Richland Bean Blossom School Board, April 15, 2025

001Call this meeting to order. Please stand for the pledge of 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. Please be seated and welcome to the April regular school board meeting for the Richland Bean Blossom Community School Corporation. And please uh let the recorder reflect that uh all are present except for Mr. Dal uh who couldn't be with us tonight and he sends us regrets for that. Um and visitor comments. Was there any visitors wanting to comment? Okay, then we'll go uh straight to the Mustang moment uh which is Edgewood Junior High School. And Dr. Sanders, would you like to introduce this? Yes. You know, I was just thinking we seem to every

002meeting we we seem to top the previous Mustang moment. You know, it's just one great thing after another. Uh, and uh, these four boys. Are you all in show choir or three of them are? So, we have to make this quick. So, I'm not going to brag out brag on them as much as I normally do. Uh, so they can get to their presentation and get on the show choir. So, Mrs. Grimes. So, this is team 52191G and I'm going to let them introduce themselves. I am Liam Kirsten. I've been doing robotics [Music] for four years and I am a main driver. I help with notebooking and code. I'm Alex Sills. I've been in robotics for 3 years and I am the loader and I help Liam with coding. Hello, I am Lucas Dammer. I've

003been in robotics for one year and I'm the notebooker for our team. Hello, my name is Garrison. I've been in robotics from 45 years and the job of my team is primary driver. Start your presentation. So, they have a presentation to share with you. Okay. So we our team name this year is E squared team 52191G. So this year's game for robotics was VEX IQ Rapid Relay and uh the one that we competed with in Iowa is create Junior Atom which we will go more into detail later. Uh, rapid relay. Rapid relay is a game where two robots are on the field at the same time and their goal is to get as many balls as they can in the goal, but they also have to pass to each other and try to pass, score

004goals, get as many points as possible. And this is in 60 seconds with two robots. And these robots are different each time. So, this year was especially challenging with the passing because you were relying on the other robots. But we started with a different robot than this one, which we'll show you later, but we started with a robot that can shoot two balls at the same time, but it wasn't good enough. So, we created this robot to get to state the next competition we competed in. This is a video of us at the rapid at state. If you could work. So, we're trying to we just passed at the beginning and they are scoring into the goals. We're getting the ball so we can give it to them counting it as a pass. As you

005can see, we just scored a goal which flipped the switch. Flipping the switches and passes are very important in this game. And we just keep passing and scoring because that's how you get points. Does the switch What does the switch switch? The switch goes in because the ball passes through it and then it should stay down. It's a lever within the So, uh during the Iowa competition, the create world championship, it was a 9 and a half hour drive, which thanks to our parents got us there. You also had a very fun time at Iowa. So, our usual strategy, well, first of all, this is a another collaboration game, but instead of two alliances like uh Rapid Relay, we have four teams in the single alliance, which is double the amount. So, four teams on

006a field at a time. Correct. But the goal is still the same, just to score as many points as possible. Now, we normally start with or just trying to get at least two switches. The press, which is just trying to get the bottom two for more points. Then uh then we usually want to get the double double which requires four robots to go into the space in the bottom left the little square there and trying to get the yellow ball yellow ball next to the backboard clo in to the parking zone and having three robots touching it. As you can see, not very easy, but at least there's no passing in this. So, at Iowa, we got 880 points in our final, which is the third highest of the entire event. And we placed fourth

007place like of teams, but we had the highest combined total. Also, we got eighth place in skills, which is just all robot trying to complete tasks out of 45 teams. And this is us at our final match. So, we're trying to grab a ball, as as Garrison said, trying to get it in to the bottom goal, but we also want to color code it with green, blue, orange, purple, and red. So, we just scored three different colored balls. And then the other robots, the one one with the yellow ball is just trying to get into that parking zone so that three robots can touch it. And also wall goals happen which are just touching the wall inside the yellow markings. Yes. And now we're just trying to get into the parking lot cuz it's double

008double. So if we got 50 it would it wouldn't be just 100, it would be 200. And as you can see, we're trying to just fit all four robots in there. And now we're just checking to make sure all four are in there. Are we good? Are we good? Are we done? Thank you for your support on the memorable seasoned to all the people listed below, especially the RBB school board and Miss Grimes for all the extra hours she put in to make to let our robot be the best it can. You want to show your robot really quickly? Show them what it does. It won't pick up the claw. I brought two balls. It won't pick it up. So, this is not the first robot they had. They had two weeks to recreate their

009robot and strategize and learn the new game, which was incredible. You would not want a drink delivered this way. So I Oh, sorry. I wanted as I trip over that. Um, I wanted to say that this group of boys here, um, they have been amazing all season. They were the first group to get their robots built. They were the first group to get to competitions. And when we go to competitions, we learn so much. You learn um what other robots people have, how they're working with the loopholes. Um robotics is all about loopholes. Um definitely. And they would come to practice. We have practice five days a week. It's open so everyone can participate. So they get to choose which days they come. and I'm there until five so that everybody can participate because if

010not these guys wouldn't necessarily be able to participate because they're in show choir and tennis and who knows what else. Academic Super Bowl and all of those things. So, um but they were always there and they were always driving and driving is the key to to winning. So, I am so proud of these guys. They got so many compliments in Iowa because they were so good with other people. They collaborated. They they taught. They uh strategized. They They were just everything we could want them to be. They were just so good. You did us proud in Iowa. And I thank you and your parents and the board and Mr. Winsler and Dr. Sanders for letting us go. Thank you for supporting us. Yeah. Thank you. Kelly, she did sacrifice a lot and she has given

011a lot of time and I want to appreciate the boys thanking her. But before the meeting started, I could tell she was just tickled pink to be here and she was I asked her how it went. She said, "Our our kids are so amazing and their parents are amazing." And uh so she that's what you know that's what drives her. I know what makes her uh feel good about being a teacher. Thank you. Definitely. Thank you all. Iowa. Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much. Said n hours. N like within five hours in a car, you guys will get rich. I don't think that's a long drive. It was. And we went through storms and everything there. So, yeah, it was it was creating your own plane. There you go. You know that's the great answer.

012That's the team. There you go. Exactly. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, wow. Thank you. I was sure they'd all want to stay for the consent agenda. um which is next. And for the consent agenda, we have approval of minutes from the March 25th uh 2025 regular uh board meeting. And we have the treasures report for March of 2025. And we also have claims for payroll gross wages of uh March 7th 25 is $23,552.65. Gross wages for March 14th of 25 is $723,546.33 and gross wages for March 28th of 2025 is 831,96356 for a total gross wages of $1,579,6254. For vouchers, we have uh claims prepaids which is March 1st to March 31st of 25 and that is 1,485,964.77. And then claims regular vouchers as um for April 15, 2025 is $464,899 even for

013total vouchers being 1,950,863.77. And that leads to a total vouchers and payroll of 3,529,926.31. [Music] And then we have uh personnel C 1 through 7 uh 8 is removed from that line. Uh so C 1 through 7 only and D uh personnel appointments and transfers 1 through nine and C was resignation retirement rules leaves and terminations. Uh also there are two donations uh again from Tri Kappa who's a beautiful uh wonderful group that really helps us uh out and and the kids out a lot. They have given $100 um to this theme program and $100 for art. There is also an outofstate and overnight field trips which would be Edgewood Intermediate School's fifth grade overnight trip to Bradford Woods and this is the one coming up from May 4th to the 8th in 2026. Plan

014ahead to get that sale. So we have a motion. I'll move approval. I'll second. Move the second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I I oppose. Motion carries. Dr. Sanders, would you like to have a motion? I'd like to highlight a specific uh retirement. Dennis Fast uh after 32 years uh is retiring and uh you know, every time we have a retirement uh I'm happy for them and I'm sad for us and that's definitely the case here. Uh there are certain people that work in a school corporation. You think, "Oh my goodness, what are we going to do without soand so?" And that is exactly how you could define uh Dennis and and but we wish him the best. And uh and just uh you know, I plan on uh uh going over

015and talking to Dennis, maybe even taking him to lunch because he's just one of my favorite people in the corporation. You know, if you didn't give them the Starbucks card every time we had a retiree, they wouldn't be retired. You know, so just put that out there. That's right. I called him the day probably about 3:30 and said, "Retirement question mark." He goes, "What's the question mark got to do with it?" Because he said he was ready. He said he was ready. And uh um he he made a difference a lot of kids. So, and he he promised the master schedule will be done before he leaves. So, that's good. That's good. Yeah. Because he goes through June 10th. So, okay. Um, moving on to the assistant superintendent report. So, Mr. Win there in front

016of you. Um, I'll kind of do a a brief overview of the three major funds, then I'll talk a little bit about where we're at with some of the legislative pieces because those will have an effect on the on the uh cash flows in the future. Right now, you they're necessarily reflected in the cash flows as it relates to like some of the assumptions that are there because I haven't changed it every time the the bill changes. So, here in the very near future, we'll start to update those. I've started to update it now just on my working document, but we'll dig into that as we get going. So, uh just starting with the education fund. Uh all in all, you know, revenue beat projections. Uh we received some reimbursement from the state for our

017lit coach position that we have. Uh we got a payment in from Spencer Owen on our shared personnel that we have for physical therapy services. Um and then again, expenses came in lower, mostly made up of just lower actuals and projections on benefits. those came in slightly lower than the projections. Um, and then right now just the three biggest factors that are going to affect where things go as far as what you see at the year- end number is going to be our ADM, our staffing changeover costs as you know people come and go and what that looks like as far as staffing decisions that we make uh for this coming school year. And then also just looking at what we do with people's pay and benefits as we start to figure out you know

018what you know what's coming through at the state where ADM is all those pieces there's big variables in there and what you see right now is just like in tuition support you saw uh just something static as far as like a 2% flatlined and then kept a bunch of other assumptions the same. Um and then right now in like payroll and benefits you're just seeing something that's flatlined if nothing changed through the remainder of the year. So again, as we move down the course of the year, we'll start to update this and and we'll get down into the nitty-gritty more so once I know for sure, you know, what's gone through the legislative session. I've taken the last funding run from the Senate Republicans website for the school funding formula as far as tuition support.

019I've run calculations on that and we'll talk about that here in a second as far as you'll see that update next month as far as what I'll project out on that. So um a debt service fund um no revenue or expenditures in that fund in much month of March which is expected and normal. Um and then the operations fund uh March's revenue was within a couple thousand dollars of projections. Expenses were higher. We got our buses in which affected that. So then it's really just a moving of um cash flow as far as claims go throughout the year as far as the eb and flow of when buses were going to come and when they weren't going to come throughout the year. So that you know that's just the adjustment of those dollars as far

020as when they fall in the in the calendar year. That that fund still looks very similar to what you saw a few weeks ago at our last board meeting. Um all in all, our funds are in a really steady position. We're positioned well probably out of most school corporations in the state to try to make adjustments as it relates to the things that will, you know, will come down from legislation. As it relates to just some of the the latest things in House Bill 101, which affects our our student funding form, our student tuition support, um they've continued to embed curricular materials in the foundation amount. Instead of giving us one lump sum at the end of the year, they're embedding it into foundation. So, when you would look at the um the funding run,

021you need to pull that number out to actually know what actual new revenue is in there because if you don't, it's deceiving because that number gets pushed in there and that's not new revenue. That's just them taking something that was separately appropriated and then they just stuck that appropriation into the foundation. It was just kind of a movement of that money. So, you had to make sure that you pulled that out to see what the actual true numbers were. If you do that and then you take like a a static line of our ADM, our all of our tuition support numbers as far as um special education funds, academic performance grant, all the other ones that are in there, CTE, etc. And you do those flatlined and you take that all the way down, what

022we're looking at is about a 2.4% increase for uh fiscal year 26 and then 1.2% 2% in fiscal year 27 is what that looks like after you pull out the um curriculum materials and that's based on on the latest um Senate Republicans run on their website. The other couple quick notes that are in that bill is they do have proposed in there to increase the school safety grant by $2.5 million in each year of the bienium which is a good thing. that's gotten really um even more competitive as more schools take advantage of that. And so it's decreased the amount of money that we've actually gotten through it and that helps fund um our SRO's. And so hopefully that will mean that we'll see a little bit bigger grant in the coming years. So we'll

023see how that goes. And then the universal school voucher funding was removed from the latest version of the bill. I think after they saw the latest revenue forecast, they made some changes and that was one of the things that fell off. when it gets into Senate Bill One, that one's going to take a little bit of time to unwrap. There's a lot there. So, um, in the in the latest, um, the Legislative Service Agency's fiscal impact report, some of the numbers that were on there as the starting points as far as our net levy for 2025, that was off by 1.3 million of the number that they showed there. And as they they they're essentially replicating out the numbers based on um just projections of what levy growth would be or some of those other

024pieces and then they're factoring in all the changes that they're doing to ratchet that down. And there's just a lot to unpack. And so that's something that is going to take several weeks, month or more to really dive into all the bigger pieces of that because there's a lot there to it and I won't get into all the ins and outs of that. But that is something that if you go into the Indiana General Assembly's website and you click on Senate Bill One, you can see the latest fiscal analysis and they they'll give you like a bullet points of all the different pieces in there about some of the things that are changing. But we'll continue to work with steeple. We actually have a uh region 7 IASBO meeting tomorrow where that is the focus

025of the meeting is unpacking Senate Bill one and the impacts of it on school corporations specifically in region 7 of our um association which is the Indiana Association of School Business Officials. Um and so we'll work through that. Some of the things that are in there too, they they've put waiting periods on school bonds. Um they're reducing the uh debt service rate from 80 cents down to 70 cents where it starts to uh make it subject to controlled project guidelines whether that's petition remmonstrance or referendum. So they decrease the rate to hit that threshold. Um they've put some other uh implementations in there as far as starting to share dollars operation fund dollars with charter schools. Um expanding that with some of the referendum pieces as well. Um and that's phased in starting in like

0262028. um it's a two-marker test um of whether or not you would share operations fund dollars with a charter school in your district area. And so that's something that we're monitoring as well. We would be a a school corporation impacted uh by that currently. Um and then um the last piece of that is just the MLGQ for the operations fund right now is set to stay at 4% for next school year, which is a good thing because originally it was going to be zero operations fund levy growth. And again, our operations fund is essential to us keeping up with things around the school corporation, funding the personnel that help maintain and take care of our buildings, transportation, technology, maintenance, custodial, all those pieces that are funded out of that, as well as just paying utilities

027and insurance and all those pieces. So glad to see that part stayed. Um, but then each year it's kind of up to the legislature to then come in and say, what's the MLGQ going to be as far as what that rate? So, there's a lot to unpack. We'll get into some more of that and and and dive into it and then start to understand how it affects some of the plans that we've set as far as potential projects that we may want to consider, how it affects our how we've managed our total tax rate and our levy and some of those pieces. But once we have that information, we'll sit down, we'll go through that, um, take all that information like we typically do and then make educated decisions about what's best moving forward um,

028for the school corporation. So, with that, I'll take any questions that you have and we'll go from there. Is that something good or bad or indifferent? I can't imagine that it would be good. Um, I don't know if it's It looked like they were pulling the number from our 24 budget and so I don't know if that's a I didn't take the time to uh look into every school corporation to see if that was a determining factor, but that was not the right starting number that they used. I would imagine that that impacts some of the projections of what the levy proposed levy growth would be or not would be um working off of that number. But once we have a chance to just take all these different the pieces because they've changed deductions and

029deduction levels and and the different criteria of which you meet them and how much it's just a lot to go through there. So you got to they didn't get it yesterday. They got their tax bill from Monro County. We dropped we dropped two cents. We dropped ours two cents, but but the assessed value, I don't know, it's probably not universal, but ours, my own personal one about 2.7%. So, kind of offset each other, and I think everybody else is going to run into that same situation, but um it look like some of our other taxing bodies dropped a little bit too as well. So, what about our federal grant money? Do you feel comfortable we're going to get it all with some of the change at the federal level? We've not had any inclination that

030we're not going to get it. Everything that we know at this point is that, you know, everything should be staying as is. We've not been notified. Yeah. As it relates to some of our federal grants that we have with mental health or some of those pieces. Yeah. We've not heard that that funding is going away or in jeopardy at this point in case. Yeah. Okay. I think our communities uh I probably need to do a better job of of talking to our community uh about where I think our state is going in terms of supporting uh charter schools over public schools. uh Senate Bill one is just another indication that the trend is uh going more towards uh the uh supporting the charter schools and I uh really feel like it's um I worry about

031this uh down the road uh because I know what we offer here at Edgewood Schools and Uh I know that we offer quality uh uh educational opportunities, innovative educational opportunities for our students. And uh and on the surface when you look at a charter school, on the surface uh they may appear to be like any other school. Uh but when you dig down deep deeper you find that that it's it's just all surface level the the training uh that uh our teachers if you look across the board at our teachers our administrators uh you'll you'll see that they uh uh are trained at uh institutions like Indiana University, Ball State University, Indiana State University, Purdue uh and you look at a charter school and you don't see that quality of training uh for their for

032their teachers. Uh you you walk you might uh go through a charter school and it might look like just any other school, but it's all surface level. And uh we uh we need to uh I think our communities need to wake up because uh when a charter school says they take all students, that's not true because uh they don't take all students. We we know um they they take uh they will take students until there there's uh the there's no more room and then there's a waiting list. That doesn't happen when you come to Edgewood Schools. You walk in the door, we're taking you uh and we're taking you no matter what uh services that you might need. And not only that, we do that because it that's what we're all about. And we take

033great joy in servicing all kids. And uh and I think that uh we we reached out to our state legislators and Matt and I had conversations and we were told by uh one representative very frankly that we needed to get used to doing more with less. And so to be honest with you, I wasn't very surprised by uh the Senate Bill One passing the way that it did. Uh and uh we as a community uh parents uh people who support the school corporation, we need to stand up and fight for public schools because little by little uh our funding is going away. And it's just like telling us that uh we're giving parents more options, which I don't mind parents having options. I think that's a good thing to and quite frankly, I like the

034competition because I like to be able to uh it kind of motivates me to work harder to make sure the kids are coming here. Uh but what they're doing at the same time, it's it's unfair because uh they're saying, "Well, we're you're getting so much money, we're going to give you less, but we're going to make the competition even harder." And uh and what's eventually going to happen to our public schools uh down the road, long after uh I'm gone. This is this is where I'm very very worried about public schools because who's going to take care of those kids that we take great joy in and servicing? And uh I don't think anybody's thinking about that right now. And uh I've been getting uh I was at the chamber commerce meeting last Thursday and

035somebody asked me about Senate Bill One and I said, "Okay, you asked. Nobody asked me tonight, but I was ready to go." So, and and I was going to share this later in my superintendence report, but there was a article in the uh uh HT uh about uh the growing number of of uh of students going to private and charter schools in Monroe County. And so, I thought it might be interesting for you to see uh uh how RBB um is impacted. and and I think we do fairly well. Uh I and if you look at the uh number of students that are that live in RBB score school corporation that go to Seven Oaks, uh you'll see that it's uh 126 this past uh fall. But uh those are not students who are coming

036to Edgewood and and uh and then not being happy and going to Seven Oaks. Matt and I uh and Matt, correct me if I'm wrong, I can't remember the last time uh that we received a transfer. We get emails. Every time a student withdraws from uh one of our schools, we get an email and we always check them out. And uh I would say over the last year maybe there's two or three that have withdrawn to go to to Seven Oaks. Um and and so I think that's a good indication that when they come and parents come and really check out the educational opportunities available at Edgewood, uh I really don't know where else that they could go to get a better education. Um and uh you'll see that uh if you look at as

037far as uh I put uh the numbers uh on uh the number of students that uh that are RBB students who might go to MCC or Spencer Owen uh and the number of students from those school corporations who come to Edgewood. And I think you you'll see that we're doing pretty well in both those areas. Um and uh and so that's an indication that we're we're we are not just talking about providing a quality education. We are and people are starting to recognize that. So I thought you might want to take a look at these numbers. I completely agree with everything you said and the accountability is not the same either. Correct. We're we're held to a different standard accountability wise than than the charter school system right now. And if if if everybody's held

038to the same accountability, I can live with that, too. Competition's good. I get that. But if I understand it correctly, it's not the same. And they can't they they're supposed to take everybody, but they don't necessarily take everybody. Okay. So, I just want to make sure I put that on record that we have a lot of different support services that we have to that's our responsibility and we're going to continue to embrace that. Um, can you explain a little bit about the accountability differences? They still have to take um uh assessments uh that that our students have to to but the the consequences aren't there uh as they are for public schools. Special special needs as an example. We're going we we don't have a choice. We're going to take care of them and we

039will take care of them. Right. Right. Which is a pretty big expense at times. Absolutely. That's just what we do. Yeah. We're going to take good care of it. Y for sure. Okay. Anything further? We'll go ahead and move on to the Skilman construction. Martin Trudale's here from Skilman Corporation to to give you guys a a construction update. So, I've got his presentation brought up here. Martin, come on up. And I'll let him roll through that to give you guys some uh visual updates and just report out updates on how the projects are going as it relates to uh the new preschool and student activity center fieldhouse area and uh the renovations to uh the schools as well. So, Martin, I'll let you take it away. Yeah. Um excuse me. The first thing we've got

040on our our presentation is the early childhood center and that's really our focus right now. Um we've spent a lot of time working on scheduling um that we know how critical it is to get that building done. Um and so we're really pushing on it and we're getting a lot done and we're moving along pretty nicely. Um, Matt, you might jump jump to the next slide. Um, as you can see, we're pretty well closed in at this point. Uh, there's a lot going on on the site, but we have most of the windows are in, the bricks in, the roofs on. So, we've got a closed in building at this point. So, that allows us to take care of humidity. We've got temporary heating in there. Um, which is letting us start to do a

041lot of drywall work. Um, and we're pushing as hard as we can the roof roof membranes on. We're doing um completed most of blocking. My voice is going uh exterior wall framing sheathing insulation. So, it's the the whole building is insulated as well as watertight. And we're working on stud walls. Most of the brick is done. Um the unit rooftop mechanical units are on and they're moving toward operation. Um fire sprinklers mostly done. Um and it says started exterior windows. We're pretty far along with exterior windows at this point. Building B, which is the west end. Um, we've completed the interior drywall for the most part at the office and special ed and we're finishing drywall in there. So, that's we've moved ahead. Um, unit A, we're topping out drywall. There's still quite a bit

042of drywall to do. Um, so we're continuing with that last 60 days. Again, we've got the roofs on. um building entry. You can start to see the building forms and that's from the ground. The the little brick panel um in the for foreground, excuse me, in the foreground are the two two major brick colors on the building. And then you can see we're putting the uh outside um skin on the building. There's what your windows look like. And um Heather's not here. Um we've walked her through the classrooms have a lot of daylight in them. So you can see the kind of daylight we've got going on. Um I'm going to digress from the slideshow a little bit. Um one thing that we're pushing real hard on right now is kitchen. Um and we've got

043the the the big piece there is exhaust hood in the kitchen. We've got that on site and removing the kitchen as hard as as hard as we can right now. Um, we'll continue maintaining the site, remove the excess soil from the site. There were some big piles of soil on the southwest corner of the building. Um, we're moving toward get the sanitary in. Brick washing is mostly done, but we're continuing with that. We'll finish up the roof detailing in the next couple weeks. Um, and the metal wall panels, the elevations, the the photographs of the building, you see the brick and then a lot of plywood. That plywood will become metal wall panels fairly quickly. Um, we got to finish the drywall, prime and paint, get the mechanical in, and as I said, we're going

044to start food service equipment installation, which is a little ahead of of schedule. Um, but we know that's an important piece to have. Um, and start wall tile gang toilets. Um, not as exciting right now at the high school. The the walls are up. That was our big big uh excitement in the last several months. Um, but as you we get into it, you can see with the next slide um the roof is on. You're seeing the roof on the high bay where the roof is substantially on the low bay also at this time. Um we continue maintaining the site building roof is mostly done less the detailing which is the copings and the parapits. Um the what we've really been working on is a low bay um which is a lower part and that's

045where your toilet rooms and storage rooms and all that are. Um both slabs on grade are done. I'm sorry. Slab on grade. Yeah, both slab ongrade are done now. Um fire sprinkler. Um I don't want to just read through everything, but um this started and we're pretty far along on the concrete block installation, which you'll see in the photos. That's the inside. It's not going to be that shiny forever. That's uh the the the um concrete slab TR finished with uh some sealer on it. You see the south entry. We're starting to move toward the entries. And as we move into the building, um you see we do we do have the slab on grade in the in the lower area. So all the below slab plumbing is completed. Um, so we're starting to do

046the plumbing above slab there built. That will be a plumbing chase or a area between two walls where the plumbing comes up when it when it's finished. Interior concrete block is moving along. The block mason has been great. They've really been moving fast. Um, we'll start um any additional site contouring toward the outside of the building. My voice is really going roof drains. Um, complete the plumbing, complete block masonry. We're going to move hard on that, but but again, we're pushing really pushing on the early childhood. Um, so we're at this point it hasn't compromised the schedule. Um, we were we're still hoping to maybe get ahead in the kitchen area. Um, but that's that's what we're doing at this point. um in the high school as far as the renovations. The renovations is is

047maybe getting a little boring because we keep doing the same thing in all the same classrooms. Um so I thought the interesting thing to look at this month was we're working on the um phase six. We're working on the kitchen. We did have a little challenge with dust proofing, but we've got that resolved. And um we demoed the floor in the slab on grade and we're continuing with rough in and that's what our photos are going to show. That's that's your existing floor wood floor going away. In order to remove the concrete floor underneath, it has to be cut up into pieces so we can haul it out. And um that's what's on the left hand of the slide. I'm sorry, right hand of the slide. Um, we've trenched in for this under slab plumbing

048and the uh um high school interior wall footing, the kitchen interior wall footings, which will be for the concrete walls in that area. So, it's pretty well torn up at this point, but we're moving as quickly as we can to get a slab on grade. Um next 30 days we'll turn over phase six, we'll start phase seven. The kitchen, the idea is to try to get in there and get the slab on grade in the next several weeks. Um and we'll continue with overhead MEP. And once a slab on grade is done, then we can do the interior block walls in the kitchen. Um, the kitchen was originally scheduled not to be done until after students were back in the fall. So, we'll continue to use the existing kitchen. We're trying to improve on that,

049but we're going to focus on the early childhood center. Um, Edgewood Primary School. Again, it's hard to find a good slide um to show something different because we're doing the ma mainly the same thing. Phases four and five have been turned over in the last 30 days and phase six is continuing. And as I said, here's some pictures of casework which looks quite a bit like the casework we showed you the last time. Um primary school, we've um continued with the casework and all and finishes in the interior. What we're really pushing on there is the toilet rooms. Um, and we've got two toilet rooms turned over. We're trying to move as quickly as we can with that. One thing we will do with the primary school is all of the primary school toilet rooms

050will happen over the summer. So, that's that's our big push with the primary school. um intermediate school again um gang gang toilet rooms and continuing to to do the phase work. I would report at this point the phase work has gone pretty well. It's kind of boring to present which is a good thing um because the more boring it can be the more that means we're on schedule and we're turning everything over when it's supposed to be turned over. Um, you can see the new toilet rooms are substantially different um, from what you had previously and definitely look like a big upgrade. While we're doing the toilet rooms, we're also getting the classrooms ready. Um, phase six we're trying to turn over April 25th, so that's coming right up. And then we'll jump right into

051phase seven. And with that, any questions? Looking around last night and preschool, those windows are are beautiful. You're looking out over that field and you just think about all those little kids. How it's going to be pretty cool in there. Yeah. So, it's it's getting kind of exciting. And daylight, I'm I'm sure your administrators can tell you, daylight does a lot for the educational program. Yep. guy too in the office. So just just we hope that the blinds work during nap time. That's the main thing. Everything seems to be going well at this time. Thank you. And we do want to appre show appreciation because the teachers are working with us as we're moving them around and that's that's not an easy year for the teachers to go through. Right. Yeah. They'll be glad when

052it's done. Yeah. That we rarely have heard ahead of schedule. That's that's good to hear. Yeah. Well, I'm not I'm We've still got a couple months to go here. So, it's been a little bit since I was in the building, but uh few weeks back, I think I took a walk through and I was very impressed with the quality of work. Um, I had some big concerns on previous projects, um, to say the least. And, uh, I just was so happy to see how the progress is going and the quality of work that's being done. Um, and I believe that is because we have you guys watching over it to make sure that we're Yeah, Dale's a hard task masker out there. So yeah, I one thing I always look at is in my previous

053life I was actually a block layer um which I did for like seven years, but um I look at the block work and those guys are fast but they're good. So yeah, that's all I got. Thank you. Appreciate Okay. Yeah, I did. Um, next is consideration to approve the RB CSC privacy policy and for that we have our tech director Rick Rden. Evening everybody. Um, so our privacy policy is for the website and our apps that we have in the makings with the new website and our u Britney Tucker and her class is working really diligent on the new website. But they asked for a privacy policy. Um, and one of the things that I found is our privacy policy is okay, but we needed update to the new times. And so this is what

054we uh what I did and and worked with uh Christine and everybody to get approval. Um, we collect more data now than we used to, especially with the online registrations and the new apps that we're going to be doing and plus we have other things with event links and we need to make sure we encompass our information of what we do and what we collect to anybody that wants to review it. How many people review papers? I don't know. Uh but anyhow um the summary that I gave you guys is just a small synopsis of you know data collection, usage, communications and information sharing that could possibly happen based on what we do at the school corporation. Um I won't read the whole document for you so let you have any questions. I'll be glad

055to answer them for you. If a parent asked uh to limit certain kinds of information, is that something that would be able to be done or how would how would we respond in that case? Um so yes, we can do some some things. It just depends on what it is. Uh we do have one of them that's out there right now uh under a free program that we've asked the parents can we or can we not share. Um and then we take that and we put it in I'm going to call it a silo. So that way when we collect it it goes into a specific silo. It's restricted to who the parties responsible for it and then no one else can have access to it. There's probably something that we haven't run across yet

056that they might ask for it but legally we can't or we have to find ways around. I don't know. We have not had that request yet. wouldn't be surprised. We got it. But we'll definitely be talking to Christine if that comes about. But it's pretty it's, you know, it's just we're doing so much more with our website, our apps. Um it's just going to be coming by nature that we have to have this. Um one of the other things is that um Apple requires a privacy policy. So that's why we wanted to get it updated and collect the information that we have. Thank you. Do we have a motion? Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I oppose. Motion carries. All right. So, term of age. Next is consideration uh to set

057a deadline for enrollment of transfer students. Dr. Sanders. Yes. So, uh, school boards are required every year to, uh, set a deadline for accepting transfers and, uh, I'm recommending May 23rd, 2026 for next school year, which is basically we will take transfers the whole school year is what that basically is is saying. Second. Second. Any discussion? like a great day. All those in favor say I. I opposed. Motion carries. Now it's consideration to establish the accepted number of transfer students. Right. So um rather than having a very specific number, uh what we do is uh we focus on uh a number that is uh related to classroom size. So uh basically uh K2 uh we want to keep on average a ratio of 24 to one, grades 3 to 5, 27 to 1, grade and

058basically grades 6 through 12, 30 to one on average across the school of the school. And uh and so when we get to those numbers, then we will have conversations about whether or not we should uh not accept a a transfer in that particular grade level if we get overcrowded because we, you know, the bottom line is we want to make sure that uh our classes are not overcrowded. Uh we want to make sure that our students are getting a quality education like I've spoken about all night. And uh and so we will will take transfers from out of outside of our school corporation. Uh but there is a limit to that. A second. Any discussion? All those in say I. I opposed. Motion carries. Now the uh consideration to approve the extension of the

059delayed start Wednesday uh times. Yeah. So um as we uh you know we've been doing uh professional learning communities for several years um and uh we've revisited uh those trainings every now and then. Uh uh but I've got to tell you one of the the great benefits of uh being a high reliability schools is that uh we've really got received a new perspective on PLC's. Uh when we've uh when we took teachers uh to the HRS conference in the fall and again in January uh one of the the comments I heard uh both times uh from the teachers was Wow. Uh, we can do better with our PLC's. We I understand now what we should be doing. And and they go back and they go into their schools and they've uh have uh uh really

060taken that P their PLC's uh to another level. And uh and so we do those PLC's on Wednesday mornings, which is our delayed start Wednesday, which is 30 minutes. Uh but especially at the junior high and high school, uh because of their early start anyways, uh 30 minutes just isn't enough. They basically get in there and uh get started and then students start coming in uh they have to they get interrupted. A teacher has to go and uh uh help a student here or there. And so the the idea is to expand it to 60 minute delay start Wednesday. However, uh we understand uh we have working parents and so for those working parents, they will still be able to drop off their children at school at the usual times. Uh and there will be

061supervision for those students. Um, and so we're trying to uh accommodate our teachers and make sure they have plenty of time for their professional learning communities, but also uh uh recognize that that parents do have jobs and they have to get to work on time. And so this is uh a way that we're trying to to make this time more meaningful, more impactful, but also not put an extra burden on our parents. So, uh, if you, uh, approve this tonight, then we'll get the the times out, uh, to the parents and, uh, I'll explain, uh, our rationale and I'll explain to them, uh, that, uh, if they are a working parent and they still have to get to their job on time, uh, the service that we'll be providing at that that point. We have

062a couple principles here tonight. Do do any of our principles want to share uh, anything? You don't have to, but uh or answer questions. Yeah. And we're good on time, right? Oh, we're good on time. Thank you for bringing that up. I just want to make sure uh we uh did recently uh submit our application for our flexibility waiver for next year and uh before we even uh entertain the idea of extending the delayed start Wednesday, I needed to make sure that uh we would still be able to uh have the two flex days and still do the the 60 minute delayed start Wednesday. And we're so we're still well above the required number of instructional minutes. uh required by the state teacher here as well. Uh I I presume that you have been in

063on the discussion with Yeah. Before pick it up, you need questions microphone. May I ask Mr. Ules about uh the the extended time for PLC's on Wednesday morning? Are the teachers on board with this? Is this um we're a big group so it depends who you talk to but as Dr. Sanders said it is true at 30 it's really 30 minutes useful time for at the high school we're 7:15 and the bell rings at 7:45 and it's that flies by and so having the extra time will allow us to dig into more as we become better uh more efficient at using PLC's because it's always a work in progress but as we get better at I think we will like the time overall it'll just allow us to get more done and and make the

064rest the week better. Need you're going to need that time. You guys in math, you you do it so fast, but uh I know how the English department worked. I couldn't imagine. We We needed a little time to talk about our uh uh the assessments, common assessments and so forth. Yeah, I I think without a doubt um we had minimal time for sure. I mean, it was it was a good start, but you know, you learn by doing things and so you try to make things better and I think this will be an improvement. Sorry to put you on the spot. days also have helped give you some time to work together as a group. Correct. Yeah. Just having down not doing e-learning. You're just you're there just for us. That's that's a big deal.

065Is everybody embracing it? As far as a high school teaching staff, it's always we have a big group. Most people do though, honestly. Okay. I mean, if you want to use that time, it is great without a doubt because it's otherwise you're doing two things and like like I said, having a full day without e-learning, it's huge. It really is. You get a lot done. So I I know I appreciate it for sure because otherwise you're doing it on your own time. This was brought up at our discussions meeting last Wednesday and I believe it was Doug or somebody said that that uh it would would mean a lot to the teachers and we would have u uh very happy teachers. Well, as you sgest, my take away from conference was yes, this is great,

066but it's going to take time and you have to have time to to communicate with your colleagues. Uh especially when you're as I said with formative assessment and the uh evaluation of the the data and uh yeah, we would sit down in PLC's and by the time we sat down, it was it was time to go. Yeah, education is I mean it's always been like this. I don't think it should should be, but it's one of those professions that really we ask more of teachers than they have time to do in a given day. And uh and you know the flip side of that is you know once again parents have to go to work so you know you have to you know school helps with that but uh you know a teacher may have

06735 minutes uh prep period um and uh you know there's not enough time to plan collaborate call parents grade uh and all the things that we ask them to That's why teachers are often times uh working late at night at home or on the weekends you'll see them. Uh our school is never our school campus is never empty. You'll always see a car of a teacher here during the summer. And uh so this is just asking for another 30 minutes. I think one of the things that made sense to me was if we if we value what the teachers are doing, if we think that it's important that they do this, there should be time scheduled for it. So, I I'm I'm very much in favor of it. Yeah, I was concerned about the the

068parents. That's what the big concern was when we first went to the 30 minutes. Um, and I think that Dr. Sanders administration has done a really good job of setting in place uh ways that those uh children can still be dropped off uh at the time that they have been and uh they're going to be cared for. Um and I'd actually encourage that to be a good time where you could do some peer tutoring or tutoring between grades or something like that. I mean that would be be awesome for for for those students uh as well. Um, so I was glad to hear that and and I'm in a lot of meetings and and then say a hourlong meeting what you do is you you get started with a little background then you bring in

069the data and then about halfway through you start talking about what you're going to do with it. So you know they uh get started they they they kind of get orders of what they want to do. They get to looking at the data and before it's time to talk about it, they have to leave. So, at least that's the way it it appears to me. Um, and yes, we do ask a lot of teachers. I I a lot of times when we're driving on spring break down to the Smokies or whatever, my wife is working on the computer on the way on the way spring break. So, they they do put in a lot of hours. So, we appreciate that. There are some corporations around us that uh I think Spencer Owen does a hour

070early release and I think Martinsville has a hour uh late start. They did do two hours last year but I think they're back to an hour this year. Families we're also going to be doing the junior high too, right? It's all all grade levels. Okay. There will be an extra option to help parents with work. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. And our next would be the consideration to approve the ESC facility use agreement. So, Mr. Irwin. Yeah. So, this was uh born out of a conversation uh with uh one of our um coaches uh Chris Straw um have conversations about wanting to start a swim club. Right now, the only options for a swim club are in the Bloomington area and we

071do not have something here in Ellisville. So, he was interested in starting um starting his own swim club. Um, our facility rental use agreement is outlined and allows for for-profit companies because the swim club is a for-profit company to to use our facilities, but it's not meant or set up for ongoing regular use. Um, and the intended people to benefit from the swim club will hopefully be the majority be our students as well. So, that's something that was kept in mind. So through conversation of this, it became a little more apparent that this was going to be something that worked. We needed it to be something that was a standalone agreement because it didn't make sense to try to make our regular facility use agreement meet this one individual situation rather than just create the

072agreement itself that fit this situation. Um and our board policy allows for a forprofit company to do a facility uh rental as well. Um, one of the things that we created in it was as the success of the swim club grows, there's escalators in it as far as what the rental of the pool facility would be, as well as an ongoing donation back to the school corporation for the swim program from the swim club. So, again, coming back and directly benefiting the swim program. Um, who hopefully the kids are training in the program and benefiting from it as well. Um, coaches will be getting paid. There will be monthly fees to join the swim club. But again, we put that in there as as the swim club grows and the kids are benefiting and it's

073building success that there's escalators in it so that the monthly rent would go up and as well as the donations to the school corporation. So, we tried to make that a win-win in that way. The agreement was written uh by Christine Ferguson Law. It's been reviewed by myself, uh, Dr. Sanders, Mr. Bland as well. We've had a lot of ongoing discussions about the ins and outs of this and uh what it looks like and and how that affects um or compares to a lot of other situations as it relates to facility use and sports and all of those different things. Uh but we feel like we've found a good starting point for this. Um and something that looks to be fair and hopefully a great thing for kids. Uh so what that's what we're most

074excited about. Chris Straw, who is who's the owner of Elzville Swim Club, is here and he can help answer some of those questions if you would like as well, but he's seen the agreement and and and all of that as well. So, I did make one slight adjustment to what you saw in the board packet. I missed the the per day use amount by one hour, so I just had to change that from three to four hours of what was in there. That was a that was a clerical error on my end. I made that quick adjustment to it. I reprinted the agreement for you guys as well, but the agreement outlines when it's used, who it goes through, what the charges are, reimbursements for lifeguards, they're using our lifeguards, all those different pieces, insurance

075requirements, all those things are in here. And again, the the agreement was written by Christine. So, with that, I'll take any questions or like I said, Mr. Straw is here as well and he can answer any questions that you have of him at the swim club start with or All right. Thank you all for uh taking the time, especially Mr. Owen and anyone that's involved in this whole process. This is a bigger process than uh I ever imagined. Uh I was approached to open this club by parents after Aegon closed. Um there's a big need for our our community to have a swim club. Uh, like I told Mur, when I'm in the middle of a master's degree right now, this isn't exactly the thing I want to be doing. Um, but I I do

076love coaching. Uh, so I said, "Yeah, I'll do it." Um, so this whole thing has been a insane process, but uh I think we're at that point where we get to get the enjoyment part. So, uh, whatever the questions are, I'm happy to answer them. Question. A quick question. Sure, Chris. Appreciate all you're doing for the kids in the community. This is how far help me understand the swim club. This is way beyond our school district, right? It's it's kids from all Monroe County. Maybe they can. Sure. Maybe Owen. That's I mean, I didn't know what you're marketing right now. All I did is talk to the current middle school swimmers that I have, the high school swimmers that I have. Okay. Um, and then a few people that we know uh that were part

077of Aegon Swim Club. And so currently it's 100% RBB students. I have not opened it up to anyone. Would I? Yeah. Um. Okay. That's what I I would how you want. The majority should be and go to RBB. Okay. Um that is the goal. Um and the reason, you know, we want our program to compete with Mineral County. Um the our own swimmers have said we want to be doing what they're doing. Uh and we don't have that ability unless we train all year. Uh they want to compete all year. Uh like I told Mr. Irwin, I need to get USA coaching certified, which is another level of coaching. Um just to go to uh club meets during the during the summer. Right now, our swimmers could go to club meets. They'd be fine to

078go, but I couldn't go with them. I could be in the stands and support them. they'd have to go to independent with USA club meets. So, we're not hosting any meets. We're not doing any of that yet. Um, but that's the goal is then that we provide that uh in the future. And I think that question I was going to ask what is it a 12 month? Uh, right now I'm looking at a fivemon is it? Because uh if I'm continuing to coach high school, which I love, absolutely love, uh I would be at the pool from 2:40 till 9:00 uh plus teaching. So, um I uh Aegon usually came in at 5:30 or 6 o'clock when our dive program was finishing up and I think they went there till about 9 I think is

079I don't know what time Agon was in there till um I would be there sometimes with diving because my son was diving and that was at 8 and they were still going. So, uh, it's a lot. It's it's it's a lot of stuff in balance. The gap between the seasons, uh, during school then, what was the gap? Is that what you said? The time it fills in the gap where Yes, 100%. Um, you know, I think all athletes need to have a slight break, but especially at the high school level, they need to continue uh if they want to, like I just use my son as an example. um just a couple weeks out of being out of training, he came in just to swim for a morning. He's like, "Holy cow, I just feel

080way different than what you wear swimming." Um the foundation that I have on this is three days a week. I also believe kids should be doing other things in the summer. Um that's just I don't think they need to be swimming six days a week during the summer. I want them to play baseball. I want them to do softball. I want them to do other things, go camping. Um, so we're set up for three days a week right now. Uh, I think that's important so they can continue to grow in other sports as well. I'm a big two sport, three sport kind of person. Um, go do other activities. I know when I was swimming regularly, I was accused if I took a break, I was accused the pool director of putting thick water in.

081They they do that to mess with you. Yeah. Yeah. I knew they did. Application process to apply for this Uh you will have you will have vetted it and make sure that you talk about the liability and Oh yeah, I have insurance already. That's okay. Um I believe our policy was for 5 million umbrella. Um that covers our swimming and diving. Um I had to file for a business name. Uh so that's tax IDs with federal and state. That's all taken care of. Um so I think I have all the legality paperwork side. I didn't sign my insurance thing yet just in case this fell through. Uh, right. So, um, that's all I need to do and I communicated with insurance this morning and said I'll be ready whenever you are. So, okay. So, then

082we'll re we'll we'll pay for the lifeguards is just get reimbured. Yeah, they'll reimburse. So, the the lifeguards are our employees. They're school and then that there's a reimbursement just like it would have happened through like a a random rental of the pool, but that is they're running about number of kids and number of lifeguards like if there's 100 kids maybe follow the same protocols and guidelines that are typically followed and currently Jeff Con has signed in on this um he wants to coach also um so I'm in good communication with him about lifeguard needs um and he's been really great at communicating with me um just when am I going to be starting or whatever I need to do um and getting that lifeguard schedule set because yeah safety is a number one thing

083liability for school district. Uh your name is on the insurance policy as well as as was asked. So, y I know we kind of got into the full blown out contract with this, but you know, I think it's important since you're for profit business, but I am just really excited for our students to have this option to be able to to continue. Um, I know some of the swimmers and they love the program and they love training and they just this is definitely keep them going. And with being three days a week, there's still other days that, you know, somebody wants a pool party or anything like that, we can still, you know, uh, have have those things happen as well. So, so that's that's good. Um, so any further discussion? Matt, um, they really

084worked hard at this. This was, uh, a lot of conversations, a lot of looking into different, uh, scenarios and solutions. And uh so that's what you know when people like this go the extra mile, work hard, then good things happen for kids. Thank you. Shows how determined they are when they have to jump through some hoops. That's swimmer mentality. It's uh we know it's not easy. You got to dig in. Thank you. Anything further? All those in favor say I. I oppose. Motion carries. Congratulations. You can sign that insurance contract. Okay. Um, that was good. Uh, so now we need to look at surplusing two buses, Mr. Win. Yeah. So, these are two buses that are that are older buses. Um, one's a 2006, another one's a 2002. Uh they're small 14 passenger buses. One

085has a wheelchair lift. Uh and the surplus I put their bins and all of those pieces in there. Um like I told you before, our newer buses came in. We did decide to keep one of our mini buses that we did buy a new one for, but instead of having three mini buses, we have four, which that's great for athletics and after school activities that will be well used. Uh but these two buses aren't needed. We are looking into um a different auction site to try to get a little better return on these buses. We haven't had as much luck on the uh current surplus auction site that we've been using. So, a lot of school corporations have been coming to um Audrey and transportation and saying, "Hey, we've had a lot of luck at

086a different auction site." And so, we've u gotten an agreement from them that I'll bring to you in May to hopefully take them these two buses to their auction in early June. hopefully see a better return um on these buses because those month that money comes back into the operations fund to help offset some of those costs as it related to the new buses. So uh we'll look into that uh next month, but these are just two buses that are no longer of need to us. So asking for your permission to surplus these, please. A second move and second. Any discussion? the old van trailers. Uh the black one uh we have u found a new owner for that um uh that they ended up they should be pulling it off site here soon. Um

087but the cost to pull it off site um exceeds the value of the trailer at this point. Um so that was something that we worked through. We signed a release that Christine wrote up to get rid of that. Um and then um working on two potential people that possibly might be interested in the white one. U so we'll see hopefully um well we'll figure that out soon and go from there. The white one. Yeah. It passed a DOT inspection. We had put some put some money into that um before um we knew that the the new band trailer was going to work out because we had to have something ready for them to use for season. So, it passed a DOT inspection as um as recent as this fall, this past fall. So, yeah. Any

088further? All those in favor say I. I oppose. Motion carries. Next up is to approve a quote for the Edgewood High School Chromebook replacement. And once again with Rick Rden. So, um, we, uh, opened up the RFI, uh, and sent out for solicited bids. We received four back. Um, I listed them on your agenda here, so you saw what the, uh, vendors were and the cost. Um, we had them all bid the same model and so that way we made sure that we were getting the device that we wanted uh, for um, specifications. Uh, we have some issues with the Dells and we just weren't too happy with the Dell 3100s that we've had. So, we're moving off to a Lenovo brand. Um, it has a different case. It's more sturdy. Um, we've also um

089learned over the years that the minimum basic uh Chromebook wasn't powerful enough to do what the students are doing today. So, we up the RAM, we up some storage space, and these u have just a slightly bigger screen for them. So, they're going to get a little bit more uh visual for the for their buck. Um but um the things we kept hearing was you know they're slow. They have some inefficiencies and the new ones will definitely I think fill that gap. Um again Chromebooks are not a computer. They're not with the heavy-end processor but they do what we need for the students to do and we rely on everything to be on the internet. So with your help over the years we have increased our internet. We have a big pipe now. We have

090better hardware in our schools. We're getting better throughput. So, we are hoping we're going to see a big improvement for this. This particular one was for the high school. This is the first 900 uh Chromebooks that we're getting for the high school. Others will be getting their Chromebooks, but um we have time to take our bond money and use it. And I'm just wanting to see what our baseline was so we can take this base and know where we're going to go for the staff devices, the other schools, and some other projects within the tech department. So, this was my baseline. and I had to find a base to see what we were going to spend and how much I can spend out. Um, Trafer was the one that came in uh with the least

091uh cost uh per unit and a total of 3 thou $328,500 for all 900. Um, the one thing we did a little different with this particular uh bid packet was we asked for some white glove service. What that means is that they're going to enroll them for us. They're going to put the asset tags on for us. They're going to package them um in a uh more economical way, pasting 10 into a a carton versus all these individual cards that we're going have to open. Um so that will help us um in the long run because they can do it in the factory so much easier. I mean, as it's going down assembly line, they can just hand type all that stuff in and here we go. We just have and we go. So, um,

092so what I'm asking for you guys tonight is to approve, uh, Trfera as the winning contractor for the 900 Chromebooks. Um, and again, the total was $328,500. And I'll be glad to answer questions. Is that good question? Yeah, just the the quote that you that's included in the packet has them down as 360. Uh, that was with all the other options that we didn't we didn't take. Okay. So there was a um cases, there was additional extended warranties. Okay. Um we found that the company that we use out of Indianapolis called K12 that does our warranty work and uh repairs was less expensive than what they were. So thank you. Mhm. Software they're going to load all the software to at factory. Uh the chrome one thing with Chromebooks the uh software is automatically in

093the cloud. So it's it doesn't do any like So that'll be less less time than before then for you guys. Yeah. Okay. And then does our do the old computers have any salvage value? What's the plans for the older? So the older ones they still have salvage value but we're not re we're not selling them. Uh we're actually going to be utilizing them at the junior high uh and fill in the gaps. Um so the the value that we've always had from the high school students when they graduate we've always taken theirs rolled them down to the incoming sixth graders. So now we're going to take the entire 900 Chromebooks and we're going to be able to fill in the gaps with the sixth graders. And then we've always run into a problem at the

094beginning of the year is because we have student transfers and new students come in. We've always had a shortage and we've always had a come up with something quickly and unfortunately we've had to get some of our kids not so good ones. So we'll now have that gap to be able to fill in and not have this like uh we're scouring to find something. um they'll be on the next list to get a new set of Chromebooks, but right now we're just trying to get this idea of where the money is and how far I can take um our bond money. Okay. But yeah, we're keeping them. We're keeping the units. We're going to repurpose them again like we have. They'll go to the junior high and if uh Andes needs some additional ones or

095uh EPS or EIS, we're going to have extras now that we can actually float into the pool for usage. So, how how long I just this is like the second time I think I've done we've done this since I've been on the board. How long did we get what was the lifespan of that first group at the high school? Well, here's the thing that keeps changing because Google keeps changing the policy. So, we always based it on auto updates by Google and originally every Chromebook that we had in the corporation was to expire in 2025 this summer. Google has since then taken and done different models and extended those uh auto updates out. First it was the 2026 and now we're up to 2027. So as long as they keep updating the auto updates so

096we comply with state testing u making sure that we're compliant with that state testing uh version. Okay, we can keep running them. Now they get a little slower as time goes on the batteries and we have parts and we supply uh swap them out. But I'm going to say that we're going to hold on to these until we absolutely can't because of the auto updates or it's just so bad a shape that we're just going to send it off to be recycled. Okay. Yeah. That we're when I first got here um all of them were to expire in 2025 and it was like that's a big hit. That was going to be a lot of money that Matt was the little hot palpitations every once in a while when I told him numbers. Um, so

097he still gets those when I tell him some numbers. But, uh, conversation, how long are these things going to last? Well, the last Google update said this, and next time we talk, well, now the Google update says this. And so that was it was it's annoying. I mean, for staff laptops, we mark them out at five years max. Uh, so like Dr. Sand and all the other ones, we mark them out at five years because one, they've been abused, they're carried, they're all kinds of things. But the other problem is that Microsoft starts to change things on us as well, but they're a little bit more uh flexible because you can open them up, you can put another stick of RAM in there or you can change out the hard drive. You can get a

098little bit more time out of some things. Unfortunately, the way Chromebooks are made, there are soldered in. You can't just take and add another piece to it. So, there's a difference between the two devices. They're just a little bit more challenging. But yeah, before we were buying Chromebooks to get to our one to one ratio, we were also had a big influx of students. We also found some that were no that were part of the old type of Chromebooks and we needed to get them out and get the new ones in. So that's why we've seen a lot of uh requests coming to you for some Chromebooks for students. That's what but we are one to one all the way down to kindergarten which I think is something that was a a goal I think

099of Dr. Sanders when I started was to have 1:1 ratio and we met that. We met it. Mhm. Nice at some point with the the bonds and stuff to to kind of see what the technology plan is and you know how long it's going to take and uh and stuff just to to kind of have some sort of outline just so you know we we know what's coming down the pike. Yeah, the goal is to with this number now and then going forward we're hoping to have all the computers and uh all the technology uh within the next two year two more years after this to get everything give us some time to get uh breathing in um because the distributing is a lot of work. We have the inventory we have collected them. We

100have to clean them. So hopefully next years we'll have probably all of our technology needs met as long as the money is still there based on current market values. How are we doing on our bond money and the total budget of what we need? Are we hanging in there for right now? Yeah. Part of it too is and recognized conversation is how much can you bite off at once and still be able to function. There's still the day-to-day needs of the corporation when it comes to technology as well as trying to keep up with an influx of new Chromebooks where why which is part of the reason why the white glove service and some of those things are necessary when you've got a team you know that's five six individuals or less you know there's

101only so much that you can do in that process. So that's part of it. We're doing great as far as budget-wise goes and then when we come back and revisit where we're at with the current bonds, you know, if we need to if you know, look at what happens legislatively, we need to repurpose some funds, that would be something that could be considered, but we're doing fine. Um, it's not a matter of that. I was worried about most to make sure that we met our technology needs that we had the had the budget to do that. Yeah. Might not hit everything on the wish list, but I think we'll take care of the needs for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I I uh and I definitely understand it takes time to roll these out. So, you

102don't want to do it all at once. I get that. I I wasn't saying that you should just do it all at once. I was just making sure the money was there to get us where we want to be. Yep. We got the money. And plus, we don't have the space. I mean, literally 900 Chromebooks is going to pretty much wipe out my office space. So, I'm already I'm already I'm already without any space in my office. Yeah. probably put them down there because really there's not much there's not really a secure place to store them. Um the doors are left open, you know, with maintenance garages and people in and out. So, we'll be uh we'll be creative and find a way to stack them and store them and make it work. So, that's

103what we're doing now. Next board meeting, half this room, maybe Chromebooks. I think I still have one little spare space I can still, you know, occupy. So, but it's worth it. That's okay. Okay. So, are we ready for a vote? All right. All those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Motion carries. Thank you. Um, next is consideration to approve AVI systems agreement. M. Sterwin. Yeah. So, this is something that um, you know, Rick's been working on for a while trying to find a solution to this. we had uh back when we um put in the multi-purpose room at the junior high, all that equipment um we would have thought would have still been functional by now, but we had had nothing but issues with that equipment that's been in there. Um so Rick's and his

104team's been working hard on trying to find a viable solution that would work. What you're seeing here is below the board approval threshold as far as the amount, but it had a lot of terms and agreements and legalities in it that um felt like just needed to come to you guys as far as more so constituting agreement rather than just buying just straight up equipment. So that's why we brought that in this fashion and didn't just roll roll through with the purchase. So Rick's going to talk a little bit more about the in the weeds details of what all you've got here, but uh hopefully this will rectify the situation and making sure that we have good functional equipment in the in the EJHS multi-purpose room. Okay, so this one has been complicated in a

105lot of ways. Um the equipment that we have in there, um the the salvageable parts that are in there are the two projectors, the screens, they're fine. Um, it is the head-end equipment that feeds those projectors and screens that has failed. Um, and we have worked with the vendor that originally put them in. They've come down. I've asked them for price quotes. We never got anywhere with it. So, I moved on. So, I reached out to some companies and um finally got one that came back with a price that was acceptable after a few more negotiations. Um and we got the equipment that I want uh to have in there that I know has proven track record. Um, one of the texts from the previous company, um, I'll say it that we were only two

106people that received this equipment that they were triing and they no longer service that equipment or sell that equipment. So, I know the company that I'm working with, it is uh, products that have been around for a very long time. I have personal experience with them in my previous employment and they're still working today and they're easy to program. So, um, moving forward with something that is known to last us for a while. Um, if you looked at the agreement, it's pretty pretty uh pretty complicated in some areas because of how it's all laid out. Really, they're doing all the work. All we're providing is the money. Uh, please come in, install it, train us, and walk out the door, and then just call when we call you for service and come do maintenance. Um

107they put a lot of things in there like uh we're going to do this and that and we need a lift and that's what's in there. But the overall total cost came in at $39,000 uh $649.3. Um I know that sounds like a lot, but technology and AV is expensive. Um, it's one of those specialty areas that you just are up against so many people that, you know, they're like, "Well, this what I'm going to charge and that's what I'm going to charge." Um, we find the same thing out with the high school auditorium. Every time we have a light go out or um the controller doesn't do this, it's expensive. Matter of fact, I I know we have another repair bill coming for the auditorium. Um, and the guy already quoted it's going to

108start out $500, you know. So, it's not inexpensive when you have these kind of things. I just wish that the original equivalent would have lasted longer so I wouldn't be coming to you uh what three years from when we bought it. Um and asking for $39,000. So, u I won't go into more. If you have any questions, I'll be glad to answer them. Um it's just it's a complicated situation, especially in their design. Any questions? The projectors are staying and the spins are staying. Does the lifespan of the projector about Is it working fine? And I don't even know what a projector costs. I have no idea. Uh these are high-end uh projectors. They're laser projectors. They're not your typical bulb. So, they're laser u models and they are well, we haven't used them very

109much, so they've still got plenty of life expectancy in my opinion on them. Um, they've already checked out. So, I would say we have another five years plus. But the unit that we're replacing is used so much. I don't That's where I'm confused. The head equipment. The head equipment. It just It's just faulty is what I guess what you're telling us. Yep. And it was out outside the warranty period. Yeah. Everything just fell out of the warranty. Ah jeez. They were right when they were installed. Never started out right. We didn't have Martin. following behind them and smacking them in the head if they didn't get it right. So, we we and you know, we we run into a lot of situations. We've asked them for other um quotes and to do additional work and

110they never came back and gave us that information. So, recourse to get Yeah, it seems like a we got soda bill of goods on that one. I know Kent will be very happy to have his equipment back in operational because it has uh cost him some time with Kyra and other uses in the in the multi-purpose room from being used because uh we're limping it along by doing some things just to make it work. But it's it's very difficult to project and do sound from from two separate sources. So, We're we're going to shoot for getting it done before awards day. Hopefully it'll fit in their schedule. That would be awesome. Now, um it'll help fulltime choir room. Okay. Throwing ideas out. Okay. Any further discussion? All those favor say I. I oppose. Motion carries.

111Thanks again. All right. And now we've made it through the action item. So we have Dr. uh Sanders report. And let me go back to like the comment I made about the charter schools and accountability. Uh charter schools do have to they have to follow the state law like like anybody else does. Uh and I guess what I'm uh referring to is back to that surface level that uh if technically teachers are licensed uh the state uh in a know because of teacher shortages uh made it a lot easier to get a teacher's license uh and the fact that that charter schools schools uh really can pick and choose who come to their school. Um that yes, they still have to give the same assessments. They have to give I read three. Uh students who

112don't pass I third graders who don't pass I read three still have to uh uh be retained. Uh but it's it's not comparing apples to apples and and that was kind of what I was getting at. All right, on to more positive things. Um like to point out some uh great highlights going on in Edgewood schools. Um the uh Edgewood High School winter percussion uh finished in third place in uh the state competition and uh you might uh say, "Well, third place, we're used to winning." But uh they did a great job. The competition is always tight and we were up against some of the big schools in the state of Indiana and we still came in third. I just want to congratulate EIS ambassadors for collecting uh 339 boxes of of cereal for um

113uh where did that go, Andy? The cereal was going to pantry 279. Yeah, pantry 279. Uh, and if you've seen the video, they stacked the boxes up uh in their hallway and uh did like a little domino thing. That was pretty cool to watch. Uh, here's a picture of the Edgewood fishing team uh in their first uh tournament at Lake Poka. And I just loved seeing that uh the fishing boats as Edgewood Fishing on the side. Um EA uh the uh junior high, we celebrated them earlier in the meeting, but uh uh just want to make mention that the journalism students are going to Seattle tomorrow and uh so we're excited about that. And then uh I don't know if you had a chance to go see the high school musical uh but I've got

114to tell you it was one of my favorites. Uh they did a really great job uh on that last week. Yeah. Uh, kindergarten welcome week uh went uh very well. Uh they really work hard uh from uh every person who's involved in kindergarten welcome week. Uh really puts in a lot of time, works hard, and we have uh well over 200 uh who are enrolled for kindergarten next year. So um uh that was a great success. Uh several of us had a chance to go down to Vincen's University at Jasper uh the Jasper comp uh campus where they held the Uplands region 4th annual studentrun business conference. uh we had over 30 uh Edgewood students who went down and uh uh to the this campus which was a very pretty campus uh in Jasper and

115uh our marketing students, coffee corral, our LC designs students all gave presentations uh and uh they were standing room only uh presentations. So congratulations to them. This Friday uh we'll have our uh uh semianual Edgewood business leaders uh advisory lunchon meeting. Uh and so we'll have uh many of the CEOs and presidents of uh the companies around our community coming uh into this room actually for lunch and a meeting. And uh the focus this time is on Indiana's new uh diploma requirements and uh our uh career pathways uh from a students perspective. And uh so really excited to hear our kids on Friday. And then I just wanted to make mention uh uh and share with the board some upcoming events. Uh I learn uh uh coming up April uh well started April 14th through

116May 16th. Uh prom is May 3rd, Bradford Woods May 7th and 9th. Uh there'll be many opportunities uh for uh spring concerts and sports and uh so encourage everybody to check out our website and each school's website and see what's going on and in the blink of an eye will be graduation on May 31st. So hold on to your seat. Enrollment 200. That's quite a bit this early, right? Because there's going to be a pretty good tough class. It will be any questions, Dr. Sanders. Okay. Uh, now it's time for RBBEA comments and we have Mr. I just got three things on my list. I added one, so that's going to be off the cuff. Four things real quick. Graduation. I teach a few seniors, so I told them the magic number today was 28

117because it's how many days left? It's kind of crazy. It's flying by. Um, first thing I added was about HRS, about PLC's since you asked me some questions. Uh, I do appreciate the approach that we're taking as we adopted HRS in our schools. That's a work in progress. And I'm reminded of of one of our colleagues at the high school that went to San Antonio um trip and presented in front of our staff on one of our Wednesdays. He said he had he didn't corner Dr. Sanders, but he talked to him in dinner and said, "Do we want to get this right on a certain time or do we just want to get it right?" And and I really like that philosophy like we want to make sure it's done right, not done at a

118certain time. So it's kind of the philosophy we've taken. And so in regard to PLC's like uh Mr. Kerr said, yeah, a half hour goes fast when you sort of get together, you start up a process, you get to talk, and all of a sudden you're done before you get a lot done. I think having in an hour um we're going to get a lot more progress. I mean, we we talk at the high school. We're not so big. We talk throughout the week in the hallways. We can email, do individual things, but the face-toface time is really important. We've had a lot of give and take, so I'm looking forward to that. See how much we can handle. Um, on to other things, I'm not going to lament and gripe and groan and cuss

119about legislative ideas. Uh, but Dr. Sanders reminded me, yeah, in a perfect world, we just go on a barntorming tour of every county. And I feel like our legislative body is not indicative of what our public thinks all the time. And I'm I think a lot of people just need to be educated because as Nancy Guy, our our lady that we talked to says, you know, the teaching profession is one of the most popular professions there is. you know, in when people do surveys, they love their teachers, they love their schools, and yet our state house does not seem to reflect that. But I could go on and on and I will not. Um, lastly, I want to make a couple comments about Dennis Fast. Uh I'm glad you mentioned the number of years because

120I knew I knew he was there longer than me and I've been there a few years but he has been and uh I've had a lot of interactions with him uh between wreck letters or meetings or faculty cabinet and I've always wanted a place to say what I think about how he does and this is not a big venue but it's perfect spot. Um, he's just a soldier at his job and he was in the armed forces and and that's kind of a coincidental thing, but what I mean is he just comes to work every day and does the best he knows how to do and he does a great job with integrity. I've never seen him not be professional and we all have our down days, but never seen it from him. So, I

121just wanted to say congrats to him and uh doing a great job there. Yeah, big shoes to fill. So, there we go. Next time we'll see you is in the middle of May. Good. Okay. Now, board member comments. Mrs. Jacobs. Well, um I love always seeing the Mustang moments um with our students. That is just it brightens our whole meeting. Um a good way to start. Um I want to thank uh Triricappa for their donations to our students. That's very much appreciated. And I know we keep beating this legislation. Um, but I want families to really dig in and and understand what is happening and is going to happen with our public schools, um, with our children and what they deserve and what they need is for us to fight for them. Thanks. Did what

122Miss Jacob said and and Mr. as well. And uh again, congrats to Mr. FA on a well-deserved retirement. He uh I worked with him for years at the school and he always if he didn't like what I said, he'd always kind of his head, give me a look. And I always he always made me double think myself a little bit. So his patience and his like you said, Mr. Jose, he's a soldier. He worked hard for kids and that was what was the prime concern for him. Um, congrat or thanks for the donations tonight. I I do I don't want to misspeak here, but I think Mr. Irwin just graduated from an academy. Is that right, Dr. Sanders? We have the Leadership Academy and congratulations. Thank you. That's a that's a two-year program. Yeah. So,

123congrats on that. I know he's worked hard for that and he's not going to brag about it, but but not everybody does that. So, congrats. Congrats on that. Uh yeah, that was a great nice honor there. So, uh best of luck as you guys wrap up your school year and thanks for everybody that came tonight and best of luck with your swim club. Yep. Just piling what Angie and and Brad were saying about the donations and uh Doug's exactly right. And I think the key word for me with Dennis was integrity. And uh yeah, he's going to be missed. I this week I wish that I was back in the classroom teaching irony because uh I've been watching some of our state leaders tooling around in 80 and $90,000 cars and getting uh helicopter pads

124built on private property and uh telling us that we need to be more responsible in the way that we spend our money as after we have reduced our tax rate for six years in a row. So uh yeah, irony is not something that a lot of people are able to understand. So I wish I could teach more people about it, but uh anyway uh it's uh yeah, it's a disappointing uh session, but uh we'll the dust hasn't settled yet. We'll find out more in the weeks to come. But uh but yeah, it's uh I I got the opportunity to see we visited um various places looking at ways that we can improve what we're offering our students and I'm hoping that the state hasn't uh shortcircuited what we're trying to do because I got great

125ideas at IU Health at uh down in Evansville and uh up in in Greenwood. We saw some wonderful programs, gave us some great ideas, and uh with Dr. Sanders, Mr. Irwin, and and Mrs. Barrett's leadership, I I can see some wonderful things happening in the next few years. So, I'm just excited to see what how how we can pull it together. There we go. I uh of course echo everything that was said. Um, I've been talking to a lot of people lately and I've I tell them how our school system is. I don't know if I'm using this last month or not, but uh and they're so surprised that we all get along so well that when it comes to uh board member comments and if there's ever any visitor comments um that things are

126so positive here um and we all work together in a positive way. uh always looking out for kids and um they're just really surprised at at the leadership model that we have here and so I uh I just wish that could be extended maybe to the state level. Um, just saying. Um, so, uh, yeah. So, I I I I am proud of this school corporation and I know that we can get through whatever we have to get through. Um, but it is extremely disappointing to be put in that situation. They have to do it. It really is. So, what I'd like to say to the state legislators that voted for it and to Governor Braun, I can't say because my mom said if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

127So, this meeting's adjourned. Heat. Heat. [Music]