001Call this meeting to order. Please stand in for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all very much. Please be seated. And welcome to the April 2026 regular school board meeting of the Richland School District School Corporation Board of Trustees. I'm glad you could all be with us this evening. Um please let the record reflect that Mr. Tucker, and Mr. Durnell, and Mr. DeMoss, and Mr. Kerr are present this evening. And now we have visitor comments. Are there any visitors who would like to make comments this evening? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on to the most thing moment, and we have Dr. Sanders wants to
002make some recognitions. Uh yes, I'm very excited uh to uh be able to uh recognize uh Edgewood Primary School Principal Matt Wooden, Assistant Principal Lisa Van Dusen, and our wonderful teachers that are here tonight. Um as uh everybody probably knows, uh and I say this every time, but uh a few years ago we started down the path of high reliability schools as a way to help us to uh be in a have a mindset of continuous improvement and utilizing data to to make that happen. And um uh we've had several teachers. How many of you have gone to one of the HRS conferences? Yeah. And um so we takes more every year um and um so all of our schools have been working towards level one and HRS was and then we're starting to work
003on level two and we just got word how long ago a few weeks ago Matt? Uh that EPS was uh certified level one and so we're going to give them a round of applause. >> [applause] >> And they're I'm sure already starting to to look towards level two and um so it's a lot of hard work you know teaching being a principal is hard every day. I mean your plate is full you're often working late hours and on weekends and somebody like me comes along and says hey we've got a little bit more to do sometimes that's we we might push back and say what else do you want me to do? But our staff here at Edgewood schools have done an amazing job with this the the school board to in each of our
004schools continue to work on this HRS and um I'm excited about the future and so once again good job especially a school that had a transition in leadership. Uh just as as we're starting that and but EPS is catching up real fast and so just wanted to recognize them tonight. And then I wanted to recognize Um, our director maintenance Arnold Caldwell. Arnold, can you please stand up? And Arnold is has been recognized as the IASBO director of the year. >> [applause] [applause] >> And Arnold's family is here, even his granddaughter came to to witness the the recognition. Now, Arnold is not a guy that likes recognition. Uh, but but yeah. Uh, but uh >> [laughter] >> Yeah. Could Could the teachers introduce themselves? Sure. Yeah. I'm Aaron Crooks, so I teach first grade at UPS.
005I'm Melissa Green, so I teach kindergarten. I'm Stacy Payne, I'm the journeys teacher. Even if I'm the pathways teacher. Uh, I teach special education teacher. Brittany Able, first grade. Jennifer Montel, special education teacher. Lindsay Paulson, first grade. Kayla Breaker, kindergarten. >> [applause] >> Oh. Oh. Thank you so much [applause] for all you do for us. Thank you so much. Right now, we're K through 12 now at level one across the corporation. Okay. So, what's as far as the next step, is that a another year, or how does that work time wise? Uh, you know, level one was probably the biggest challenge because it was all brand new to us. Uh, trying to figure out, you know, um, what are we doing here because HRS is a little bit different than what we've been used to
006in terms of school improvement plans. So, we had to kind of get used to that. It was some areas that as teachers, you know, we don't think about as much in terms of school safety and things like that. But, level two and level three is more curriculum and instruction and so, that's going to go a lot faster because that's that's the air they breathe. is Now, I like the view. We're finding the EPST. Yeah. >> from there. We put it through the school board for an additional >> Well, the batteries are just out. Oh, the batteries are out. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah. So, at any rate, um level two and three are going to go much faster because that's their that's their wheel wheelhouse and so, yeah, I'd say I don't know, Matt. I
007don't Matt, I don't want to put you on the spot, but what would you see it be a reasonable time for like sometime probably maybe next year sometime definitely next school year. This whole thing has been like learning a language, right? But, when you get into curriculum instruction, when you get into to teacher efficacy, that's a language we've been speaking for a long time. We've been immersed in the PL C model for so long and the Marzano model for so long that a lot of that comes out. So, it's continued like like I know I went to with I think Miss Abel was with me or a few of who I went with you guys to Birmingham. That was a lot of stuff in 2 days. I was cross-eyed. So, those those workshops will continue
008on for level 2 and 3 the same at the same rate. Yes, the the conference that they have in January in San Antonio, that's always the year that they the conference that they recognize schools and school corporations across the country who have earned another level of certification. And next January EPS will be recognized as well as the school corporation as a whole because we will now have all of our schools at level 1. And we may even have some schools at level 2 by then. But there's no hurry in all this. So, there's no pressure to get this done as soon as possible. We wanted to work at the the right pace so that it's becoming a meaningful process. This is the old way of school improvement plans were about checking off the box. Check
009this box, we do this. Check this box. This is a lot more deeper and meaningful because we're all taking a look at ourselves and what we could do to to provide a better higher quality education for our students. Okay. It just keeps the continuity going then. Yep. >> Okay. All right. Thanks. Congrats. I would congratulate you all as well. I And again, this was you know, going to be a tough year. We knew that. We knew that going in. When Mrs. Whitaker left, I mean, she was here for a very long time. And you know, so it it's difficult to make that change from one year to the next. And to be able to pull this off during this year of transition meant that you all have worked very, very, very hard. And we appreciate
010that and appreciate all the hard work that you put in. And we so much uh appreciate, you know, leadership getting getting you through this, and we just uh again to celebrate uh your achievement, and we'll just take it on up to the next step. So, thank you all so much for for for coming and and celebrating. Thank you. And thank you, Arnold, for all you do. Um accolades uh you know, you've uh too bad your uh family left but couldn't hear us uh uh go on and on more about you, but we do appreciate you and and all the hard work you do and all the things you do to watch out for our corporation, so we really appreciate you. So, anything further? Just ditto. Okay. Um before we get to the consent agenda, um
011I'd like to keep keep my questions about uh position and not about people. So, I I had a few questions and they got answered ahead of time, but I had some other questions, and it's related to the school psychologist-in-training positions. Um they are not something that I've seen before, and so uh I did get a number of questions answered. Uh I understand these positions are paid for out of a grant, that they're 4-year uh uh positions, that the positions will keep. They are considered teacher positions. But the people that have them, which is one of my questions later, um, and they people will keep their uh, salary schedule as it is now, um, some of the questions I have is do we have these positions on our schedule? Are these Do we have job descriptions?
012Have the board approved those job descriptions? That's a good question. I don't believe that we had the board approve the job descriptions. We took the school psychologist position and obviously there pieces of this that that these people will not be doing. We edited that job description for the positions that we posted on Nimble. Okay, so I mean cuz usually we don't put anybody in positions until we formally have those positions and we usually don't formally have those positions until the vote board votes to make that position. Did the And Christina, I'm not sure on this. When the board approved to vote for the the sub award through the Seeds Grant and that piece being the school psychologist in training, did that approve those positions? We didn't approve the job descriptions that approve what that position
013was. Okay. So that's Okay. I don't think it included that. Yeah, cuz I mean we've uh, created a number of positions through the years and I this is just you know, one that Sure. I haven't seen. I guess that was for you know, my fault. Um I sort of saw this as a temporary. Um This wasn't a position that we would have, you know, long term. It was a It's a something we we would approve of through the grant. And I guess that's what I was thinking that if we're approving the grant, we're approving uh the position. That was my misunderstanding. >> uh so that's that's my fault. Um It is a It is important that it uh if we can provide you those questions uh at a later date, we'd like to get these
014positions taken care of because uh that does impact uh the important conversations we're having on staffing. And I it impacts that. Um and there were there are uh opportunities here for us to save money for the school corporation. Uh we're factoring that in. We're trying to Our goal is to save um uh $500,000 uh this year uh if not more. We have to cut uh um up to a million dollars. And so uh taking some of these uh individuals out of the classroom will actually save some some a lot of money for the school [snorts] corporation and is a big part of saving that $500,000. Um and I understand a degree comes with this position. It does. Yes. It's a education specialist degree in school psychology. Yes. So the grant pays for that schooling. So
015is that a master's or a It is a step above a master's. It's an an education specialist degree. So a little bit below doctor, a little bit above a a master's. It's about 63 to 67 hours depending on which university you go through. Okay. And who pays for the college fees? The SEATS project does. The grant does. That's That's part of the budget of it of that grant. >> Okay. Will any of the classes be during the day? Some of them can be. It depends on which um which school we go with. Um this is uh a hybrid type of program, so some of these will be in the evenings. Some of them will be on Saturdays. They could potentially be during the school day if we would go with uh ISU's program, for example.
016So I I know that it gets reimbursed, but so we would be paying people to go to school and get their higher education degree. Um did we advertise this? Yes. We This was part of the grant and every person that we spoke with when we interviewed, this was part of the interview process. Yes. Did What I mean was it put out there corporation-wide? Yes. >> in the corporation could Yes. apply for it? Yes. It's been on Nimble and has been sent out uh usually every Friday Robinson's an email out to the corporation that says, "Check our postings." Um we ended up having 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 We had eight people who applied for the position. Okay. So there was Did people know that that's degree was part of the package? Yes. Seems
017like you would have got more than eight people if they knew they could get a higher education degree while they were making their regular salary and getting paid to go to school during the day. Not every Not every one of the the options is going to school during the day. Um like I said, one of them is, you know, giving up a Saturday once a month to go and do that, or evening classes. Also going to school during the summer, and we don't pay them to to do that during the summer. That's what they would be committing to with this grant. We don't pay them a stipend during the summer, but they still very much may be taking 6 hours 7 hours during the summer in order to complete this degree on time. Right, but
018I know other people in the master's schedule they did that on their own dime, too. Sure. So, I just wanted to make sure that the the everybody knew about this knew that that was an opportunity that they had. Mhm. Okay. >> Um and I can I can share that job posting with you, so you can see exactly what that looked like, um and was an opportunity for anybody who was interested in that. Um it's certainly not something that we just posted internally, either. It was posted on our site for um a couple of months, actually. Um we interviewed about a month into the position being posted. So, I believe it was posted either February 12th or 13th and uh we interviewed for those positions right before spring break. Um in fact, it was right before
019spring break, because we uh did not know exactly how many we could hire going into spring break, because we needed to work um some budget pieces out there with IU. So, I was working on that, I remember, over spring break. So, it was after that that uh the hiring decisions were made. Yeah. And um Dr. Sanders, you mentioned that afterwards, the program that they had three choices, if we had a position here for psychologist, they would could have that or they could go somewhere else or they could go back to the classroom. And my concern is what if we don't have a position in the classroom for them to go back to? And you know, with a you know, what you know, I hate to make somebody a promise four years down the road that
020we don't know if we can fulfill such a promise. Well, they're they are still employees of RBB. So, there was there's no resignation. They're not leaving They haven't left the school corporation. They're still all quality employees. So, they're we would I would think we would have to have just cause for not giving them a position when they come back. I think I think all four of these individuals, and by the way, I was not part of the interview process at all. But all I believe all four are interested in doing this as a future career. So, don't anticipate those individuals wanting to go back to the classroom. I think they liked the idea of they feel like they bring that valuable experience in the classroom to this role of school psychologist and so they see
021themselves as being more effective support to the teachers because they've walked in their shoes. And that's the whole point of the the the grant. You know, I've always believed that the more people you have available for students, the better uh, services we're going to be able to to provide to them. And the the more people you have supporting teachers, the more it helps our teachers uh, take a just a little bit more off their off their plate. And so that's why we thought this is a great opportunity uh, for our school corporation uh, to get uh, now at the end of the the four years and all four of them are not going to get school psychologist positions here. Uh, I wish we had that kind of money, but they're they're not they're not. Uh,
022there is always that chance that an individual may say, "You know, I really miss the classroom and I want to go back to teaching." And because they've they've stepped out to do the take this opportunity, um, and they're still our employees, I don't I don't see how we could not promise them uh, a position when they come back. It may not be the exact same position they have right now, but uh, they're they're all highly qualified highly effective uh, employees, teachers and uh, I think we would uh, jump at the chance to have have them back if if they would like to. If Patricia didn't have a note, it's possible they may they could have to displace somebody in the classroom. Uh, you know, in my uh, my eight, nine years, that's never happened. >>
023Right. It seems unlikely. >> So we're, you know, I don't want us to um, hold us back on Right. a possibility that we just never see. Right. Um, what happens if they get halfway through and it's not for them. What, you know, they're halfway through the program. >> Mhm. Somebody else can't come in because there's not enough time left to do it. So, we've had >> happens? Yeah, we actually had that happen on a couple of the grants, the TEMS and the SMART, where we've had some people leave in the middle. Um we don't have them sign anything um that they're going to stay with us for 4 years. Um we have had a couple that have started their degrees and have dropped out of the program and for different reasons. They've either left positions
024to take something else or to move out of state. Um this one is a little bit different because the degree is three or four years, depending on the school that they go with, and it's a 4-year grant. Um the TEMS and SMART with the counselors was a 2-year degree, but a 4-year grant. So, in those cases, we were able to pick up some people and go ahead and finish paying for schooling. Um in fact, we just hired uh a teacher or sorry, a counselor at the beginning of Mm. Goodness. November, December. Something like that um into the SMART grant who had already started her counseling license. Um and we would have we still had time to help her finish on that, and she works for a counsel as a counselor for us at EECC. Um
025so, there are it's hard to say because you don't know exactly what the situations are going to be or when they arise. Um but thankfully, with these federal grants, we work really closely with our liaison there. Um and they're really good about helping us come up with alternatives. Um they don't want to take the money back. I know that sounds silly, but it's actually more of a hassle for them to take the money back. Um They're bugging me constantly to spend excess cost. And in a lot of ways, it's hard to spend the excess cost once once it starts to build up. Um just for the seeds grant alone, we received our first year of funding for the seeds grant um just shortly into January. And that first year, Debbie, you'd have to help me
026on it that we've received was um 758,000 um that we received from them in order to go ahead and start the grant. Well, what happens on these federal grants is when they start on January 1st, but we don't start the school year until July 1, August 1 on contracts, then we're already 7 to 8 months behind because we haven't been paying anybody on these grants. So, that's where all of these grants that are going out to public schools across the entire country, we're already starting to build up excess cost just simply because of timing with it. So, that's where we have to as the the government says, they don't want us to plan ahead for excess costs, but they want us to plan ahead for excess costs. In other words, we want you to think
027about how you can make modifications to the grant down the road. We just want don't want to know that you're thinking about how to make modifications. Um so, it's an interesting situation to be in because I can't really talk with our federal um contractor through the grant about how we would do this. And in in our case, we were able to hire four instead of three um and still have an excess cost at the end of this grant of over $200,000. Um but she does not want to know that now. She wants to wait until the grant is up and running, and then we put in modifications to the financial the the budget side of the grant. Um so, it is you do have to plan ahead, but they don't necessarily want you to start
028submitting those things right away. So, to answer your question, Dana, I don't know exactly how that would work out. Um, a lot of it would depend on what the government allows us to do with the grants in order to open that position back up and then would they allow us to hire someone with a counseling degree? Would they allow us to hire someone with a social work degree? Um, would it have to be a school psychologist? Um, would we be able to to have someone We actually have someone now who has a license as a school psychologist, but she's let that expire. If we were able to pick her up on the grant, um, you know, if she was interested, would we be able to get her re-licensed and bring her back in in that
029capacity? So, a lot of different options there and it's just hard to say exactly what would happen until the scenario pops up. Um, but we have experienced that with the TIMSS grant and the SMART grant. Um, and thankfully, we found a lot of flexibility in what we can do with that. Um, in fact, Mr. Dixon's probably tired of me talking about what do we do? How do we spend this? Um, is there any anybody else that we can hire? So. Any other questions? >> Well, I was going to just mention to you on the on the grants, I I talked to to Dr. Sanders and Ms. Barrett. We've been We've been more than blessed with grants. And when I started 7 years ago, my biggest concern was grant money runs out at some point. And
030then can we maintain those positions with our internal funding? As legislators, guidelines change, it's going to become tougher and tougher with the education fund. But we've That That grant is from the federal government, correct? Correct. And I'm guessing there's a big shortage of school psychologists. It's what they're trying to to backfill that. So, they're providing the funding for it. It takes them out of our education fund, correct? >> Yes. Including the benefits and everything. Teacher stay on the pay schedule. >> Mhm. Okay. They stay on turf. Okay. And then in four years like you said, we're not we may not need four people. We definitely will not need four need is definitely different than want. Mr. Dixon would say, I would want four school psychologists and I would want to hire every single one of
031them. >> Um the budget says we cannot afford to do that. Right. >> Um we're already looking ahead. Um we have a school psychologist position open right now. We don't have one single applicant for it. Um and this position opened up [clears throat] back in January, February. Right. We don't have have a person for this. So, we have two school psychologists right now trying to man our entire district. And so, we are paying contracted services for That's what I So, but that'll come off of our that'll come off of our pay payroll and the contracted services, correct? >> Yeah, we have to use contracted services. We either use that through the education fund or through Medicaid, one or the other depending on on where we are at that time. Um so, we already have a
032need for a school psychologist. Um Karen Nystrom is never going to retire and I'm just going to put that out into the universe so that we don't see any retirement come from Karen Nystrom anytime soon. Um but I know that she's not going to be here forever and I do know that there will come a time probably here in the near future that Karen will say, "I'm done." Right. Probably when she's one of two school psychologists in a district of almost 2,700 is when she's going to say, "I'm done." But um we have a need. I know our surrounding school districts have a need. Right. >> There will be jobs for these people and the whole point of the grant was to um have additional school psychologist in the field. That's when we see these
033jobs pop up on the federal grant side of things, it's because there's a need. And so they start pouring money into that to get people licensed and get people into these careers. Okay. Yes, I Yeah, makes sense to me. It's We're getting the advantage of it. So let's take another education fund as well. Oh, eight of them internal. No, we did have I guess I was going to ask the question. The four that that you're recommending are are they internal or was one of those an external maybe or two of them? I don't know. They are all internal. Okay. Um we also had two external and we interviewed one of those external candidates. Okay, so we said that So we have six internal and two external then. Correct. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. You're
034welcome. Due to our policies, we have two choices to make and I'll leave it up to my colleagues to decide which choice they want to do. We could um table those to the next meeting or we could uh actually create those positions right now. The position of psychologist in training. We wouldn't We don't actually approve job descriptions, but we'd be creating it without looking at a job description um based on what we've heard tonight. Um so if you're comfortable in doing that, we could move forward that way and then fill those positions. Um or again, we could table those appointments until they bring the position to us. Can we take the job description that was in the posting, have Jennifer uh go print it off and give the board that job description and approve that?
035We've approved We've approved before the job description the same night we voted the person in. We've done that before. Right? Yeah, I That'll postpone us cuz the positions that are these folks are leaving have to be advertised, too. And we don't We have another meeting in May, so it gives us a Correct. >> Right, but we're making staffing decisions now. Correct, I get it. I get >> And we need to know uh what positions are going to be available or not. >> And they did post the position. >> They did post it. >> wasn't created. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, let's create Let's create it tonight, then. >> Yeah. Are you okay with creating it tonight? Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah. No, cuz I won't have time to look through the job description, so >>
036Okay. It's fairly short, um but I can do either way. Okay, there's a general consensus that we should move forward, so is there a motion to create a position of psychologist in training? I will move to create the position of school psychologist in training. Yeah, I'll second. Moved and seconded. I'd love to discuss it. Any more discussion? >> [laughter] >> So, and this is all funded through the C grant for 4 years. 100%. And we start off with three, but the budget allows us to do four across the board. Yes, and and IU also made um they did not want their full-time school psychologist uh to be employed by RBB. They wanted to keep her under the IU umbrella. So, they actually took her in through contracted services, which allowed us a little bit more
037of a cushion there as well. And that's the one I can't say her name. Starts with a K. It does. Hannah Kasab. >> She's an IU employee. She is. She works with us now on the SMART Grant. She will actually continue on the SMART Grant um about a third of the time. She'll be working on the SEEDs Grant about a third of the time. And she received IU received another it's not called SEEDs but another school psychologist grant in a neighboring corporation and she'll be working in that as well. Okay, as an employee of IU As an employee through contracted services with all as an employee of IU through contracted services with all of these schools. So the sub-award agreement that you all approved last month part of that the funds that are going to
038IU are paying for Hannah's services to us. Mhm. Okay, thank you. I'll just make two comments before the vote. One, please bring the position job descriptions and the positions to us first. Um so we know what we're uh looking at. And two, if a position like this comes up before I think extra efforts need to be made in getting that out there. Um you know, yes, getting it posted, you know, Robin putting out there but if I would have looked and saw psychologist in training as a position to me that's not going to sound very exciting. Uh honestly, but if I found out that wow, that in training is going to get me a high-level degree and it's going to be paid for Mhm. and I'm going to get my regular salary Mhm. >> and
039in regular increases in salary while all that's happening Mhm. that's a whole lot different. Mhm. So I think a a really I hadn't heard anything about it until till this. So that's why I'm really so surprised because I I do think there would have been more applicants if they known what the benefits of being a a psychologist in training were. So, I would like it that when there's those kind of extra benefits that extra efforts be made to make sure that the word gets out there so people know um because again the the wording of what the title of the position is not doesn't look like it's very much a high high-paying job or high-fruitful job. So, um any other comments? All those in favor say I. I. Opposed? Motion carries. Um now we'll move
040on to the consent agenda. Um sorry. Um we have approval of minutes for March 24th, 2026 uh the regular uh board meeting. We have the financial report which is the treasurer's report for March of 2026. Uh Mr. Durnell, the claims, please. Thank you, Mr. President. For gross wages on March the 13th, 2026 is $856,877.57. For gross wages mini poll payroll, March the 26th, 2026 is $1,194.42. For gross wages on March the 27th, 2026 is $729,901.03. For total in that area is $1,587, $973.02. For claims and prepays from 3/1/26 to 3/31/26, $1,154,939.34. For claims regular vouchers for April 21st, 2026 is $616,454.79. For total in that area of $1,771,394.13 for a grand total $3,359, $359,000 $367.15. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, sir. We also have uh personnel re- resignations, retirements, non-renewals, leaves, and terminations, C1
041through 19. And personnel appointments and transfers, D1 through 23. And we do have a donation this evening, and it is equipment from Boston Scientific. Um we're excited and very excited about that. Um Dr. Sanders, would you uh give our field trips uh report on those? Uh absolutely. We have uh four uh field trips uh for your approval tonight. Uh the first one is the high school uh concert band to uh Decatur uh Central High School uh for a performance. They'll perform on April 24th. And then on April 25th, uh they will be going to King's Island. Uh and then the second one is uh the uh band camp for our uh state championship uh band uh going to Vincennes University, and that'll be uh July 19th through the 24th. The uh high school senior class
042trip to uh Kentucky Kentucky Kingdom uh is May 28th, and uh the high school drama club is going to King's Island on Saturday, May 9th. Okay, thank you. Do we have a motion on the consent agenda? I move approval of the consent agenda. I'll second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Uh quick quick question on the um This this Can address Mr. Ackerman? Yeah. What He loves that. What What is I'm just curious. I didn't I've never heard this term Odyssey students from choir. What's Odyssey mean? >> That's vocal Odyssey. Is that vocal Odyssey? That's one of the choirs. Is that a new name? Yeah. Okay. I I I'd never heard that name before. I just didn't know if it was like a hybrid. It It's the choir It's a singing choir. It's not the performing
043choir. Okay. Okay, but they're they're going to be going with the band to do this. Okay. Yeah, it's just a new term. I'm just curious about it on on that one. Uh And then I had a quick question on uh the don't drama club. That was not during the school day. That's That's on a Saturday. Correct? Yes. That trip to King's Island. Okay. All right. Perfect. Well, and just I am so impressed by the leadership of the senior class that they decided to do the senior trip after all the class days were over so that everybody could participate. I just um I just think that's terrific that they wanted to make sure everybody could participate. So, I'm I'm just so Yeah. And uh yeah, I that's just so mature and so inclusive. I was I
044was blown away. Yeah. And I want to congratulate Ms. Waterford for great career at high school. And uh Ms. Calhoun, 30 36 years? Mr. Shaw, is that right? 36 Yeah. Yeah, I I liked her her resignation letter retirement letter is pretty good. >> Yeah. She's a And Ms. Pittman's going to retire this year as well. Yeah, they And I And I heard Payne way back in the day and I know she was she's done a great job in the guidance department. So, congrats to those two on their great careers. Thank you. And um [clears throat] Mr. Burr says that uh the déjà vu of having him and Curtis Linkerd in the hallways again is a little bit otherworldly, but Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Dr. Sanders,
045would you like to make a couple Yes, uh Brad just mentioned uh Pam Waterford um you know, one of the nicest people I've ever >> Absolutely. Uh uh and she will definitely be missed. Uh I haven't asked her what she's doing, but hopefully it I hope it's singing. It will be. And um Christina Cowden uh 36 years as as a teacher. Uh now I knew her husband uh and uh from Craig Cowden uh from Martinsville for a long time. So, I've had the pleasure of working with both of them. And uh I just love them both. They're they're great people and And their kids. >> I wish Christina and Pam the very best luck. Well, I would like to recognize Brian Paulson. Um I love that man to death. He's a a great man, a
046wonderful man. He uh helped all three of my children through show choir. Taught them uh great amount. Um he uh uh Some of you know that he's basically like family to me. Um when after he moved here from the uh Boston area uh Waltham uh it ended up I I think my son John was the second class he had. Uh but we got really close. I ended up being head dad for him for many years. Um, and uh, he was one year's head dad for Ferda and him. Um, but uh, anyway, he uh, was spectacular with the students. Um, they all learned so much. He taught all my kids so much. Um, we got really close. Um, he started coming over to our house about every night watching Wheel and Jeopardy. Um, we watched Lost
047together. Um, and uh, we'd always have to watch the previous seasons before we started the new one. Um, so we were really close or we are really close. Um, I love that man. Uh, he's great. He's outstanding. Um, I just really expect respect him. Uh, you know, all my kids love him. They learned so much from from him. I've learned so much from him. Um, and I know there's a lot of kids out there that have um, I saw him, my nephew, in here earlier. Um, he left. He's probably sad. Um, he's a strong or soft-hearted kid, strong boy, but soft-hearted kid. So, um, but uh, you know, there's a lot of us that that's going to miss Brian in the schools. Uh, again, he's a wonderful guy and >> [clears throat] >> we're sorry
048that he's not with us in the schools, but um, he's a he's again a great man, wonderful man and just uh, breaks my heart to accept his resignation tonight, but uh, just couldn't do it without saying how much I love you. >> [clears throat] >> Now, I must carry on with business. That's my job. Yeah. Um, so next we have consideration to approve batch key uh, fees for the 2026-27 school year. Dr. Sanders. Uh yes, so um we've always tried at Edgewood schools to um support our families uh not only with uh obviously an excellent education, but uh uh before and after school child care and uh we try to keep those costs uh down as much as possible. We're so lucky to have the Boys & Girls Club to provide that service at a
049very minimal cost. Uh we can have continued to provide latchkey uh um before and after school child care um on our campus uh in order to give parents options. Um but as I mentioned earlier in the meeting uh with the financial position the state of Indiana has put school corporations in um we're trying to uh find every penny we can uh in order to continue to provide that quality education. So, we have uh increased the fees uh for latchkey and uh that information was provided to you uh in the the board packet. Um uh I think um we have Well, we have um right now this year we have 85 uh students in the morning and 65 uh in the afternoon. So, we still have a good number of of uh families who uh participate
050and utilize that. Uh I'll tell you what, I the increased cost also um I think will enable us to put that money into um uh reaching trying to pay a a competitive, uh, salary, uh, to these folks that, uh, that that you know, this is kind of a job where you come in early in the morning, you work in the morning, and then you have to come back in the afternoon. And, uh, there's not that many people out there that that will do that for, uh, what we we were paying them. And so, um, we are recommending that that we increase these fees. It's not something we'd like to ever do, um, but we're still cheaper, uh, than most, uh, opportunities around us. Do we have a motion? I move to approve the latchkey fees
051for school year 2026-2027. I'll second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Quick quick question, Dr. So, latchkey in the morning there's 85 right now. Is it still Starting at 6:00. What time does it start? 6:00 in the morning. 6:30? Okay. And then, 6:30. in the afternoon, to I don't know what our participation is to Boys & Girls Club. Is that Do they go from the same time frame in the afternoon as the Boys & Girls Club? Uh, I think Boys & Girls Club might go later. Um, I think about an hour later. Um, Heather can speak to that. Yeah. I don't know what time they leave. Okay. Okay. >> I'm pretty sure it's 6:00. It may be as late as 6:30. Uh, but it is open. >> Club, they uh, get on a bus here. We
052take them over there. >> down there. Uh, and that that Boys & Girls Girls Club is just in the afternoon. Uh, we would be interested in partnering with the Boys & Girls Club maybe someday in the future for a morning. Right. >> Um, but, uh, I think the Alaska enables parents to be able to where they they would just stay right here on campus. Right. I didn't know if a lot of the younger kids stayed on campus and the older ones went to Boys and Girls Club. That's what I'd like to know a little bit more about that for the future cuz I know they they've kept their costs at at $25 a year, but they've got a lot of private donations, too. >> Yeah. Boys and Girls Club they're just a great partner. As
053you'll see later, we're partnering with them for summer school somewhat. Okay. And we're hoping maybe we can expand that partnership down the road. So, we're always working together, meeting with Boys and Girls Club leaders, and trying to trying to find ways to just enhance what we do for our students and our families. This kind of I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself, but is the latchkey self-funded or are we are we supplementing it with from the education fund? >> We've always supplemented it. Okay. >> Yes. Okay. And then with summer school, would it be would it pay for itself through state reimbursement? We never get enough from the state to fully fund summer school. We get Okay. some back, but not nearly enough. Yeah. Okay. That's something that we over the time we may
054have to look at. I mean, I don't want to give up summer school, but with the restraints the govern- the state's putting on us. Yeah, we're we're looking at that um uh in terms of the conversations we've had this year has been really on transportation of uh we're going to try to In the past we Well, we used to not provide transportation at all. And then a few years ago we started it. Uh and uh we take students right to their their home. Uh we're going to look into the possibility of having uh some group stops so we can reduce the number of buses Right. >> because fuel for buses right now is extremely high and so we're and that's kind of the mindset we have right now is is where can we save some
055money. Okay. All right. Thank you. I know you'll be shocked by this Mr. Tucker, but they've continued to add requirements for summer school, but they have not up the reimbursement for summer school. So second grade, third grade, any kid who has not passed I-read, second grade is still not mandatory, but any kid after third grade um that hasn't passed I-read, it does become mandatory. If not, there are pieces that we have to put in place for them during the school year. Um and then of course as Mr. Ackerman would, you know, attest to the high school students for credit recovery, that's such a big piece there um with our summer school programming. So um Matt and Andy are not really reducing our numbers, but we're probably a little bit more choosy about who we do
056take in summer school simply because we can't take everybody. We just can't afford to. But the mandates are coming. Um well, they're there. The mandates are there. Um but we have not seen an increase in that. Okay. And we're still going to do the food truck in the summer time? Mrs. Coffee's going to do that. >> for the summer school students? Yeah, I know she would go out to those stops in the summer with the truck and grew out a lot of good comments from people and that's really helpful for folks. I don't know if she's going to continue that this summer. I haven't That is a good Mrs. Coffee question um that I don't know an answer to. Is she continuing it out in the community for summer feedings? I'm pretty sure that Mrs.
057Coffee like it's free for the kids but Correct. breakfast and lunch. Right. Are you talking about the uh the food truck. Yes. >> for the food cuz I thought that was all for the >> for our students participating in summer school, we are definitely having free breakfast and lunch, but we're hoping to continue what we did last year, which was we provided food meals for families to come pick up. >> Correct. >> And we haven't received approval, official approval on that yet, but that's in the works. Perfect. Okay, yeah, I know a lot of people really appreciate that in the community, so thank you. Carried? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now, on to that summer school program. Yes. So, we are once again doing summer school, and and really
058the program that I shared with you is similar to what we've done in the last several years. Um The difference is we're going to partner with the Boys & Girls Club for kindergarten and first grade. They have a excellent remediation program. Andy Scholl and Matt Wooden have been talking with the Boys & Girls Club, and we're going to dip our toe into that partnership by working having our kindergarten first graders go to the Boys & Girls Club for summer school. What that will do will enable EPS then to focus on i-Ready 3 remediation and helping get those students past the finish line. And I like that idea of having that focus and with i-Ready 3 carrying so much weight more than ever, we want to make sure these kids pass and um and I believe
059isn't it true I'm glad we have our EPS teachers here. Isn't this the first the best year we've had in terms of percentage of students passing our third grade? And second grade. >> And second grade. And I had had the EIS do uh Okay. Uh so that those dates will be June 1st through the 18th uh for EPS EIS um and the high school uh will be June 1st through the 19th and then junior high has more of a jumpstart program that is July 20th through the 30th um and the hours uh are all similar to that. Um I recommend your approval. Move approval of the 2016 summer school program. I'll second. Any second? Any discussion? I'd just ask a question for the administrators that you guys involved with the summer as far as summer
060cleaning because they won't they'll have to be out of by July. They'll be done, right, Mr. Mitchell? Mine will start instead of where they have a couple weeks where they have kids still in the building. Mine start the day that kids are out of the building and start cleaning lockers out. Okay. So yeah, I didn't know if you guys tag team like your custodians will go help out EIS and vice versa while summer school is going on or Okay. Arnold's Arnold's the director of the year, so that's that's the place. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure Arnold has it under control. All right, thanks. Second grade had the highest percentage pass? I I believe so. Uh Do we have a second grade teacher here? Congratulations to second grade. That's great. >> [applause] >> That is great. That's
061what we love to hear. Awesome group. Awesome group. Thank you. Anything further? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Uh next is consideration to approve uh sub for insurance pay uh for administrators. We've done this for teachers and now administrators. Yeah, you know, it's really worked out well um for us to implement this program. Uh it benefits our retiring teachers uh and uh you know, anytime we can do that, it's a good day. Uh it also benefits the school corporation and uh so it's worked out so well. Uh we explored the idea of expanding it to retiring administrators uh and uh obviously uh it will include uh the opportunity to to sub in the classroom, uh but it'll also benefit the school corporation in so many other ways. Um uh and so
062in the agreement, I list uh uh several different ways that they can sub or support the school corporation. Uh one of them is to serve as the expulsion examiner. That really will help us to have somebody who truly does have a neutral uh position uh uh to expulsions, uh transportation support. Uh there are sometimes where um our director of transportation, you know, life happens and sometimes uh she might have surgery or her parents she might have to help her parents out and she can't be here. And when she's not here, then uh I man the radio and support the the drivers. And sometimes that's a challenge with uh my other duties. I'll often be sitting in a meeting uh uh with a parent or uh with administrators or teachers uh and have uh one eye
063on the person I'm talking to and uh, and then my ear on the radio and and trying to uh, listen to both. Uh, so I would love to have somebody like that who could sub in that position or on those days where we're short bus drivers. Uh, where this person can come in and and drive uh, drive a school bus. Um, sometimes uh, uh, administrators, principals, assistant principals have to be out of the building um, for a variety of reasons and if it's uh, I would see this as if there's a a lengthy time that somebody might be out that we might have this uh, retired administrator come in and support the building uh, and support the other administrator. Um, uh, event assistants if we would need that. Uh, uh, construction project assistants. Uh, that's
064uh, takes up a lot of our time uh, and uh, addressing the construction projects we have. So I could see uh, that person helping in some way uh, and then serving as a substitute teacher. And really board it it would be uh, under my discretion, uh, my leadership to to determine uh, how this person would be used. There a motion? I'll move to celebrate plan through this year. There a second? He he moved approval. >> Okay, I I second. Any questions? Just and this is very the way I read it Dr. Trant, it's very comparable to what we do with our teachers, correct? What's that? >> It's very it's very comparable financially to the school as we do the sub teachers. Yeah. Okay, perfect. >> Sounds like the administrator though is going to end up
065working a lot more. Correct. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, yeah. So not sound like an easy day. All right. Thank you. Anything else? Oh, there's a pair of scissors. Hi. Hi. Motion carries. Next uh consideration to approve a declaration of surplus items. Uh yes, so um I don't know if everybody knows this, but uh the the farmhouse and the barn and the silos um that uh was we purchased that years ago and the uh gentleman who farms the land out here lived [clears throat] there for a while. And he has since moved into his own place and the house and the barns are very bad shape. Uh one of the barns is basically standing because it's leaning against a tree. Uh and so we have plans to um take down the farmhouse, the barns uh and
066um we're right now we're in the process of uh trying to get the asbestos removed before we can move on to actually taking the structures down. Uh the the silos up there are still uh in good shape uh and uh we would like to declare them as surplus in order to uh uh anybody that's interested. I don't know who goes around buying silos, but uh make them available. Uh one of them's 24 ft uh by six rings, whatever the heck that means. Uh 6,500 bushels, the other is 18 ft by six rings or 2,750 bushels. So, I recommend your approval. I move approval to approve declaration for surplus surplus items. I Any discussion? Do Do we have a contract for the demo, Dr. Sanders? Did Was that voted on at the last meeting? I wasn't
067I was not here at the last Is there a contract to demo the No. Okay, but that will That will come out at next another board meeting? Yeah, what we've been working on recently is getting with a company to first of all to determine if we had asbestos and and we do. So, now we're going to have to get rid of that before we can start tearing it down. So, one step at a time. Okay. Yeah, that cuz it is a liability that that building. It's All right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now, consideration to approve replacement of the Edward High School pool deck. Yeah, we've This is some It is unfortunate because it hasn't been really that long ago that that we replaced [clears throat] the pool deck
068tiles, but immediately we while it was under warranty we had issues with the tile um becoming loose, rusting, bulging. There's puddles, so the the surface wasn't level. Um and it's really become a safety hazard. Um Our own maintenance department once the warranty was out tried to keep it up and it's just continued to cause problems. So, we're recommending we had quotes done on this and we're going to have Jack Jack Laurie Group had the the lowest quote of $120,105 to replace the tile with an epoxy type flooring that will have like a it'll be rough you know so resist slipping and so if we can get that approved tonight we'll have that work done this summer. I move approval of the replacement pool deck. I'll second. Any discussion? And I understand this is coming out
069of the Oh yes thank you thank you Larry it's coming out of the general obligation bond. Okay and then did I'm going to put Martin on the spot did did we who vetted this Lori outfit is it Well this is a company that we've been using in a number of our projects uh current projects Okay. that we just finished. So yeah we have elementary schools quite a bit. And we're not if I if I read it maybe I misread the and maybe our could feed fill us in we're not replacing the tile we're putting this in The epoxy's going to cover the existing and it's just on the deck not in not down in the pool it's on the deck. Which will give it the great look for draining. Correct. Okay. Right and that's the
070our warranty is is gone for the previous contractor. And that was under VPS? Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. So what if the tile underneath that epoxy breaks loose will it still be held by the epoxy in place or would it How long the guarantee it for? I like to have that. >> 30 days forever I'd like it to Okay but it won't be really when he says epoxy I don't want it to be like super slick. It's going to have some That's okay. That makes sense then. It's got a little grit to it then. Okay. That's what pulls are going to now. Okay. All right. Got it. All right. Any further questions? All those in favor favor say I. I. >> I. Opposed? Motion carries. Next is consideration to approve uh the ready uh
0711 2.0 resolution. Yes, so um as you know uh the school corpora- corporation received a uh $500,000 grant uh through uh regional opportunity initiatives. Uh the organization that that uh supervises the whole grant process, uh the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, has asked for uh specific documentation that the construction bond uh dollars that we approved in the fall has that there's been 2,000 2,255,500 of that set aside for the biomedical life sciences project. I sent them uh uh the documentation I sent them was uh all the the documents that we approved as far to the as far as the bonding process. Uh but they wanted uh something very specific, so I asked Christine, "What can we do?" And she suggested uh a resolution and we checked with uh IEDC and they said that would be acceptable.
072Okay. Good motion. I'll move to approve the Ready 2.0 resolution. I'll second it. Yep. Is there Did they give us any kind of timeline on this as far as making sure we get our we can receive our half a million? I Yes, well, we just >> we've got we've got the contracts in place to move forward. >> Yes, yeah. We the And we're in the process. We just met today talking about uh with our architect talking about the band choir expansion out here and also the biomedical life sciences project. And uh we have till 2028 to spend that that grant money. Okay. We'll we'll be uh unless there's a big setback that we don't expect, but uh we should be good on that timeline. Okay. Okay, moved and seconded. Any further? All those in favor
073say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next is consideration to approve the career coaching grant subaward agreement. Uh Jennifer Barrett. Yes, so this is one uh the career coaching grant is a subaward that we're receiving through ROI. ROI receives the grant through the state. The career coaching grant um essentially pays for the salary and benefits of Susan Harrington, who works as our career coach at the high school. The grant runs from January 1st through June 30th of 2027. Uh the total amount of that grant is $112,476. I'll move approval of the career coaching grant award subaward agreement. I second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Did Did we get the first installment already, Ms. Barrett? Uh this is a reimbursement grant. Okay. >> what Mrs. Tate does is um about every quarter or so, she'll submit a
074reimbursement to ROI. She'll show what we've paid Mrs. Harrington during that time. Okay. >> They send us the reimbursement for her salary and benefits. Okay, so it started January 1 of '26, but she didn't sign it till March of '26. Mrs. Peterson. Correct. >> why I was a little nervous. I want to make sure we got our money. >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um that's pretty typical with these types of grants. Um that the money is already there in ROI's funding from the state. It just takes them a little bit longer to get the sub awards out. In this case, this career coaching grant is an an extension of the first career coaching grant uh that we've had. Mr. Ackerman left a year and a half 2 years in place. Um so um from ROI's perspective,
075they're basically extending all of these grants that they already had in place with the neighboring counties and school districts. >> Okay. Perfect. Thank you. >> Anything further? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We are tabling item number 14. And so consideration to award bid for the softball and baseball turf projects. Uh Dr. Sanders. Yes. Um Uh this is uh I think a really exciting night for us. Um Uh we strive very hard uh on uh in our school corporation to provide our students and staff with uh highest quality facilities. And um Um and it really people don't always understand this, but we are in competition uh for students. The state has put us in that position where we have to compete. And um believe me, uh parents take advantage of
076that. Uh and uh particularly in this case, if they have a softball or baseball player um and uh they they will uh look at neighboring school corporations and see what kind of facilities that they have and uh exercise their their option. So, uh not only does it provide us with a safer facility having turf, uh it helps with the maintenance uh of the the fields. Um when uh and I've been there. I think it was a few years ago we had a sectional. We were hosting a sectional, but we had a lot of rain and even though we were hosting a sectional, uh in order to play the games, we had to go over and use the turf field at at North High School. Uh and so with the turf, we won't have to to
077do that anymore. Um the we had uh we obviously went through all the the requirements of advertising for bids. And uh last Wednesday, we uh we uh opened the bids. Uh uh Skillman uh uh looks and the architect Lancer Architect, uh they vet the the uh the uh bids. And uh so they the the company that had the lowest bid, uh uh and really there was uh I think it was the person works for Lancer, right, Martin, that that is the expert in field turf. >> She was a subcontractor of ours. Okay. And uh so she will look at the the products that these companies are offering and making sure that that they're they're uh quality. And uh so the the base bid came in at uh $2,603,000. $603, $1,221. Uh Did I get that
078right, did I? Uh 2,000,000 603,221 dollars and we had two alternatives. The chain link fence will be 51,977 dollars. And then alternative two is a sidewalk that will go from the junior high across the field by the baseball field and and provide our students with a walking an area to walk if they're walking down towards the high school. We that's just part of the project. Eventually we're going to have and a walking path right along the baseball and football field complexes and to provide some safety for our students who are walking after school. So that that alternative two was 80,685 dollars. So the total bid was 2,735,856 dollars and that came in under the estimated cost. So we're in good shape. And the work will start this summer. Vulture project. I'll second. Martin, do you
079want to say anything? Well, you came all this way. I didn't mean to steal your thunder. I have Can I ask Martin a question? Uh sure. So this is going to take care of all the backstops at both also correct? The softball and the baseball. Okay and I'm a little concerned. I just want to make sure that we're going to get this done Dr. Sanders. The safety going from the junior high to the high school. I just hate to to those kids walking along that road. This isn't going to take it all the way. It's just going to take a part way. >> part. Right. We're in the process right now of getting measurements for that part of the project. Okay. Uh and once we get those measurements, then we'll go through the same process
080and um and tag that up right along with this. It In the In um In the end, it'll probably be happening all about the same That's what I Yeah, cuz it's just a It's scares me to death all the time. They're still >> We're just approving this part of the project now. Okay. All right. I'd really like to see it once we get all these connections made. Um I've always wanted to see where we act had a true walking path. Yeah. >> Where it was measured out. Yeah. And they start here. And you know, maybe something along the way of history or something about the school corporation. Something to you know, and now you've gone a tenth of a mile or whatever. I I think it would be um that would you know, really be
081helpful for the community too. You know, and then so I would really like to see eventually that we add that. I don't think it'd be very expensive once the trail is made to Right. to mark it. Several years ago, I wrote a grant. It was a grant for $30,000. Uh and in another community. Um but we put uh exercise equipment along the path also. Uh and it was for the community. Okay. And that and it uh You know, we're in my tennis shoes. I just At least we think we we need to be looking at the tennis courts before too long. Yeah. It's uh We put a patch on uh quite a few years ago to get us by a couple of years. It's been way past that. So, the uh I'd really like to
082see something happen. >> Yeah, we're we're always looking ahead. You know, we're wrapping up some projects, getting ready to start some others, and then we have others that are kind of out in the near future, and then we we want to be prepared. There's always a need, but we want to be prepared uh for when we qualify for additional bond dollars. Okay. Any further discussion? All those in favor say "Aye." Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now we move to our business manager's report, and we have Kathy Tate. Good evening. Um so, looking at the projections in front of you, um with the education fund and the operations fund right now, we have been on target with our projections, actually under, which has been really good and positive. Um we um I'm still making sure to
083move as much money over to Trust Indiana as possible. Anytime I see a balance that I can move, I move it over, and then I only pull it over when needed. So, I just want to make sure you guys are always aware that that's a constant in my process. Um we are working so hard as a team with all these changes that are happening with funding and everything, and we're meeting weekly, if not more than that. Um in very detailed conversations. Like, we are speaking names, we are speaking positions, we are speaking all kinds of things because we care so deeply about everything in this corporation. So, the details are very important to us. So, we are we have a really good team, and I know I mentioned that last time, but those are some
084things we are working on new procedures, new processes, just so everybody's spending properly, too. Um and nobody's just overspending just to overspend um just to make sure we're staying as low as we can with everything. Um and then one of the other things I know Brad had mentioned this before with the SEEK money. I wanted to make sure we do have that money coming in now. So that is something that has been Noah and I have been working on that and so that funding is coming in at this point. So it's helping build up those balances that were really high from those students. So Yeah, they were pretty excessive but we got I think the last month we had like 400,000 come in. So we are we're yep. So they're reimbursing. We're on target with
085everything. So I wanted to let you know that cuz I don't think you were here last month. So I wanted to make sure you were aware of that. So 30,000 for our portion correct? per student Yeah. Okay and then as far as the transfers are we up Is our goal to get to 15% of transferring from the We are staying under that right now. Well, I didn't know what percent we were at. >> We're at 250 per month is what we're I don't remember the exact percentage right now. Cuz we can go up to 15%. >> can go up to 15% but we're still staying under that right now. >> Okay. So All right, thank you. Do you guys have any questions? Thank you. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Wonderful steward of our funds.
086Yep. Okay. Next we have the assistant superintendent's report. You're very welcome. Yeah, just an update. Our first Edgewood Ready magazine is going to be available at our next board meeting. Uh we just got the um preview of that today from the printer. So I'm excited to bring that to you guys next month. We'll have them sitting out front for anybody who attends. Um information, the K-12 accountability um is going to start taking place in 2026-27. You may remember back in 2018, that was the last year that we received a letter grade as a district, as schools. Um it's starting again. And um I kind of cringe when I say it um because uh all the things that we didn't love about it are kind of back in place again. So, starting in um at the
087end of 2026, we're going to see our first letter grade scores across the state come out. Um 2025-26, I'm missing a five there, is considered year zero. What they mean by year zero is that we're going to receive an accountability grade um as a district and by school. Um but this is not necessarily going to count for us or against us. It's to give us information from year zero, so we kind of have a starting point. And then we can assess where we are. We can look at our our report card, if you will, and um use that information to make decisions about where we can um where we can just simply do better. What are we doing great? What can we do better? That's the type of information this is going to give. I
088gave you if if you really want to to dig into this more, uh this is the future of K-12 accountability. It really breaks it down into kindergarten through grade three. Um with all of these pieces, you're going to see three areas: academic mastery, growth, and career readiness. So, you'll see with kindergarten through third grade, we're focusing on ELA and math. That's the academic uh mastery for ILEARN. And then the students can earn additional points for passing I read. Um accelerated literacy, that's basically their growth on I read. School attendance, and then for our students who are English language learners, they can earn additional points when they pass their WIDA exam. So, we basically receive points by student. So, each student, depending up on their um individual goals, depending up on their individual progress, is how
089they earn points for their their their school and their district. If you go on down grades 4 through 8, there are additional pieces in there. You'll start to see uh that's where the growth comes in on I learn. That's also also where you will see um the uh coursework coming in for um high school level. So, students who are taking high school classes, you'll see things in there like completing a graduation plan. Um these things that Kelly Schlimmer's been doing for years. Um now our our part of um additional ways the students can earn points uh by being a student at Edgewood Junior High School. So, a lot of these pieces, I would even say at this point, all of these pieces, we already have in place and um our students can begin earning these
090points ASAP. Uh what's interesting with this, the high school piece um actually started with last year's graduates. So, um every school district uh across the state is going to their high school score is going to be based on last year's high school graduates, not this year's. It will be 1 year behind. Uh we're not really sure how this is going to look, and there are there are a lot of pieces out there that we're still trying to figure out. Everybody across the state is trying to figure out. Um but if you're interested in watching any of the webinars on it, I do have a couple of recordings. Um they're about 2 2 and 1/2 hours, but they are really interesting and go into more depth with all of this. Uh also, you'll see a list
091of enrollment. This is pretty close to where we're going to be starting out 26 27. Um you can see what's happening in some of these pathways that we've been talking about for the past few years. Um I'm excited to see that our biomedical pathway, 52 kids signed up for that principles of biomed. Um anatomy physiology, which is a dual credit Ivy Tech course, we have 69 kids signed up for that next year. Um that's going to be an interesting one for sure. Medical interventions is the third course there. We have 22 kids. You may wonder what happened to those 54 kids in anatomy and physiology. A lot of those kids are seniors. Uh we did not get that pathway completely built out in time for them to be able to take the third course, which
092was medical interventions. So, we we graduated several of them, but we're keeping several of those juniors um and and keeping several of those juniors in medical interventions. I don't know what the other Mr. Kerr is doing, but look at the growth there in those engineering classes. Uh the intro to engineering is the only pathway that starts with intro instead of principles. I always have to keep that in mind. We have 50 kids taking intro to engineering next year. 19 continuing on to that second course after taking the first one. Um marketing fundamentals continues to grow. Digital marketing is our third class there. We had six kids take it this year, 11 who will be taking it next year. Those are um our dynamos who do most of our work across the district on our website,
093all of our flyers, social media, all of those things. Um so it's exciting to see that. That principles of computing class, which is a computer science class, also growing up to 25. Um so it goes to show that um the work that we're doing down at the junior high level, down at EIS, down at EPS, where we're starting to build these pathways, you know, even just through things that Earth Fair, you think it's just a one-day thing, you know, that Earth Day is a one-day thing, but it starts getting them excited, starts to build their passions for what is coming down the road, and you know, we used to just hear from our little guys, "I want to be a police officer. I want to be a fireman. I want to be a teacher." because
094this is what they saw in their community, and now it's, "I want to be an engineer. I want to do, you know, all of these different things." So it's work that we're doing all the way down um I would even say go as far as to say all the way down into EECC and the exposure that we have there. Touch-a-Truck is coming up with those little guys here pretty soon. So it's it's definitely showing the the proof is in the pudding here with all of that. On the backside, you'll see a couple of upcoming items. Uh we are doing a second round of mentor training March 12th, 13th, and 14th. Um so we'll have another oh, nine to 10 mentors who will be trained across the district on those three days. And then uh this
095year is a little different at the end of the year. Instead of um one or two end-of-the-year teacher days, we have three. So the 22nd, 26th, and 27th. I did pretty well. You have a minute. The last 27 seconds uh >> [laughter] >> Dr. Sanders? Well, Mr. Durnall, I just want to point out that my report is only on the front page. I tried. Real- I almost just cut it off completely. >> I'll deal I'll deal with that after the meeting. Okay. All right. Uh just I'll make this quick. Uh I had a couple more uh congratulations that I'd like to shout out to and uh EIS ambassadors, uh they uh collected 319 boxes of cereal. Is that going to uh Pantry 279? And uh so, that's always exciting. Did they have the the where
096you put the boxes down in the Yes, they they went almost halfway around the around the building. It was about twice as long as last year, so Oh, wow. Wow. Very exciting. Um and then uh I attended the uh National Honor Society induction and I tell you, if you haven't gone to that, you you need to because uh it's such a nice program and it's all run by the students. And uh they I mean, they did a excellent job. I was so impressed. Uh and then um the uh theater arts team, uh The Lion, the Witch, and the and the Wardrobe, once again just a great performance. Uh I was just in awe of uh not only the the the set and the props, but the acting. Um and uh I don't know if if
097you haven't seen it, the the lion was a it was a puppet, a huge puppet. And it was created uh built right in our ILC. Uh that's pretty cool. I wanted to let you know that uh uh Alec uh and I attended the Monroe County School Safety Commission meeting. Uh that's held twice a year, uh which basically we go over to MCC, they host it. They're required to host it as being the larger school corporation in the area and uh there are uh law enforcement there, uh police department, uh Bloomington, Ellettsville, um uh sheriff's department, and uh and then we just talk about school safety and um, and I really value that because we're sitting around a table of experts. And those experts are informing uh, school leaders on what we could do to keep
098our schools safe. And uh, so I appreciate that. Alec uh, he's a shining star uh, for not only the school corporation, but for the Ellettsville Police Department. Um, once again, for the fifth time we've sent uh, students down to Brown County uh, for the uh, annual student run uh, business conference. And when we go down there, we go down as leaders in this area. Uh, course we want to learn. But uh, more importantly, people are coming to our students and asking them what they're doing that's working out so well. I wanted to give you the dates. I know it's hard to to believe where I'm sharing this, but uh, end of the year awards ceremony and dates and times. I just wanted as a board for you to have that. And we invite you to
099any and all of those. Um, and then we're in the middle of ILEARN testing. Uh, and the uh, prom is coming up on May 2nd. And we have students going to Bradford Woods uh, May 4th through the 6th. And 6th through the 8th. We have such a big group, they've divided us into two groups. That's my report tonight. 3 minutes. And now we have our BBEA comments and we have Brandy Avalon. Thank you very much. I just have to say that every every month I feel like there's something that just makes me feel just off for our corporation and those pathways are just so exciting. I mean it just is amazing how our high school continues to evolve like that. Um, in addition to the names mentioned, I just want to wish Katie Brookman, Micah
100Mobley, and Rachel Mathias the the I can echo Mr. Kerr, you know, all three of my children went through this corporation and just lasting memories with so many of the people um on this list this evening. And um speaking of recognizing someone, I think it you know, we can attest EPS teachers to paying our retirees for subbing because we have Vicky here this evening and I think we're all always fighting for her to be in our room. So, it's just a great program. We We love her and and it's just is working for us and probably probably other school schools, too. Um you know, when I think of these lists, uh I'm going to be giving our um building reps just things to give out trying to recruit new people. Uh so, they'll be seeing
101some things too to see if we can get some membership before the end of the year. And then um finally, I just, you know, I'm so appreciative of all these wonderful colleagues that I have here to recognize our HRS level one and and we know how hard Matt and Lisa worked as well as all the other administrators. Uh a very very time-consuming task and we just appreciate all of you and just wishing everybody the best in these last few weeks. >> [laughter] >> And And Brandy, we're good for the meeting on Thursday. I think we're good on the We're good. We can be at your meeting. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And now for our board member comments, we'll start with Mr. Arnold. >> Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I'm really
102excited about the pool deck and of course the uh the turf for the softball and baseball. Arnold, thank you for keeping track of that. Thank you for helping with that. Appreciate it, Mr. Shurtz. And I'm really impressed tonight that all the EPS teachers stayed through this whole meeting. I really want to pat you on the back. Thank Thank you. Vicky Vicky sets a good example. She didn't even She didn't even move when it was all over. Thank you. So, appreciate you being here. Good seeing you all. I was just going to add, I think this is the largest uh audience that Mr. the Dr. Sanders has ever had for his report. So, I I was wondering if they were if they were coerced. No. Um I Congratulations to the EPS teachers and and and the
103administration for the level one accomplishment. Congratulations, Arnold. That's That's really cool and well-deserved. Um and some thanks thanks to everybody for expressions of sympathy with my family loss. It was uh it was Thank you. Uh I also want to thank the volunteers speaking of National Honor Society. Some of them showed up for a I was the race director for the Mag 7 kickoff and I had some volunteers and they were outstanding and it was just made made my day so much better. Uh thanks to Boston Scientific for the donations and just want to encourage all the students to finish the year strong. Mr. Tucker? To to Mr. DeMoss and Mr. Journal, thanks to the EPS folks for coming out tonight and uh Miss Hardy, I hope you still have the energy to put up your
104Halloween decorations cuz >> [laughter] >> cuz I do I I do have to go by there. >> Halloween one more time but definitely you know, I don't know if it's kind of kind of Christmas or not. Yeah, I have. I have to go to your house. I you know, so thanks for getting me out of my house. Yeah, I don't I don't want to buy any of your stuff at a yard sale though. So, uh and uh so thank you again Chris on the on the HRS designation. It's It's kind of neat. My little trip down here with with I think a lot of EPS teachers were there at night. It's kind of neat to see what all goes on and the Marzano thing's been around Mr. DeMoss a long time. Oh, yeah. He's kind
105of reinvented the wheel but it just comes helps you reflect on what you're doing. So, so thank you for doing that and and kudos to all with that. And I best look to all the spring sports and everybody be safe this spring. It's It's It's coming. I mean, it In the May is going to come fast. So So, thanks. Thank you. Um >> [clears throat] >> back on Thursday. It was supposed to be here at tonight. It's not. So, we checked the delivery. It's supposed to be here Thursday, so We will have to deliver it when it comes. Catch up. My hearing aid died like 5 minutes ago. So [laughter] Um Mrs. Hardy, your husband's name is Beau, right? >> Yes. You never know what influence you teachers have on kids. I'll tell you this
106because my daughter had a son and because of Mrs. Hardy, she always loved the name Beau. And so, she named her son Beau. I know. And I tell my Beau that he has to behave because there's a little Beau >> [laughter] >> So, you know, not that they've ever met, but still he needs to realize that That's right. So So, you touch so many lives in so many ways that you just never realize. So, I'm glad that one came back around so you could find out about it. But you know, I appreciate everybody coming tonight and and um you know, there's there's you know, I I believe that we can get through uh everything together and um I again just uh just cuz we're so close, I I I am sorry for Mr. Paulson to
107to go and I love him. He's an outstanding man and an upright man and and uh but you know, again, he's great and I love him and I know there's many out there that do as well. I get to say that cuz I can. I'm sitting up here. So, to you, wish you all very well and I hope you have a wonderful evening and this meeting is adjourned.