001[Music] hey I didn't mean the break-in [Music] you [Music] they meet and thank you for joining us this evening I'm really excited to have all of you here tonight that's all we held a meeting in the public similar to this to discuss school safety and people showed up it was great meeting afterwards we broke up into 17 groups and we took the public comments and concerns ideas and from that we have addressed many of the items that was presented to us one of the items came up into 13 of the 17 roots so it's a pretty large I a very important item and that's the school resource officer so tonight we are going to address that but it's very important thing that we hear your thoughts we are right screening so it's very important that
002we hear from our public afterwards there will be an opportunity to go online and make comments in the form of a survey and you will be given more information on that at the end of the meeting we also with that I want to say first of all thank you to be mom police department with tonight they are amazing amazing partner to the school corporation and they truly make our community better because of their partnership with us and so I'm really grateful to do here tonight thank you and they look forward to our partnerships continues world Thank You this is makeover members of the board and tribes welcome to all of you my name is Maggie ornament under the superintendent here in the 8th out of Community School Corporation and also like to welcome those who
003are watching this presentation and on a lot of stream it is also being recorded for later viewing this is very obviously a very very important topic and one that we all care deeply about here's a great quote from Nelson Mandela that the safety and security don't just happen they're the result of a collective consensus and public investment and tonight is evident that our public cares deeply about this topic and elect welcome my health speakers mrs. Debora Swain Bayliss you'll be hearing from she's our school safety coordinator the chief of the Avon Police Department she found Stoops the Deputy Chief Brian fish man that welcomed some of our local officials our Township Trustee Don Hudson is here tonight and town council members Marcus Turner the president Steve Eisen Park and Greg Susan are here we're delighted
004to have you here this evening when Nelson Mandela said this quote I don't think he was probably talking about school safety his school resource officers but the message that safety is it was a result of an internal consensus excuse me an intentional consensus and a public investment is certainly a code to what we're going to discuss this evening we were fortunate last February to hire avons first full-time school the coordinator mrs. Debora Swain Bayliss mrs. Bayless has a tremendous background in this area and just at her brief time here since February has helped both our schools and our community become safer and more intentional in our practices at this time she's going to join us to talk a little bit about the history all right so she mentioned the safety meeting that happened in July
005of 2018 and I was not hired by the school partnership so of course that did not attend this meeting however it was well attended from what I understand and the forum was questions concerns and ideas so the community came together and they could ask the questions they could give us their concerns as far safety concerned and they could let us know what ideas they had for us to improve safety so we took that very large group and we broke them down into 17 smaller groups and each one of these groups we had an administrator that then took notes and so it was this packet of information that I asked for ended up on my desk when I started it was curious as to what the community felt we needed to address and I found some
006trends so does that mean 76% the group's talked about building security and procedures 65% of those herbs talked about mental health and 60% talked about the importance of police officers so I do want to point out that in 14 short month a vomits done some pretty incredible stuff to address those concerns so as far as procedures are concerned visitors attacked through our safe consider management system so when you come to one of our schools you either have to have your driver's license scans or you've completed a background check and that background check that you can scan it either way we know who's coming and going from our buildings which is fantastic we also solidified our procedures around background checks who needs them versus the driver's license again all staff were given emergency preparedness procedures so
007this is something we've put together at the beginning the school year and all teachers have this and I wanted to make sure that our vernacular around emergency preparedness is the same so we're all on using the same vernacular lockdowns her native attire and the procedures are all the same right so this went out to all of our staff so that in all 12 our buildings were all doing the same thing and then we're also ensuring that staff are wearing their idea that sensible when they're in our buildings as far as building security is concerned exterior doors require Dualla specifications so that means if you find one of our you have to have a pin that goes with that so again two layers of protection before you can get into our buildings we're currently in the
008process of looking at a new king system for exterior doors and we've secured the door door 33 of the high school so it is an asset of the same items or one and the door to the ALC and that you come into a best meal that into an office and the tendon thinner - again is gaining driver's license or our codes and making sure we're doing who's coming and going and that doors primarily for students so again we're tracking whatever students are coming and going from our buildings so mental health we added more counselors we received a grant and that grant funding has allowed me to hire a mental wellness coordinator two counselors on top of the counselors that the school already hired and for social workers which is huge and then a general safety
009the harness will save the coordinator select about to get that job pretty excited about it we also made sure we set temp our staff members to be certified school safety specialists so this is a program in place in the state of Indiana that requires two days of specialist training and the goal is to have at least one staff member in each building that is certified so we complete for writing around 1415 so we're well on our way to making sure that we have one in every building we're holding monthly school safety meetings and again people from the building are coming in and they're letting us turn what their concerns are at the building level and this is really informing what we're putting in place and how we're putting in place corporation wine we also did
010a cyber security training a test so we did the training and then police that a couple amounts people would click on the link and again it's just training and then reinforcing what people are learning to make sure that what we're giving our staff and students make sense so as you can see we've addressed as there's two major concerns that we saw my first slide as far as the loose security and procedures in dental health so today Avon has two full-time school safety resource officers that supplies to us through Ava Police Department and those two positions currently are funded through a grant and then we have three positions that are fiddled by pool of twelve officers so these are off-duty officers from three different agencies who then Bennett for these spots not every day do we
011have all three spots filled and we don't usually see the same on the search days in a row because again it's on their days off that they're coming to our schools and they're giving us eight hours which we are incredibly thankful for but we're not going insistency and with the three different agencies with that Avon Police Department Brownsburg Police Department and the intergenic Sheriff's Department they all have different xfg so standard operating guidelines they're not hugely different so again sometimes lead to confusion with our staff and without that consistent beauty of this state faces in the building is difficult for us to build relationships that we have in order to be really effective so again we notice it's important there was the third largest thing that was discussed out of those seventeen groups and Sarah
012wind we're looking at that 50% what were the comments that were made that was the other thing that was really interested in them so consistency once again wanting to see the same faces and those buildings and making sure you know able to build those relationships when to be an increase in officer presence officers who want to work with kids and this is vitally important not every officer should be in the school building so again making sure that we have officers in our buildings for a passion of other kids as much as we are programs taught by officers that makes a difference and we have programs taught by the officers from the Avon Police Department and they've made a huge difference and our staff lives and our kids but again without that consistence in a lot
013of times that's two full-time officers are picking up the pieces when those three positions aren't filled and they're both in a lot of different directions so it's very difficult for them to get these programs in place and they keep them to give them all the love and nurturing that they need to grow and then the consistency will increase the quality and that's kind of a given so if we take what our staff and our students what our community and our staff have the same and we kind of married that with best practice and when I look at best practice I look at the National Association of school resource officers or nasara they usually make that the standards in the state I've been to a multiple trainings through them and I love what they do I
014love what they've put in place and I love that they really understand what school based policing they look like so the other thing I wanted to make clear and I'm realizing you know I've lived in this world for a while so it makes total sense to me but not necessarily to everybody so we have a lot of words for an officers and we have a school resource officers and you raise that over once the right a lot worse than officer who works in a school is not a small resource officer I just wanted to point out a little bit of difference so law enforcement responds to a variety of calls for service to do drug enforcement traffic enforcement accident investigation of reconstruction police case investigation implement crime prevention programs basic so then if you look
015at a school resource officer we're looking at specialized training that's been there done that working with you comes in schools there are resource for teachers they mentor students I think this is important in that you know Stockton what our resource officers know maybe Deb's having a bad day today and you know here in the wake of our high five and let her know that you recognize the problem and those little interactions add up to really big in mentoring our students and then implementing programs geared towards juveniles so once again dere is one of them needs a divan version of Derrick which is right it's love diffic added it's a couple of our middle schools and they have an explorer's also so we look at these two the things that make them similarities there's more lot
016of monsters the ability to detain interests make conduct investigations and then provide a sense of security so how do we improve I think we get all agree that three positions filled by 12 off-duty officers from three agencies is not a great right so what we really need to do is to replace those part-time officers with full-time school resource officers and then the two consistent officers from an a-line Police Department that have been the most effective for our students in our staff are fantastic and we love them immensely and we appreciated that's key here and I was really terrified when I found out that the grant funding for those two full-time officers in in April of 2020 and so have had a lot of meetings with a month police department it really comes down system uses
017it will be full time resource officers and they're all following the same playbook or the so what if that means for our future so now that resource for teachers which was on a previous flag and they just want to somewhat clarify it so teachers can go to resource officers and express concerns about safety and of course the resource officer is going to listen to what they did is an interesting right but the other things that resource officers have really great at are Kevin in the classrooms in teaching so they'll come into the government classroom and I'll talk about the block the evolution of law the enforcement but they also help us and them talk about drug prevention and they'll even go to math classes and they'll talk about how an accident reconstruction they can look
018at skid mark and determine based on the tire and the road construction and whether it's raining or whatever else the speed at which that vehicle was traveling train and so that's the kind of stuff that gets kids engaged in subjects they may not find all like an accident occupation and then creating opportunities for kids this is officer Brooks he's one of our full-time school resource officers in our building and has been in our and so he this sediment country they had just finished a lot fun and the theme was community heroes said principal Adam Council and the kids got to see what we'd like inside there please heart he's also they have a right to smaller the path that it was auctioned octave PTO and again in the cognitive school which is super cool and
019we've got principals who have said you know good behavior or you win the contest well how about Rick's come over and give us a nice Italy mutt seat and even to play in please turn on the equipment if and everything that goes on and all of the stocks has been hugely successful within our school for virtual interactive approach to school safety so this is where we all want to be right we don't like to be imaginary we don't like to put things in place because something happens like to be thoughtful about the programs that we're putting in place and they want to make sure that the little money that we have is being put to things that allow us to do production right so we can quit being reactionary we know that we're working towards
020a safer environment because we're being proactive in the in place so that concept of a solar mission having a sun-bleached apartment may seem are unique and asking would we be the first in the state and we wouldn't in 2007 the state of Indiana passed legislation allowing school corporations to put these partners in place and so are there other corporations that have two departments yeah there's quite a few actually so we have a list of a few of them and as you can see Brownsburg right next door on that one since 2007 Pike Township was the first one that started with depravity Brownsburg have theirs which about 15 Township was the first one in 2000 I thought it was you know I'm an English major so we've got the newest one is luckless they just started
021this year so it's not a new concept it's something that's been out there for life and for departments that have been in place for a long period of time the good thing for us is we can still other great ideas and not reinvent the wheel so we can learn from them what worked and what didn't work and we can eliminate what didn't work consistent with positive stuff so what is this mean for youth on police department I'm going to have chief Stoops come up and talk a little bit more about what it means we've had lots of meetings I've had lots of conversations like collabs there's a velocity versus a special opportunity here like to talk a little bit about just know how this is going to protect a police department that just talked a
022little bit about our department we currently had 29 to Soaring officer positions available to vacancies kind of right down into separation service and we're looking to fill one acidophilic initial offer employment [Music] so it's important to understand what the status a static say we did not use incorporated areas of Washington Township to the staff instead what that means is it won't will see a matter in a minute if you've ever looked at that map of Washington Township that looks like a jigsaw puzzle which parts of brows went planes you know everybody's kind of in they're integrated together and so what you have is you have a lot of students coming to the school corporation that are actually so it's important to make note of that and as Deb mentioned no cops grant does expire in
0232020 but 2016 we did apply for a cops grant this is a department justice crane it was for $250,000 to be dispersed over three years what's in us down that road was we began collaboration with the schools we found that that's based policing is successful we want to make sure that so we joined partnered with them to do that there's a statutory requirements that differ a little bit between a mobile and regular Police Department as opposed to the school based program police departments in Indiana must follow certain statutory requirements will hire it really take a disciplinary action in retirement as police as well as so those things are with a different world little bit limited on what we can do you're going to have you could potentially have some [Music] and you've heard that mentioned
024proactive policing and proactive I can't emphasize that about if you're not familiar with the difference between proactive in reality it's very similar to be in the parking lot at school the invisible and preventing someone from breaking into those cars or you just respond after the fact someone's already broken some goal here is to have a sizeable partner so those there's the math it's kind of talking about it looks like a jigsaw puzzle so you have students that are coming from pretty much all over the area they're they're not just for me to understand that your Police Department is going to be tasked with me going to some of those locations outside so when I talked about we had 29 first officers the slicing that kind of demonstrated the stratification of our resources we have three
025administrators we have four detectives and the rest are two of those officers apartment either they're dedicated to school says it's important to recognize that because that that reduces our enforcement so you might be asking yourself how does this compare to other agencies so we look at Plainfield most current data we have shows that they have 57 officers that's just about a 50% what they Henderson County Sheriff's Department says that Brownsburg with over 40% and it should be know that the brats work does not have any monsters in their apartment in the school system has yeah there's probably one of those challenges even potential staffing because they have type-o moaning they still manage to have an officer so in summary I just like to say that the town of Avon supports a Municipal Corporation because they
026whisper statutory support with our collaboration and create the school police department as an opportunity to enhance public safety of our community and school systems while assuring the continuation of proactive evidence based policing practices by both parties thank you all right well just to echo the sentiments from the chief because it truly is an opportunity to be a state over in the community when your school board once your input and have conversations with local and elected officials about being a part of such an important phase of school safety and what can we do to be a part of that so how we just like to have a conversation about what is this going to look like what does collaboration look like and I think that on the onset of the conversation of starting another police agency
027in our community you might be kind of predisposed to look at that like it's a step backward and so I want to be very clear this is an absolute step forward this is two steps forward by beliefs and a jump in terms of Laura collaboration can look like with the school corporation so we're not looking at this at a situation to say you guys can start your own art agency and we're going to go back to where we came from but what does it actually look like and so we want to be instrumental in this process and so in our communications with Deb as well as a school board and dr. Ehrman our perspective is that we will be as involved as you absolutely request start evolving to we want to be instrumental in each
028phase in that first phase is the process of establishing the Ori which is just basically a terminology that each agency is identified and recognized at the state and national level as having a number that number is kind of like our social security numbers that we as individuals once that happens the idea behind this program is to identify your leader so in our department chief Stoops is our leader and that leader has a lot of control over what the culture looks like that leader has a lot of emphasis on what's important to the organization making sure you have a good selection process and their officers and really integrating their vision to the reality of what the school corporation is dealing with so we've offered our assistance in any capacity to help in the process of identifying
029and selecting what would be the best fit for our school corporation for our students and for our town to work alongside Avon police department every single day and collaboration is forward moving it's integrated and so we want to be a part of that process whatever that may entail it's a background investigation if that is a a couple of conversations or sitting on an interview panel and so we're going to be at the table we're going to be our chair a little closer and be willing to offer that assistance in any way that we can Deb you spoke a little earlier about sog standard operating guidelines or procedures SOPs is sometimes a phrase that we'll use in law enforcement and if you understand the concept of having an SOP that's what officers are governed by these
030are the policies that help guide officers on when do you do things like income when do you make an arrest or what do you try to explore other options other than an arrest or a citation and working with people and so we've offered our full and complete some to this process we're talking to policy development we've already provided our policy maintenance to death in the process of reviewing what policies can they closely mirrors where we're going to have consistency between Avon officers and Avon school police showing it up on the scene to make sure that we're establishing consistency in the eyes of the community our administrators in the building and showing these students throughout the entire corporation that there's going to be something that's predicted they understand how they're going to be treated and how
031that process is going to look providing investigative support in my personal opinion this becomes one of the most important things that we can do I spend about 10 years in the Investigations Division prior to administration our chief actually spent about 15 years in that office so having the investigative experience brings up dimension into this collaboration that's quite unique what I'm referring to the fact that if this department is to get off the ground and we get started and we decided this is direction we're going to go as that moves forward there's going to be a threshold that those officers are going to be able to facilitate safety and investigating any sort of an investigation could be very sensitive in nature maybe a student discloses something very personal that's happened to them at home and how
032do we handle that what does that look like are we making sure that we're getting that student that child and that family is that they mean are we connecting them with places like Suzy's place Child Advocacy Center are we making sure that we're following an investigative process that will give us the best possible outcome for us to deliver to our local prosecutor's office it's very important that would work very closely with the schools on any of these type of incidents that initially give reporting because I would submit to you that the investigation itself is not won in the first couple of days or the first couple of hours I can assure you that if we're not following protocol procedures at the investigative level I can assure you that will that won't be the detriment of
033that case and that gets into our prosecutor's office for review we want to coordinate a lot of police training this probably somewhat known as we're already here today but we do a lot of our trainings inside school buildings during fall break and summer break and spring break we'll integrate some of our trainings that we have with Avon Police Department will come in and we're training with Avon officers if you look at a platform of joint training with another police agency you have to keep them terms of the long term vision got to keep that in focus that if we have an emergency that happens in any one of our facilities and we hire officers at the school corporation Avon officers are going to respond to all emergencies whether we do a school police department or
034not but what's it going to look like when we arrive on that scene are we going to know who these officers are and we train side-by-side with these officers and in training in law enforcement it's very important that the first guy in the room the second is going to do in terms of what's expected of them and we don't have time to communicate and come up with a game plan or in an emergency so we got a train side by side just take it to a whole other level regardless of how many officers would hire we're going to work even closer if we're going to integrate that training and be on the same page both in our initial onset and any amendments that are made of the training process and obviously establishing equipment and vehicle
035purchases this is something that you kind of don't think about initially anyway but where do you start where defy radar where do you buy a police car ready to bite Elias order to get the best deal how are we being the most responsible with our our tax revenue at the police department with the school corporation being a good steward of the taxpayer we've gone through that process you know we can we can talk about it but enjoy this is that that work we can talk about things that do not work and so this is kind of a screenshot of what that collaboration could look like but also understanding that for us this isn't helping getting it started and disengaging you're looking at investigative support with training that's going to continue every day throughout the school
036school year now that they mentioned about officers going into math class and helping I obviously can tell by this math equation that wasn't me I'll tell ya I just find this phrase kind of catchy and we'll talk about one plus one is three what we're talking about in general is when we start working together with two different agencies and combine resources we're going to find ourselves exceeding just a combination of the two so one plus one three is kind of the metaphor metaphor a reference here the things like an establishment of mutual aid agreements so we have officers throughout this entire county that work with other agencies not every single agency has every single resource that they're going to me they give you an example Avon police department does not have a bomb squad Tek
037we not have our own special weapons and tactics a SWAT team or an emergency response team so only encounter these incidents in our community and in our town we are constantly leaning on other agencies by virtue of established agreements if we have a standoff when we have an individual refusing to come out we have a hostage situation we have with local agreements that we contact rounds where a police department and they'll deploy their team without question and they respond to that scene we do have a three D three officers within our agency that trained with the Brownsburg Police Department on SWAT operations so we have some investment in that we're not just sitting back and letting everyone else take care of our business for us and what does that look like at the school police
038department it's quite simple these agreements will then extend into the school corporation if we have something happens on school grounds that would necessitate any sort of additional resource the school is at the table we're at the table we have these agreements and we can deploy them and that would be a kind of threshold to the investigative support that I mentioned earlier having an agreement that states amidst these circumstances if you call investigator we're going to be there we don't have to worry about asking for permission and there's just the right time we're just going to do it has move forward and try to get that resolved another the quality this is intelligence databases right now the law enforcement Network have accessed information is very strict and FBI governs access to all of that data and
039so for us we have access that the school does not have and the school has student records that we do not have access to as well in terms of our agency if we know we're responding to something that took place in our community to potentially have no impact whatsoever to the school system but if we have the ability to work closely with a fellow officer that is working within that agency they can provide us intelligence they can give us some information maybe there's information that we need to know about the emotional well-being of that student or that family that can allow us to be more sensitive and have a more realistic approach to approaching that individual maybe that could be something as serious as weapons in the home so there's a lot of different components
040of what that looks like in intelligence but in order for the schools in order for Avon Police Department to know every single possible piece of information we all have to be at the same table and again it's another dimension of the collaboration intelligence data files that we have combining what the school's independently and gives you one side of the picture but when we have one one we get three I did pass math class I talked a little bit about the joint training operations and opportunities and what that looks like I can't stress enough working side-by-side will be tender and no one was expected at each other in a critical situation as a massive part of having a successful response to a crisis but I also would tie that into our first conversations that we had
041which was that we're offering our support to the school Police Department platform as well in terms of field training the officers that would go through the Indiana law Enforcement Academy is the exact same that we do at Avon Police Department there's no reduction in the threshold training on the initial phase nor on the annual in-service training but we've offered our assistance that when their officers graduated from the Academy and they're ready to come into the schools and we would jump in to facilitate the field training and show them what it's like to be a police officer in the town of Avon and within Washington Township and we can do that on a very regular basis we have about eleven field training officers on our department that can actually facilitate that training and help kind of
042guide them in that direction kind of get off to a good start and this is the thing for me you're the chief talked about the grants and talking about being proactive and when you increase visibility in any dimension that proactive evidence-based approach is basically telling you that we have increased visibility in the community a person that might be likely to break into a car might be likely to commit a fraud in the store or may be worse to a robbery those individuals who are paying attention to what's going on around them they're not going to walk past the police vehicle to commit a crime that we're going to see a police vehicle that's going to deter their their ability or the desire to do that crime and that's the that's the evidence-based approach it's not
043a very high level complex issue to understand increased visibility is a deterrent and if you look at this from a perspective from the town side not just from the school side this is why we believe this is a vision that we share if we increase officer presence in our community by virtue of market police cars uniformed officers parking and parking lots driving from one school to another we have individuals that reside within our community or within our township as a community whole those are more police cars those are more visual deterrents that we have increased our visibility so let's get another platform to consider when you allow your officers to have those vehicles and driving them and they're all marked and I see the word police so they see a badge so with all of
044that it kind of gives you an idea of arsal or for this but also kind of gives you an idea of what the collaboration looks like and then we have a couple of full-time Aceros here in the in the room today and I would I would strongly encourage you to understand more about what that impact looks like and these are individuals that have a personal relationship that make these programs more effective than just an SOP and make these programs more effective than a marked car it's about the mentorship it's about the relationships that these des sorrows can establish and that generates trust and the network that actually develops over time to the point where they're trusting officers and they're providing information before potentially crying that might be happening in schools or even in their homes
045so it's about establishing that trust within the schools just like we were trying to establish that in the community it's important that our community understands that we value their trust and that we have to be a good steward and responsible harboring and making that our overall goal and so when you talk about next steps I think I'll turn it back over to dr. Maggie Norman and your next step look like thank you very much community schools in the Avon Police Department we're go forward with such a collaboration how would that work well I think the question that most of us have is how will it be funded and I'd like to remind you that we have several funding sources that we would use for such a program I'd like to remind you that we are
046currently paying for the equivalent of three SRO positions through those twelve part-time off-duty officers who serve in our school on a revolving basis so that would be one funding source we also as you know are very aggressive about grant funding in all phases of our school operations we compete often quite successfully for competitive grants and I certainly would like to commend missus Wayne Bayliss who just received in the last six weeks a $75,000 grant from the school's security school safety grant program and that was to support arts or SRO so we would certainly continue to seek grant funding we know that starting a police department will have some initial startup costs equipment carves materials for our police officers we anticipate using rainy day funds or some of these purchases you know when you think about
047your money that you set aside for a rainy day that's not something that you want to use on a recurring basis it's more something that you want to use one time so that you could build up that rainy day fund again and that's where we would see our equipment but the point that I think is very important to make publicly and the reason really for this the meaning is that we would anticipate using some of our referendum funds something that we want to be very very transparent about you know several people when we started talking about this and exploring this concept several people came to me and said oh my goodness aren't you all going to be doing a school safety recommend them because they see suburban Indianapolis school corporations all around us as soon
048as this November are conducting school safety referendums because just this year the Legislature passed the Legislature passed a law allowing schools to conduct school safety fund referendums so that they can enhance school safety and absolutely not we have no need or desire to do any more referendums and certainly not a school safety referendum and part of the reason for that is that we don't need to excuse me we don't need to do that however I do want to to be very open about the fact that when we have made 2018 referendum we did not say that the funds would be used to pay for school resource officers we did not say that because that was not on our radar screen at that time what did we say when the referendum priorities when we asked the
049community for its support we said that we would reduce class sizes that we would increase teacher compensation and that we would provide increased opportunities and support for students we certainly made great progress in all these areas in this short time specifically about class sizes today our average class size and kindergarten is 20 just three short years ago we had a number of kindergartners over 30 today our average class size in grades 1 through 4 is 22 again it was not unusual to be over 30 a couple of years ago and in grades 4 excuse me critics 5 through 8 in our four subjects average class size is 25 so the referendum targets we promised we have been able to hit this year additionally we've certainly made some progress on teacher compensation what we seek to
050do with teacher compensation is catch up because for the last eight years prior to referendum passing we have not been able to keep up with our league schools our schools are Brownsburg Plainfield Zionsville Westfield and Hamilton Southeastern those are the schools that are in our conference and to whom we like to compare ourselves and unfortunately over the course of about a decade our teachers salaries have lagged a little bit and so we knew we were not going to be able to solve this problem and you know move on a rank up in one year or two year or three years and that's what we one of the reasons we have the referendum but I do want you to know that last year our teacher contract did improve we did make progress we're in the process
051of another contract right now with our teachers and we anticipate continuing to fulfill this promise of teacher compensation improvement we certainly have increased and improved the opportunities and support for our students that looks like more plugs additional sports teams so not as many students are getting a cut it looks like additional support for English language language learners additional support for our students who struggle academically or behaviorally and we've been able to deliver on that promise now we did not say that school resource officers are the way that we would support our students but I would certainly argue that the relationships that have come with a consistent Police Department of school resource officers will certainly provide tremendous support for our students however the reason that we did this special meeting the reason that we're live-streaming it
052the reason that we're recording it and the reason that we're going to seek public comment afterwards is in part because we want to be very open with this community that provided our support for the referendum about how we would like to use referendum funds I'll remind you if you weren't around in May of 2018 we asked for 35 cents on every $100 of assessed valuation we were able in 2019 to get by the 34 cents it was only a penny less but two men have us that penny made a difference and we believe based on our budget that we've been working on for 2020 that we can fund this school resource officer program and the referendum fund below at or below 34 cents now how can you do that how have you accomplished all these
053things and how can you do that - it's because this community's assessed valuation has grown dramatically over the past two years a year ago our assessed valuation the value of the property and our community went up 10% the highest of Hendrix County this past year that went up 7% again the highest and Hendrix County because we have the ability to borrow more funds that way we also have the ability to make our referendum dollars go farther without taxing the community so I want to emphasize to you that in this position I often feel grateful I feel grateful to live and work in a community that values education that values school safety and then values family I feel grateful to work in collaboration with the Avon Police Department I cannot imagine a more professional caring or
054dedicated group of individuals than those with whom we get to work within the Avon Police Department I'm grateful to have a school staff and in particular school leaders who have helped me understand something I didn't understand a year ago that consistent school resource officers not 12 great guys and gals funneling through every day once in a couple of weeks that have a consistent school resource officers from the time our youngsters are in kindergarten to the time that they graduate from Avon high school is an important component of advancing relationships and enhancing safety I'm also grateful to our school board for listening and being very thoughtful about their consideration of enhancing how we can improve security not just in our schools but also in our community I'm very very grateful and with this I'm going turn
055this meeting back over actually I'm going to share a link with you before I turn it back over to the school board as I mentioned this is being recorded and we have a YouTube channel where this can be viewed later those of you who would like to view the second time or those who do not have an opportunity to do with us tonight tomorrow there will be a public survey seeking the input of those who have perhaps been here tonight or watch the recording later and we will leave that public survey open until after fall break so that we're sure to give plenty of time that's a very brief survey but it allows time for conquer it allows the space for comment so we'll leave that open until an October 23rd and with that I'll
056turn this meeting back over to this a single heart in our school how would you describe your vision on how we work together in that suit we've never hired ray hiring teachers but we've never hired a police officer so can you describe to me how you would see that and how we would work together so on the onset of that obviously there's a basic approach to that you're going to need to establish is a salary benefits package for your leadership pretty cheap so we've got a lot of information we have after years upon years we're fighting right now and we have an actual hiring process that's underway today and the feedback we're getting from all the companies that administer these written exams are telling us that applicant turnout is very low with unemployment as low
057as it is right now a little bit more of a detraction from what appears exciting careers kind of then that that applicant pool down as well and so it's going to be a lot of a lot of importance on their meeting and having a competitive benefit package ID it's where it starts that make people understand that this could be a long-term commitment to working for the school corporation and it puts them in a position of longevity so I think the biggest thing for you to consider in that phase is in order to get people to even stop in look drop an application is your have to find yourself being a peasant in a lot of different dimensions we would be able to assist in every way promoting that encouraging where to advertise when the advertised
058of a lot of other community is stratified in terms of where you're sending your message to it's not just as simple in our opinion as putting a social media post up or putting it up on a website you know where we're putting it out are we targeting the demographic that we're searching for you're going to want to keep focus on bringing some veteran leadership that is already in play with that experience they've made their own estates and they're going to recognize that our clothes and I think you know once you have that advocate for a place that the testing process itself is pretty pretty standardized at the honest meters I'm talking to written exam physical agility you're going from there to an interview panel of some sort and all of those have an opportunity to
059really evaluate that applicants ability to speak with others to be able to be physically as well so once you get through that process I think at that point you're finding yourself navigating you know it was the best fit for the culture you're trying to establish it so I would go back to what your chief would look like what is that cheeks vision is that vision in line with that of the school or what's that environment look like and I think in a day you're looking for people that are going to be flexible and want to be in that school corporation every single day building relationships and so as you mentioned before anything you guys would like for us there we can give our expertise if there is such a thing might have but I think
060working closely with dead in the process of what that looks like she has a lot of experience in Department of Education and a lot of research beyond what I've been be honest with you about the value of an SRO and so I would lean on her expertise on what an SRO program looks like and her networking to learn and educate move forward and I think that helps navigate your selection process Deb I know you've done a lot of research you did a lot of research on the benefit of SR O's in to school corporation now just the element of safety but as we talked about the proactive policing in communities and schools and that was exciting to you and it's exciting to us about what some of those possibilities are so the things that might
061strike preemptively to problems in your community even before they manifest through a program like this being involved in children and their education but also just being proactive in identifying sources of issue of concern could you just talk a little bit more about that and I know you've done an extensive research so maybe they talk about some other community or some other school based SRO programs and what you've found there in that room so the thing that I like about the answer our program is put forth by Mastro is that you look at a tribe right so you've got policing you've got mentoring you've got teaching and I think that's really important when we're linking and officers that are building we want them involved in our classrooms that want to involved with their kids that are
062teachers and everything and I think if you just have tops you're missing that whole part of mentoring and teaching that I think is just so instrumental as far as having I had my kids go to Rob's I'm really familiar with their system and I think I didn't say great I know my kids have had concerns that they reported to an officer and they felt totally nice during that they didn't see weird odd their vernacular around officers uniformed officers is different than what I would have had growing up right so the warrior around an officer more comfortable you get the more you realize they're just human being like the rest of us right and they'll jump around a little you have a good time and it's in that realm we really get your information the other
063thing that's really fun about our program is that we have all of these mental health systems in place and so we may have a kid drug like this has nothing to do is thank you but if an officer left us to know that we can make sure we've got services available those kids because officers going to know let's do this daily interaction comes off right what's going on you can tell me right everybody and that will make a huge difference I think getting our kids to know and trust that what they tell us we take seriously and then we have people who have the authority to pull out the police had a penny chair right but if they don't need to we can take care of those things right so there's a stratification and if
064a cop is we have a multiple we have we're not going to have that and it's just going to be the norm it's gonna be part of our environment and who will provide training for these pets our rooms and will they be required about law enforcement veterans say I'm required to be certified through il ei so they have to be a licensed law enforcement officer in order for you to start this department and in preparation that is the legal perimeter that surrounding and that's what was required you're going to say that you're starting your own Police Department so that's 15 weeks of that training gave on the 17 weeks in and out in the field so we would partner with them and they've made a few weeks with a Mikey D and then a lot
065of it within our school part this goal would be that our pool would have and not like food law enforcement officers who worked in pools you have this experience that hopefully we wouldn't have to spend any or just a few to become less than law enforcement officers and again we're looking for a specific personality specific trait I think we could have a lot of teachers who might be interested or educators or even interest community that don't have backgrounds in the license enforcement or the personality of so we can always teach somebody how to be a cop sometimes it's hard to teach people how to be mentors and teachers instead of the NSRS also have to have 40 hours training that's provided through certified training that natural absolutely save Indiana to lead the way in this
066we have lots of trainings on a regular basis I got through that 40-hour training just to see what it's like and it is good because they are talking about brain development which of Juvenal to turn about by the forest that special ed and a lot of other things that happen that gives you that specialized training so they do understand the school environment that was going to be my next statement or question was I think in this training that they're going to receive will there be like talked about Bible and all that stuff and and how to talk to a child and you know not in the harsh voice sir you know a a pat on the back and that way I know you guys know how to do that so but yeah like that it's
067that's what I was wondering so it's important that they understand right okay and how there is certain information we don't share across the community that we are vigilant with that information but we also mean our law enforcement officers and when they're part of our corporation they are looted on what strategies are put in place to make sure that a 504 is is successful or even and I eat and ihb whatever it is and it much easier when officers are internal and part of our staff to make sure that that information is getting a share we find it very difficult we do the best we can and I think the officers that are in here but we were talking 12 people that are rotating through it is really hard to make sure that they understand the
068nuance of every student and how to handle them but their inner buildings every day we know that maybe we're not going to talk to them today because approaching her this way tends to cause they're absolutely great and so again these are skills that our resource officers honed and get really graph and I'm sure - they're going to have to - staff teachers have been active work with them - to appoint me to these kids and explain to them you know what's going down with this child so that's that's great that they can work together like that and it's important it'll be a lot of training on our side with our stock so they understand yeah there are certain things we're not going to fund their resource officers to do play if a student says no
069to a staff member that's one thing but if they think no to a license law enforcement officer that takes it to a whole new level and so again we need to make sure that our staff on when resource officers are put in certain situations and when they're not put in certain situations so again that corny areas of training is talking about the legalities that run the laws when you interview when you contact parents when you referring that they're a little bit different and they get a little lumpy when you're talking about juveniles so there's a lot of training and focus on what that looks like in the school environment and again it's a matter of making sure but our officers need a runner out of me made a fence and then everybody knows where those
070lines are so they would be able to assist the teachers then and making that phone call or meeting with those parents okay thank you couple of comments have been a question that the approaches would be treated on occasion first of all thank you it's parking station on Serna Jennifer the support department you offered this is a huge endeavor and confidence that we could be successful in this because of the fact that you guys are offering tea not just always wanted but stay in pretty common to be successful I'm going to see that remember team or frankly it's finding fun my question is all that makes a lot of sense to me can you talk a little bit about I think you mentioned in your presentation an officer going out with my investigation right to a
071home or something you talked a little bit about how that sharing works and character issues and how to get work together in that kind of situation and how that benefit both of you guys and the family nurse community were all yes so the when you talk about jurisdiction that's something the law enforcement officers talk about all the time you know when a phone call comes into the dispatch center one of the first questions we have to that is where did this incident take place that because we have to be respectful of the agency that might be responsible for that investigation that's mostly surrounding the fact that there are people that pay taxes at this rate of that rate where they live at and all the services that they're establishing the same connection that they expect
072you know you can fight this with the Internet by illustration right so we you look at the map that was up here when so Chiefs dudes characterized as a jigsaw you see all the different communities when you look at a town and a lot map you can literally drive through a County Road one house will not be incorporated favor might actually have volunteered and extended the talents so we don't have really a very systematic way when you're looking at a map oh then you have to give me a specific address I'll go to our dispatch center they'll tell us whether or not that's a county jurisdiction or a city of playing field or our town of Avon and so if you take a situation that starts of initial court inside your school corporation this will
073allow your sorrows who would be empowered of course all halls across the state of Indiana but they'll have to worry about that jurisdictional issue they become in that situation and can take action they can take enforcement community two witnesses and parents and start that investigation without having to worry about but let's make sure we connect you with this because they have concurrent jurisdiction they have the ability to enforce on either side of that now Avon does have that ability from itself but when you only have two male officers this is your five that are in school corporation now you're also starting to compromise the incus compromise the consistency of having that same officer and now making that jurisdictional call so for example we may have a prowler officer that's working on a school and they
074did great work but if they're responding to an incident at your school corporation there now the town of Avon and they asked him and wires say worthless is a place that the car doesn't have its jurisdiction and now you have three agencies at a table that can cause a delay I take action and when we talk about school safety immediately slip we need to be prepared I think this helps streamline the communication process establishes good boundaries that's all the power by virtue of state statutes about what an investigative process looks like and allows your school resource Police Department to really go in there and what not haven't had any hesitation take their business to make sure schools are safe science requires perfect I like the one plus one is three as well I have one
075work and that is that I like the idea that the mutual agreements that already exists between econ Police Department in the specialty units that we would have at our disposal are you having your disposal the ability to attract wise making cybersecurity that is especially skilled other departments or agencies that have that specialization so I like that it feels like to me it is a real branching out of our sorrows by an Avon police department into a lot of different specialized law enforcement that we would have access to so that's and that part is very appealing what I have concerns about is does that you want me the time because now you're going through three rather than just directly if you were a police officer with the accomplished department situated in a school you would have
076the ability to call in that the mutual agreement entity immediately one-to-one now it seems like it would go through a two-step process is that correct and if so that would that add time to deploying those resources to our schools that we could just to help understand the MOU process a little bit better when we establish the aim of use with other agencies we incorporate language missile entities that allows us and our officers to have we won't have to go and call the police department and saying that's what if there's an emergency here and one of our officers that seems to respond immediately those are the channels to get that process started they didn't call it as best and on the radio it's immediate it goes to a call-out alternative as were swiping all those officers
077on 19 they activated so there later and I got some used a y-intercept you use that service or that as part of that agreement and we take care of that in the languages of indigenous after several common I thirdly the totality was still responding the emergencies that we had at the school and I want to thank you for I think me more a comment man what I appreciate I appreciate that we are looking at all the different pots that would be often referred to to be able to fund this I appreciate that yes there are a possibility for effort and knowledge to go that direction in my team and that's the last pot lead-up to though but I because we've had this conversation we wanted the board to very quickly except we need to be
078very transparent about that but it might assignment that needs to be the last place we go I am very impressed that you have already received your first grant he's only been here with us her few months and I'm sure that process will aid you didn't possibly define corporate money for the hybrid of the extra so I just wanted to make that last choice but I'm grateful that it's there as an option anymore comment I would like to thank you two gentlemen for me Aaron and publicness with all of this and explaining this greatly appreciated thank you and thank you everyone for being here to listen to hear what they have to say what we're thinking about so thank you very much all right with that I will adjourn the meeting anyone how great [Music]