001May special meeting is called to order at 5:01 p.m. by board president Josh Bowen. All members are present. A quorum is present. Adoption of the agenda. It's recommended that the agenda for May 6, 2026 special meeting be approved as presented with additions, corrections, or deletions as recommended by the board. I'll make I'll make the motion. Mr. Garner. I'll second. Mr. Garner, any questions or comments? All in favor say I. I. Opposed? The motion passes 5-0. Participation in school board meeting public comments. You may approach the podium and you have approximately 3 minutes. May I note that we have no comments tonight? Appointments. Chris Cain, North Harrison Middle School principal effective July 1, 2026. May I have a motion for this item? I'll make the motion. Mr. Nix. I'll second. Mr. Boyer. Any questions or comments?
002All in favor say I. I. Opposed? The motion passes 5-0. Other items. It's recommended that the board approve a resolution for North Harrison Community School Corporation to start a virtual school program. I'll make the motion. Mr. Garner. Mr. Boyer seconded. Mr. LaGrange, would you like to elaborate on this? Yeah, so we um you know, it's a it's a it's something I think almost every school corporation in the country has to kind of consider more and more. Less and fewer and fewer kids being born, more and more kids choosing a virtual option. And so, just this year we've lost probably 65 kids um that left enrollment here and went to either home school or a virtual option. There are lots of virtual options for students in the state of Indiana. Kids can you know, families are
003aware of that. We are trying to be a virtual option that's a better option. We are trying to be an option that still wraps our arms around them and they are still a part of our school, our community, they're still our kiddos. And so, we'll have a lot of information coming out soon. We'll have a flyer, we'll have an FAQ, we'll have a lot of information talking about that. We're partnering with Edmentum. Their virtual piece is called EdOptions. And so, as you may know, the state of Indiana pays a full-time virtual student about well, they pay 85% okay, of of ADM money. And then so what we will do potentially is partner with a vendor, pay them a set amount, and then we still will net money on those kids. So, the first thing we
004will try to do is to reach out to those families and try to reunite with a lot of those kids who were ours and left us, try to bring them back under our virtual program. And we think our program has offers a lot of things or it's going to offer. We're still working out a lot of details. But we think our virtual school is going to offer a a of support that other virtual programs don't. There's a lot of differences in virtual programs. So, I want to say that Megan Reynolds and Lisa Jones and Matt Kellams have put a lot of work into this. Met today with a broader team with some other administrators and the counseling teams in middle school and high school to get their perspective and their input and answer their questions.
005So, it's been a We've had a lot of meetings both with our own staff and with potential vendors and with the vendor we think we're going to go with. And so, we put a lot of time and effort in this. We probably do not have everything figured out yet. But, I'm confident that we've got a good start and I'm also confident that we'll be able to figure out whatever issue comes up. So, we are really excited to to to start down this road. I have a question. Yeah. Um are we going to consider if these students are within our school community boundaries allowing them to participate in sports and ECAs? Uh yes and no. So, no on sports, but yes on some ECAs. And we're still kind of working through that. You know, I think
006what we're certainly considering prom. We're certainly considering walking in graduation. They're going to have a potentially an Old Arvada diploma. There are other things I think we would consider. We just haven't got that deep. But, one of the things that I think is an advantage for going with us as a virtual option is we're going to be able to customize this. Customize it with those kinds of things. Customize it with the classes we're offering and just how we can make this work for an individual family. It may It may look a little bit different from from one family to the next depending on what they need. So, we have some flexibility in that. Some of those things we're still considering. Okay. Thank you. Any questions? Excited to be part of a modern Cougar, right? That's
007right. Modern Cougars. Modern Cougars. But, uh yes, you know, it's help grow our community and keep the students within this community. Well, it's a it's you know, there are not a lot of revenue threads, right? For schools. I mean, and this is it's not it's not only a revenue thread, it's offering a service that we think we can service our kids and other kids better maybe than some other options. So, we want to service kids, we want to be a great virtual provider, um but certainly it could be financially um very positive for the district. We hope that the students in our area, our community, will come to North Harrison's uh virtual program, bring their home school students and the virtual students in. Yeah. And so, we'll be hopefully launching very, very soon. And so,
008a lot of information to come. All in favor on this side? Aye. Aye. Opposed? It passes 5-0. Any late items? Um board member communications? You want to have anything that you'd like to say? Come here, Mr. Nixon. No, I'm good, thank you. Um I'm sorry, I kind of blew in. Is this Mr. Cain? It is. I'd like to introduce Mr. Cain, Chris Cain, uh super excited to have him on our administrative team. Chris comes to us uh most He's currently the uh assistant principal athletic director at at Floyd Central. He was formerly the principal at Scribner. Uh he's been an administrator in other districts and um I originally from Clarksville. Um So Chris has a lot of administrative experience and we had a we had several candidates with a lot of administrative experience. I was
009super pleased with the candidate the quality of the candidate pool that we had. Chris stood out from the get-go and just super excited to bring him on board. He's excited to be on board. I want to thank him and his family all that Amy and the Drewsons family and I want to thank them for coming tonight. Appreciate it. Over the podium. You may have to turn that on. The daughter said no. Behind the camera. I tried. So first I'll start with the most important people. That's my wife Amy to the right and then Emmy in the red there. She never gets the school colors right whenever we go out. >> [laughter] >> Now her face is going to turn red. >> That's all right. It's It's high-energy colors. That's good. That's fair. That's fair. Just
010honestly I'm very excited. Just the athletic director role was awesome. I love sports. I love those parts of school and what it can offer. But I miss the student interaction and that's something I pride myself on. I'm looking forward to getting to a building that get to be in the halls, in the cafeteria with the kids, in the classrooms with the kids, working with the teachers and and just getting to know them, being part of a small community. Working in a big district has some good advantages but also it loses that personal feel and I'm excited to get back and and do some of those things. And Mr. LaGrange has been awesome. I got to meet with him a couple of times and just looking forward to getting started. So I appreciate the opportunity to
011be here and then welcoming myself. I've got one more but she's dancing tonight at a dance class or wherever she is. So she's a high schooler. So but again looking forward to being here and then getting to know everybody. Yeah. Yes. The blue looks good. We need to get you geared up with some logo on there. >> [laughter] >> Is he Is he a pretty good Is he a pretty good guy? Most of the time. The daughter says most of the time. He does coach her in softball, so you know. Well, we're excited. Welcome. >> Well, thank you so much. Happy to be here. I too would like to welcome Mr. Kay and I'm sure you'll enjoy being here in our community and we're glad to have you. And thank you to Mr. LaGrone for
012all of his efforts in our virtual school and of course for Matt, Megan and Lisa for their input and deciding for what the future holds for us. I think that sums it up pretty good. Welcome. Thank you. And I'm excited about the modern kids. >> [laughter] >> Business managers are men of few words. He's probably got some spreadsheets but I don't He does. It's recommended that the special meeting be adjourned at 5:11 p.m. Can I have a motion for that? I'll second. Mr. Nixon and Ms. Byrne. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 5-0. And we will call to order Well, do we want to uh take a second pause here and we can