary we we spent hours and hours and hours inut concerns going CA and the steps to take and there there were platforms upon platforms of opportunity for teachers to express concerns and um we were given opportunities to voice opinions and there were there were points in time where if if a teacher is uncomfortable with teaching something we are permitted to go in with a principal with representation to say I'm
056I'm very very uncomfortable with this I I don't want to teach this um so um I was paying attention I'm so sorry I didn't know I was G to talk no that's all right you're in the front row I've done that twice tonight so did you stay in your sign seat by the way I SC it down yeah and it's as I said before it's it's an arduous task to um break up a new um curriculum it's it's a lot and it was a heavy lift and it was a whole new way of teaching reading that the whole state had to was forced to embrace and learn about and that kind of change is even hard it's hard enough when you get a new core new math new science I don't care what it is
057to get used to it and get comfortable when you had a whole new way of teaching that we weren't taught to teach that teach that way but we also are very blessed and I could go on and on with wonderful instructional coaches that are I think really supporting that learning and then also Melissa that no other school I don't believe it's I would be remiss if I didn't thank the teachers for the heavy lift yeah undeniable you go that you um no how how about how about board pictures and slides yeah for 200 I about that I'm in a lot of different schools because of my principal thing that I do uh and in I would say 85% of them they've gone through the same struggles during the first year and after living through it
058one year then they feel so much better they understand and now they're showing uh a large part of grow and and I think no matter what if it's English math science anything across the board when you are given new curriculum or new things standards to do and follow it is a whole new game change and that's you know almost every other year you know thank you state so so I'm gonna I'm gonna quickly go through here we've got um some pictures of things that are going on throughout the corporation last month Dental Awareness Month you know we do a lot with career exploration these are uh some of our our students in the career center and dental careers and they're going into the um tiny Trojans so um a neat little visit there for them
059uh State finalist uh again we had Tylen thine uh took third place and Jacob Dudley um he got a new school record Hunter uh breast rope um so he's happy about that you can tell so congratulations and that was at state so good good for them um hicka visits the Fieldhouse um I don't I look happier than they are I'm not sure what that's about but but um the girls had just left so there there was like um probably about 20 25 girls that went and we got him popcorn we got him um a Coke in a in a hot dog they absolutely loved it and some of them had never been to a high school game to go to the world's largest and finest is it was a fun time um Lighthouse leadership day
060I kind of talked about that just so many good positive things uh coming back to us and once again kudos to Gan for leadership and that um Early College we just went through that and uh congratulations to Kirk and his staff for job well done sat um was recently taken and um the next the next one thanks to Tod Todd Conlin the next one is March 14th that will be the makeup day uh realizing the dream that's a cool thing right I didn't know the that was there but the Institute of Technology um and the uh independent colleges of Indiana put together a scholarship um this young man Colin oaro got $4,000 Kelly got $1,000 and um he wants to come back and teach Jags so that's a pretty cool thing I like that don't
061you um community lunching that was a great turnout uh we had over 200 people somewhere in that range 160 okay give a take uh so just a great turn great turnout um all the kids uh the middle school kids did a phenomenal job Kaye Brown had them prepared all of our kids did a phenomenal job the panels um really representing us extremely well uh thanks to the the Sig grant for all of their work for Mr McDaniel for all of his work Kirk and Jacob I thought Jacob wrapped it up just like I I said that was like Lou Holt's talk right there that was that was really good um and then I read testing um some encouragement going on there uh Westwood students the lighthouse team took to visit the second and third grade
062students to encourage them and then Renaissance rally Renaissance rally that's always fun is he yeah I heard you had a different shirt like every five minutes so um that's that's fun um and good culture building um Good Times there a better uh Newcastle middle school once again uh the kids that were presenting at the are off to the right uh those students are at Crown right there and then um you know if you really know anything about Sullivan that probably drove him absolutely crazy because he's he's kind of not that way so uh that's just funny all right uh thanks to Tasha and um to D they do a great job with the fruits and vegetables three times a week the kids get fresh fruits and vegetables um there um basketball sectional is next kind
063of disappointing with the outcome on that one a good Delta team they just played really good as a team in their Zone was really really good so it was hard to break but they we clobbered Connorsville um and I wish we could have borrowed some points from that game and to it to the Delta game but that's okay launch Sher went to launch uh Abraham went to launch that was a fantastic day for our kids um and Kaylee Brown's there as well with some of our students Carrie Barrett went but really represented um Newcastle extremely well there was I'm gonna I would say over 100 people is that right over 100 people uh educational leaders the doe was there we had two or three people from the doe once again hearing the great things that
064are going on work-based learning and career pathway um uh development there so um really good stuff that might be it I think that's that's it I do want to piggyback on that uh our um Middle School 8ighth grade girls team finished up their season and uh they have three eighth grade girls on there and then two seventh graders that start as well and uh we have three or four that dressed and they finished 15 and four this year and six- one in conference uh and that's going against uh the schools that we just mentioned previously uh with all eighth graders so uh outside of uh the team that uh my dad brother and sister coached when Cameron tab was playing uh there hasn't been a better finish they won the hhc tournament that year we
065didn't this year but we did finish six and one which is probably one of the uh best finishes since we joined that conference so very excited and like I said we did that with seventh graders as well yeah they fun to watch I just want to say the leader and me um went around and you know first graders couldn't read some of them were kind of reading what they were going to say they had little first graders that were explaining the program and they just had had they were just doing it and they were eloquent they were first graders it was just don't underestimate right indeed you couldn't and the luncheon um was phenomenal there were some power hitters there and we looked amazing and um I went up to Senator RS afterwards we had
066words along the way but um he good words there were some good words but he said he said n this is my dream he that's not W he wouldn't say that especially to me well no wait a minute never mind say that without meaning it we had Heavy Hitters at launch too and there was want need to see our kids one our actual fifth grader from Parker that went sat by one of the Heavy Hitters from idoe all day long and entertained her I think I think they were both drawing dinosaurs at one point so I mentioned this um at the luncheon but um according to ivtech we have 71 students that are um capable of getting a year of college which is the Indiana college cor which is phenomenal so congratulations all right the
067next item we have is the budget and what this is is the uh the approval of transfer from the education to the operation fund and uh Megan will tackle that so this resolution that was in the packet covered um February 2025 expenses the transfer amount came out to be $300,000 from the education operations fun and I just need your approval to make that transfer so can I get a motion uh for this move no move second all in favor I and then last uh we have the portion of the meeting where uh we have public comments uh and questions so if you have a public comment or question uh just stand state your name uh your address and then we'll give you three minutes to uh to address it my name is Katie go point
068and I was actually coming to um ask questions about the curriculum so a couple of those questions were answered but I know I've heard several stories about inappropriate material um third grader is learning that we evolve for monkeys first grader is hearing about a little girl that wants to use her money to buy pretty dresses so the old boys look at her and all the girls will be jealous fourth graders hearing about of pet horse that likes Tock razor blades these are just a few examples but I'm not sure why we would want to plant those ideas in our children's heads beyond that my bigger concern is that the teaching is way above grade level and I understand that we need to get them there at some point but there has to be some background
069too you can't just walk in and say okay now you're going to learn at this level even though you've never done it before um some of these children were part of the kids that were already so far behind due to co and now they have this dry heavy curriculum that is way to advance my first grader still writes some of her letters and numbers back but she has learned about the circulatory muscular and skells system and has written an essay on a planet she just turned seven her first spelling test she had to spell the word and then underline the diagraph I had to Google that most of the curriculum is read out loud to them so their reading skills are lacking there's also so much for the teacher to fit into one day there's
070no time for one-on-one help not that my teacher's daughter could help she has 26 kids several with behavior problems and no full-time eight they are not allowed to bring their curriculum home which is a huge red flag CK was designed for all classrooms and all schools to be learning the same thing on the same day at the same speed and this is a disservice for our children they do not learn the same way or at the same pace and I'm afraid we're failing them my third grader is literally in tears because he is so stressed and frustrated every day they hate school more and more where they used to love it there's no fun projects to help with understanding there's no time for extra attention I knew that going into third grade my third grader
071still struggled with reading at the level he should be his teacher assured me with hard work it would be okay but this is such a huge year for them with I and now without the extra one-on-one attention and the teachers can't even even focus on I because of CK Riley had such high results last year because the teachers were able to focus on what they knew the students needed and I'm extremely concerned that will drop this year I also have heard from several teachers at different locations that when they bring their concerns to their principal it is rushed under the rug and they are told that they are the problem these teachers are the ones in the classroom with the children every day their opinion should definitely matter and they shouldn't fear for their job
072if they bring it up thank you thank you for those comments um you're not the first person as as you probably found out tonight that has uh raised issue with with those things um speaking personally I I have a fifth grade daughter who was impacted uh severely through uh the co the co uh situation and we had to seek uh outside uh help to help get her where she needed to be but it doesn't happen overnight yeah and I'm not suggesting that's I'm just like we in your boat like we've been in that I've been in your situation and uh and hold hold the same what I would say values and concerns and that is uh some of those things are uh I've heard ex all all all the three that you mentioned and those
073are things that are supposed to be uh being addressed through through the committee um and being caught so um if that's not happening that's obviously disappointing um but I can say that uh from a from a from a board perspective uh that is the like we all have different opinions on what is age appropriate as far as content I'm the last to speak on what's effective in the I'm not a teacher I've never done it so I would yield to the teachers on and principles on the board um on on opinion of that type of thing uh but I can tell you uh when this first came up it was it was a uh very serious and very uh Hot Topic you know especially for me as a parent who has kid going through it
074um because I I didn't want them uh being taught uh stereotypes uh you know of the girl who moved to New Hampshire who was Chinese and was being Lo and wanted to basically stere negatively stereotyped white people so I you know I was against that type of stuff and that's not even a pet horse licking razor blades so so the what were the other two I know that the horse pem was pulled so so that one was not taught my third grader told me that he had learned how we evolved from monkeys they read a story about how humans evolve monkey and first graders uh read a story about a little girl who milked a cow and sold the milk to earn money so that she could buy a pretty dress so that all the
075boys could look at her and all the girls would be jealous do you know what the I I'll look it up I don't know the titles okay and my concern my bigger concern was not so much the content but yeah being way above her if my first grader can't read and write but she's learning about the circulatory system that doesn't make sense to me I mean she still writes her P's and nine backwards and like I said her teacher has 26 students there's no time for her to sit down and say we need to work on this or this is still happening you need to fix this she doesn't have time to speak to her oneon-one because there's too many students well we I we do appreciate you uh showing up and being engaged uh
076we need that and uh what you have to present is going to be uh at least uh entertained and looked at and researched and and figured out you know where where adjustments can be made if they need to be yeah maybe a do that go straight to Sherry or something instead going to the principl the principles are just turning them away or brushing them under the rug even if it's Anonymous maybe they wouldn't fear for their jobs but right now teachers are not speaking up because they're afraid to get ref well I I'll also say this all um there's checks and balances so just because someone uh wants someone removed it doesn't have without board approval they want us to stay in our lanes a little bit and we try to allow them to make
077their decisions and rely on that but if we feel and know about something being retaliatory uh that's not it's not going to go well for those parties it may go through but it's they're GNA it I I ruffle feathers and and if that were to be the case I'm going to it'll be it not fun meeting for anybody but I can tell you right now I didn't have Mrs pul as a teacher but I know she loves kids I know she loves this community same thing for Mr Griffith this hatel and Josh so who has a who has a kid going through the system too so and I have nieces and nephews and friends of of of uh kids that going through so it's a very pertinent thing and and something that we constantly pay
078attention to and I can tell you that Dr Shoemaker and and and Sherry and and Mr McDaniel are very aware of of issues that make it to him you know it's got to make it to him and I know he said he's competitive and he's like competing with m in for me I don't care if we beat M I want my child to wiar in the basic sure they go to school to learn and I want them to have support from their teacher and they can't have that right now my my point in that is is there's no way that M can do it better than our kids and our teachers that that should not be ever the case um because I believe in our people so um would you send that to me your
079your if you don't mind your email or your letter to me email to me yeah the first paragraph I SK because you answered how we came about the curriculum but I I had a hunch there would this would be a topic tonight so I thought let's go ahead and do that before yeah well you did answer some of my questions is there anyone else that has any comments or questions I want to make a comment um my uh daughter uh is trying to uh decide on relocating her family and so we are she has me checking all the Indiana schools that she's looking at and uh couple of them and I'd love to be able to say the things um but two of them do not have the amount of college credits they don't offer
080ICC at all and they don't even offer or they don't offer the associates degree as well so for a little Community like ours um we are so blessed so uh Kirk thank your people for their work and uh um you know it it start starts the very bottom um and as as a child moves along and through uh there's going to be some hiccups along the way and but to see those the amount of things that we are offering here and that huge Indianapolis schools are not I was surprised is she coming back yeah no well no can't sit back here but um but yeah Co all right if no one has any uh any other uh comments or questions we will adjourn