001okay finally see if they Knight will call this meeting to order at 6:30 to standing first of all they everyone coming to see the third of our community engagement beads as we go through the process and trying to decide how to move into the future to improve our tools to make the education that our children experience the best it can be and what they deserve being with the parents and what will happen the CD is first dr. Horner minute and other administrators and guests will give a presentation if you attended the earlier sessions or saw our mind I think you'll find that there's more detailed information given and then after the presentation what we want to do is break into small groups and the purpose of this provide feedback in the small setting everyone can
002every comment will be recorded and that'll all get back to us and our decision-making process so there's a lot to do this evening without further ado I'll turn it over to dr. Wong thank you David welcome and thanks to all of you who are attending this session or watching us on livestream this is the third of four community engagement sessions meetings with our school board and with the public to discuss the financial challenges facing or focusing for those watching online it may be frustrating to not be able to see the presentation and I'm sure you wish you had an analyst I want them to be aware that this presentation has literally changed every day as we have made it and various venues with our staff they've given us feedback into the justice priorities so part
003of the reason that we have intentionally not provided to our live audience or are on the presentation notes is because they're still very much to draft form at some point in the next few months someone's going to ask you why do they want to eat more of our money what does the school system done to avoid asking taxpayers to pay their taxes our other districts other financial challenges that a mother's having and we hope that our public can become knowledgeable with answers to those questions and so tonight we're going to talk to you about that process what has happened up until this evening we're going to answer like my name is Tucker and maybe Bob then in other school districts we're going to explain what a general fund referendum is and how it works and
004perhaps most importantly and the information that I know that several of you who attended the November and December sessions have been waiting for we will share some possible one minutes finally for those of you willing to stay afterwards as mr. McDavid or our president said we'll have some small discussion each of our administrators will be seated at a table so that they can listen to your new hood it can be very difficult or very intimidating to walk up into an auditorium in front of lots of people that speak on a microphone to everyone but if you typically don't you remember when we use that format and that's the reason that we want if you're willing to go into the cafeteria here I might be no noticeable staff and speak to you in small groups thus
005far we have two fairly well attended community engagement sessions and they relaxed and and reported they're still available for viewing on a dedicated web page of our website we reviewed our financial challenges in all the ways that we have tried to save money and become more efficient the ways that we have sought additional revenue for our school district prior to coming to the school community and asking for a referendum as a result of those meetings and staff meetings that we've been holding over the last several days there has been a tremendous amount of engagement and input we're very grateful for that the very first community engagement being before the word referendum had been uttered patron asked them how do they work who else has done well we want to give you a little a little
006bit of an education referendum came into being in Indiana just back in 2008-2009 when the state our legislatures put it in place for the first time as a means for schools to ask the public for additional funds for either operating or construction building abilities in a nutshell a referendum is a federal question asking the taxpayers to support by their construction or our enemies when we ask the public to support operating needs we're asking the public for by the general fund referendum and that's what we're here to talk about as evening if the public approves a referendum they're saying that they may support paying more in taxes than the 1% that their tax is currently capped at residential homes in the state of Indiana are capped at 106 that's the maximum you know as a homeowner
007you're going to have to pay but a referendum asks if you will will anymore even though that makes is the property tax the school work can determine how funds will be used for our area or general on some key information about a referendum is that it is a very highly regulated legal process the board has to pass a resolution saying it wants to pursue a referendum at a public board meeting that needs to happen months in advance of an election our leader has not yet passed such a resolution we certainly appear to be headed that way but before they decide how much to ask on our algorithm they want more input they want to hear from the staff they want to hear from all of you they want to make sure that our priorities that
008we are going to outline tonight to do as a job or a career that's the reason for tonight's meeting and our Monday night's meeting our final community engagement meeting will be on Monday January 22nd at 6:30 at Kings where some people wonder 100 moaning it in one of your schools some people have told us that it can be difficult for people to come to school since they don't have children who belong here and so Kings way has been just a marvelous partner and opened up their facility for us and so we hope to get some other folks here on Monday as well it's important for you to know that the laws have changed significantly about how referendum should be handled and there are legal restrictions about a school district can and and I do to
009promote what we can and cannot say when we can say it where we can meet employees other than the superintendent the Director of Finance the associate superintendent and the assistant superintendent and employees may not promote the referendum during school hours they may not use school district resources to promote for opposed threat remember they may not have school email they may not use paper they may not use silica and sharks once aboard adopts a resolution to put to the court the referendum the school district may not shall not spend taxpayer dollars to promote Oh we'll talk about that a little bit later we've got the free good luck we learned a lot from districts who have passed our owner agreements and we realized that a successful referendum requires the sophisticated political campaigning a political action committee
010or PAC consisting of hundreds and hundreds of volunteers is warmer and more like you community members parents people who want to be involved in promoting your enemy the pack includes a chairperson or a couple of chairpersons respected people from our community a treasurer and as I said hundreds of volunteers I have a list of every superintendent with in the past summer months especially those who did not have to referendum the first time I did the second time and I asked them what they thought that he was interestingly enough almost every one of them remember mentioned the role of the path and every single one no matter how small how tiny their district indicated that they had at least 200 to 300 active volunteers anyone can be part of the path and when it comes time
011we'll have a massive hauler anyone can donate to a path a lot of appellative money why would they need donations well printing materials printing archives all the things that the school district should not use taxpayer funds to promote training will be involved will be provided for anyone that wants to be involved but there's something for everyone the school board has to make a decision when it considers advancing or referendum about whether or not to put this item on a May ballot or November ballot popular wisdom says it's easier to win to November we can't wait we simply cannot wait another school year to make this change we need really prior to the beginning of the 2018 night to school year if there is referendum and the majority of voters who go to schools that they
012agree to support it they're agreeing to pay additional tax beyond they currently pay for any use those funds go into a second budget which can only be used for that which we promised they would be used for what happens after eight years people ask again and again well we don't have a crystal ball but as we look the state to the many school districts that have passed multiple river another indeed sometimes the school district asks for a referendum to be renewed and another political campaign ensues sometimes it's for less money but the whole process starts all over again again I can guarantee you you're going to be asked this question well the district just needs to live within its means they need to tighten their belts just like we do at home or in my
013business when times are tough and we agree the district needs to live within its means we also want you to know that for six years we have done everything that possible to become more efficient we need many of the items on the next couple of slides and I'd like to highlight just a few ways that we have been efficient with our revenue and ways that we have generated additional revenue for our students in 2015 we convened an efficiency task force of twenty eight members of our community they helped us identify over three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in savings that we could not get identified on our own a much better example and one that really seems to resonate with our friends in the business community is how well our school district has managed healthcare
014costs I like to ask do you know any business in Avon or any entity that does not raise its insurance premiums in 2016 or in 2017 Brandon this year 2018 we to increase our insurance premiums by 3% but can you find any an a business that managed their medical expenses as well so far I have yet to have anyone come up and tell me that there is this managed to do that for the last two and a half three years even that 3% is far below the industry average that example is not because we're so smart we're so great we work very hard with a wellness clinic and a health care program and we worked hard to help our employees be very educated consumers about health care they have helped us keep those premiums on
015another point that's made Obama's big list I won't read everything are the ways that we have generated new women we have some amazing sponsorships from Hendrix Regional Health and anymore Automotive Group they will bring in two million dollars over ten years a couple of other examples is the top one on this list open enrollment last school year we decided to allow a small number of students who don't live in avons district to come and attend our schools it seems kind of illogical or counterintuitive by our students we were actually able to reduce class sizes but that's exactly what happened k4 buildings we were able to generate $350,000 of additional income for the school district by accepting those students and we were able to strategically place seven cross r7k for buildings and it really made a
016difference in class size you can see on this list we go after grant really hard if there is a competitive grant we're going to go out later we constantly renegotiate our contracts and our services to make sure that we're getting the very best terms I feel confident in saying to you that we have become relentless in our efficiency and I said it probably a dozen times in the past year and a half if you compare something that we can be more efficient with I hope you identify that to us some of our best ideas have come from our employees and our patrons we feel we must be cautious with our taxpayers bonuses as 10 faves you may also be interested to know that you don't just pay taxes of course to support the schools you
017support the tower the township fire department the library the Avon Police Department and over the last four years we have grown into work very very closely together we have a collaboration taxing entities group we meet every other month senator crane and representative Sturm join us because we want to be sure that we are all working together for Washington Township taxpayers and here are examples the school and the library share fiber optic because the school is a much bigger consumer and we can provide it for the library at a much lower cost and they could get our own the township our fire department has just joined our wellness clinic that we provide for our employees thereby saying hopefully on their Medicaid we have a cooperative fuel purchasing agreement with the town and the township again we
018are a large consumer of fuel and we can purchase it and share it at a cost of course we don't want to make money off of our partners but if we can provide a diesel or fuel to our town and our Township at the same cost of ribbon to get it get it for that ultimately helps all of our taxpayers there are many other examples here and I won't go into them but suffice it to say that we do not nor one other community in the state of Indiana that is cooperating as taxing entities to the level that we are and it had other Pence's attention and it has covered locals attention and we're proud of that we also think it's our obligation another question I can pretty much guarantee that you'll be honest or
019something will say to you is something a lot of the vines other things seem just fine to me and Yvonne great schools wonderful kids supportive community safe schools high-performing playing in state championships I don't know why would they probably need more money on that proud of this answer but it's the truth we've managed that particularly for the last six years on the backs of our students and our employees this table here tells the story of our staff the blue bar represents a student in 2009 Jenna you can see on the far left that we have grown from eight thousand one hundred and eighty four students and two in 2009 to today nine thousand five hundred semesters the red line represents teachers you can see but in order to manage our earth and without adequate funding
020from the state of Indiana the only way we have been able to manage is to keep staff very low as a matter of fact today we have one thousand three hundred forty three more students but eight and a half fewer teachers twenty fewer custodians and six fewer administrators than we did back in it isn't just custodial and administrators and teachers we care about we have amazing support staff instructional assistants food service workers clerical support custodians and they too have been cut it's just a little difficult to represent accurately on a table because they are so many elderly employees some work ten hours some work 14 hours but I can say thank you to you that our support staff is also as a mean as it could possibly be suffice it to say that we can
021cut staff and now we are cutting into his own we did add some teaching positions at the start of the school year as parents who may be aware that we simply could not in good conscience allow this to continue particularly at the k4 level with classes of over thirty in some of our some of you know that we were taking a leap of faith in order to do that we hired these teachers as emergency buyers to bridge us and even though we did that and it did help at the k4 level we didn't do anything for grades 5 through 12 and those class sizes and those caseloads are still uncomfortably hot so when we asked the voters to support us we're asking the voters for what's needed to stay on a path towards sin and
022restoration and to increase quality education for our students if people don't register to vote or don't go to the polls and this fails we cannot maintain where we are today if we do not succeed we cannot maintain the status quo many of you we've also seen this chart of before which compares the salaries of avons seven teachers to those in our conference and neighborhood schools this is one of the slides or a piece of information that keeps me on that way because a quality teacher is the number one factor in student success there is no other variable that has a greater influence on student success that we control on the school's poverty doesn't predict it the way of here a great teacher does intelligence great values curriculum a quality teacher is the number one influence
023teachers have the biggest impact on students lives in their learning we must our fabulous teachers when I talk to parents about this I ask you to envision that great teacher that you hope your youngest gets because your oldest a top teacher and you hope he or she doesn't retire or move to another district that actually brings tears to someone's I don't ask that question but we know that right now according to this chart another recent research that are 20 20 year veteran teachers and whom we have best invested so much and who have oily state with this district during challenging times to go to any one of these other districts and earn five to 11 percent more annually and of much smaller class sizes those of you who have been here a while that I
024have know that that was a thought was the case for many many years we have we led the county the conference with our teacher compensation it's taken us eight or nine years to get this Bob below and if we're not going to get out of it overnight but we must make progress retaining our teachers is our number one goal we have a teacher shortage of the state of Indiana and attracting new teachers will already hurt so this graph shows that a first year teacher will do better at ground for Wayne plaintiff in Zionsville then he or she will in a mom now some of you may be wondering what about those important support staff members that may I mentioned my goodness wire but they're selling composition will you hear a little bit more about this
025and on the whole our research shows that we are not lagging in our compensation of our support staff the way we are referred to the juices we're not leaving but we're not quite below us even no not very below us but we can't lose ground there we cannot lose support staff to other greater districts so we want to maintain these people also with steady incremental salary increases the school finance is one of the most challenging topics I've ever encountered I've learned a lot about it but I can't possibly do it justice the way dr. Scott Wyndham our director of finance and operation will do for you so he's going to give you a little bit about school finance thank you we're often asked why are we in this shape why why is it so tough
026it's important to understand a little bit about the basics of school finance there are two main sources of funding that all public labels have access to in Indiana to support the education of their students on the left-hand side of the screen you can see that one of those is state funding money that we received from the state of Indiana that goes into our general fund the general fund that pays for the majority of our salary and benefit expenses for our teachers and supports that supplies for our students and classrooms professional development substitute teachers utilities those are all general and expenses so the majority of our operating expenses as a school district are in our general fund we also have access that is for those of us who live in this community pay property taxes and
027those property taxes are divided among the taxing entities that dr. Lerner mentions the library that schools downtown as that schools are restricted and how we can spin in and property tax funds we can spend those funds to pay mortgage on our buildings make our debt payments have a project expense things like technology and technology staff building maintenance is repair costs and insurance costs are all part of our capital projects another major part of property tax funding is the cost to transport our students bus drivers us assistants fuel makings and repairs on we do have to replace buses those are all expenses that are paid through local property tax money what makes us unique and a mana is just how significantly we are impacted on both sides of school funding unlike almost every other school district
028in the state of Indiana and we'll talk about djay the other thing that's important to understand about school funding is that prior to 2008 in 2009 the local school board could decide that if they needed more funding to hire more teachers and reduce class sizes or address compensation issues that they could increase property taxes to address educational expenses however when the state took over funding the general fund they took that ability away from local school boards and in place they gave school boards one option which is a referendum that's the only mechanism that school boards have as a way to generate additional funds for educational expenses so the legislature said to school boards you have to ask the community if you need more funds to educate your students you have to ask for the community
029to support that in order to generate those funds the other question that we're frequently asked is why aren't other school districts in this same situation this slide it was into more detail about just how unique we are on avon part of what makes this hard to explain is that school funding is complicated in every community and every school district is impacted differently so this slide shows property tax and what that means is when magnet described like that as homeowners our taxes are capped at one percent that's great as a homeowner and in Indiana that's great I get to keep more of my money and not pay it in property taxes but that has an impact on the taxing entities the town the library public schools so the state puts out a report that says this
030is what the impact to each taxing entity is as a result of property tax caps and that's what this slide summarizes so you can see that in that are negative property tax captain after six point nine million dollars that's six point nine million dollars that the school will not collect as a result of carbon tax X so if you look at this list of other schools it's a pretty diverse list and you might wonder how these schools arrived on this list the ones listed above are those districts that are impacted more significantly than we are in a bar there are only seven only seven school districts out of 292 that are impacted more significantly by property tax packs you can see that those school districts are very different from from ours and that they are
031larger or more urban school districts are impacted more significantly than we are you can also see those listed below us are those that we most often compare ourselves to they're in our conference they're in our county they're the districts that we compare ourselves to in multiple ways nobles the grounds were are the closest to us however we are negative acted more than twice as much as those two communities all the way down the list a playing field you can see that we are negatively impacted 17 times more than Plainfield is as a result of property tax caps so when people ask why is it Plainfield in this situation this is a really important part of the story to understand just how uniquely we are impacted by property tax taxes and that's just one side of
032a school bundle so now what we're adding to the slide is save money each school district in the state of Indiana receives a different amount of funding per student based on a complicated formula that the state legislature puts together so we can rank order every school district in Indiana from number one the best funded all the way to number 368 the least funded school district you can see that an Avon we have a 339 fund of the school district about three hundred and sixty eight so if you look at this list you can see that yes Erie is significantly impacted by property tax apps almost nineteen point five million dollars however they are the sixth best funded school district in the state of Indiana look at our neighbors at Wayne Township you cross Raceway Road
033and you left Avon and are anyway Township yes they are impacted almost 13 million dollars by property tax apps however they're the 63rd best funded school district in the state what does that mean in terms of dollars if we receive the same amount of funding as Wayne Township that would be eight point five million dollars more that we would have in our general fund just this year we wouldn't need to be having this conversation if we had eight point five million dollars more we don't get reading Township the funding that they get we just believe every public school ought to be funded adequately so what does this mean when we look like this but what is apparent is that there are only two other school districts in the state of Indiana that are impacted so
034significantly on both sides of school funding Franklin Township less Washington and us those are the three school districts that are significantly impacted by the carbon tax and are also some of the lowest funded school districts in the state the other question that were asked is what are other thermal districts doing so that's the final piece that we've added on and you can see that many of the school districts that we've listed here have passed referendum and then multiple rn2 their second successful referendum so let's feel Washington who we men have even more significantly than we are passed a referendum a general fund referendum in 2010 and then has renewed it and are now into their second referendum this list compares districts that we've identified based on these factors but it's also important to note that
035many other school districts across the state have taken the only mechanism that is allowed by the state legislature and that is general fund referendum to meet the needs of their students so since 2008 95 general fund recommend than different places on the ballot we indicated with the pastor it's those that have passed multiple referendum as we heard from realtor at our first to community engagement meetings a successful school district directly impacts home values so voters in these school districts many of whom of course wouldn't had children in school recognized a great school district benefits all taxpayers we also know that this is hard to reduce several schools there so we've also agreed in map highlighting areas across the state where a general fund referendum has been assessed and you can see particularly around the Indianapolis
036area again that many school districts have taken the only mechanism that is available to generate additional funding for their students realizing this is even harder to read in the previous slide some of the school districts are West few assignments though Carmen and into southeastern normal is Bill Speedway Wayne Township Decatur Washington Township Perry Township speech through our mouth Cornel West Lafayette what's up yet Sheridan the other piece that is important to know about this whole plan is that financial health is important to the stability of the school district and we believe that part of that financial health is engaging highly respected outside environment to assist us with long-range financial planning a monstruous as well as many other school districts and local tax and enemies have engaged unthaw to assist us in that long-range planning so
037he passed mr. fur collection who to share a little bit about their analysis as they've worked with us and looking at our financial good evening it's pleasure to be here just want to give you a brief overview on bought associates were independent municipal advisors were actually a certified public accounting firm but not in the traditional traditional sense we worked with cities towns and schools across the state currently we probably work over 50% of the public schools across the state of Indiana and then also work with several municipal cities towns and some of the schools that are located plus the Avon Brownsburg and Ville Mill Creek Wayne Township Carmel clay and Clark Pleasant what the unbought team who came on to assist the school and our unbought team has been working with the Avon Community School
038team to really look at on a long-term basis look at the expenditures and revenue stream for the general fund and we put together several several scenarios based upon assumptions based upon enrollment based upon what the anticipated student needs are going to be in the future and depending on the the growth and the assumptions that are built in what we have looked at on several models is Avon schools looking at student growth the annual expenditures could actually exceed the revenue as early as Monday year 2020 and I refer to that as a tipping point because at that point in time the school corporation really has relative choices to reduce expenditures in some way or start if they want to maintain their programs start spending down their cash reserves at that point to maintain the program and
039the main reason behind the shortfall at that point in time on revenue is the fact that the state of Indiana the funding for the general fund is not keeping up with inflation for public schools so for for the school to remain really financially solvent and if you look at the school corporation they're in a very healthy financial position basically this the school would have to as I said either look to some other revenue source and what the the state of Indiana has provided for public schools is one option to pursue is that as an operating referendum to have another revenue source to really maintain and enhance their their curriculum and programs moving forward thank you structure of course some recent meetings and interactions with parents community members and staff members we've heard you loudly and
040clearly you know that home values are strongly correlated to school quality and you said to us we cannot allow the schools falling to the river you can clear about what you think are the most important priorities in a general area to reduce the size sizes to add support for our students in order to be successful to give them a full and comprehensive curriculum and to retain great teachers a ninja community engagement meeting we like to do from one of those teachers and tonight you've invited Avon rural schools Norland Avon Mills for North's Teacher of the Year mrs. Erin traders to really appreciate those partnerships the educational philosophy at Avon among the teachers is to teach the entire child that is coming part into total the past few years as our past I've been slowly increased
041we are all about building relationships and parking Spurs that is our first and foremost job when the school year begins it's all about forming solid foundation because the students have to trust us in order to learn from us so over the past few years personally in my classrooms and I've seen my class sizes grow sometimes 35 40 students in one classroom and not all of these classes have an instructional assistant sometimes it's just myself that is becoming I still spread myself I still give individual attention to every season yes the more students we add the more nor I stretch it's been and that's time an individual as a seventh-grade teacher I've seen my class roster get up to 200 students that's a lot and that's a lot for us to get to them and then
042really value the relationships we have with our interns thank you because we get to the items that we have prioritized based on our work with administrators staff parents Ward and the community I want to remind you the importance of passing a referendum will be to maintain the status quo you might say live as mr. Fletcher said the state of Indiana has not been able to keep pace with inflation for our schools we already know exactly how much you will receive in new funds in 2018 and 2019 in 2018 we will receive one point three percent more and we received in 2017 in 2019 will receive one point four percent more now at first blush that sounds pretty good more money this year than last year the problem is inflation was 2.1 percent last year so
043in order not to wait until 2020 when it's almost too late I know that this calendar year 2018 we're going to get 1.3 percent more and yet inflation was 2.1 we cannot maintain a status quo success or aluminum but you know what we want to just maintain a status quo you want better our stews so we have worked in defensively since our meetings with you in December to prepare several options to discuss with you and metal order without our principles our assistant principals our directors making in two days over the holiday break to work with us so that we try to develop some sound for every budget rarities and we're going to present three tonight the first is called the ascendant this is what we have and adds what we think we can't do without
044in order to move forward the second budget we Thailand improves this would indicate what we provide for our students and the third budget is an optimal budget this is what we believe would be ideal for our students hours and hours of work of going to be prioritizing and pricing and negotiating and debating these priorities and you won't agree with all of them I'm not sure I agree with all of them but if there's consensus as of this moment and every day and tonight we'll be gathering it more feedback about these priorities let's talk in general about budget would do for our studio this essential budget will asks the taxpayer the smallest increase of the three options it would target class sizes at the kindergarten level at 22 or human a three to one through four
045class sizes will be targeted at 25 or here and it grades five through eight class sizes would be targeted at 28 or funeral I use the word target intentionally I don't think you were packed because cap is not unrealistic in a big complicated system when we have some big schools and some small schools so I don't want to give anyone the impression that when the 26th fourth grader walks into one of our schools we're suddenly going to be able to add a teacher that's not unrealistic but these are targets and they're targets that we think are the best for our students this essential budget would also increase time for our students in art music PE related arts it would help us retain our teachers and attract new teachers with memories that become and incrementally and
046steadily more competitive over the course of the next eight years finally this budget would very significantly our support staff so that we can meet those academic needs of our students let's talk about the improvers budget and you general returners this budget builds on the last one the improvs budget includes everything we described in the essential budget but it will bring 5th and 6th grade classes to a little more reasonable of 25 rather than 28 it would add even more support setup and even more opportunities for our middle school students to be involved in extracurricular activities after school event and let's talk in general about the optimal budgetary the optimal budget includes everything that's in the essential budget the improvs budget as budget targets middle school classes at 25 or newer rather than 28 it adds
047even more support style and as a more extracurricular activity activities for our middle school and our high school students now one of the questions that was very very clear after our last community engagement meaning is you've got to tell us how much and that's what we've been working very hard to do and so now I'd like to share with you the fiscal impact of the essential budget the total raised by the essential budget in the word pass is seven point three five million dollars per year what would this budget mean for our elementary and intermediate schools specifically well it would allow us to retain our current position at the top of the table you can see that at the start school year we added nine pay for teaching positions we'll need a referendum to maintain
048those positions before I move on to the rest of the budget I do want to acknowledge what you sent to us in our community sessions and what our teachers and staff have shared with us you've got to tell the community what we will use if a referendum fails we agree we just do it tonight because we don't know which much an option we're going to advance but we absolutely agree that when and if there's a referendum on the ballot we will be very specific without trying to fear-mongering panic be very specific about what we lose this budget would also add one special education preschool teacher 11 more pay for teachers to further reduce class sizes to those target to be discussed for intermediate school teachers to reduce those class sizes to 28 or fewer they
049are now in the low 30s it would have ten and a half music art PE and related art position it would allow us to have a full time related arts team in each of our elementary schools we would have three instructional coach positions so they are no longer shared into large photos that can be a very difficult concept for people to understand the importance of instructor oh geez I don't know about in your profession but I don't benefit that much from going out to a seminar for a day learning a lot coming back I kind of forget it very quickly and I don't really do much with it the model of professional learning that we use in the Eitan Community School Corporation is to help our teachers get better at their craft in their art
050through the use of instructional coaches along with administrators we add and induct a lot of new teachers with our retirements and teachers from migrate elsewhere we have a lot of new teachers and they need support but we also recognize that even our master teachers want to get better and they have Clement for more time than their instruction podium we were fortunate thanks to our counselors that we received a loan agreement of eight hundred thousand dollars to increase our counseling and we did add two new Elementary counselors who just started two weeks ago they're currently funded by the grant are going forward that obligation will shift to our school corporation this essential budget would add quite a bit of instructional support to help our students 11 kindergarten instructional assistants oh you're going to have class sizes
051of 20 two or less a few our excuse me and you're still going to have instructional assistants yes we are finding some of our youngest learners are not coming ready to learn and that is impeding the learning of our to the earnest duties this budget would also add age of special education assistance again we have students who have special needs who are just as smart as general education students but they learn differently and learning is more difficult and we need to provide them the support to succeed we would add for english-language learner assistance again you may not be aware unless you've been in our schools that we have over 70 different languages spoken as the first language in our homes we have hundreds of students who come to our school district not yet ready to
052use the English language and so we know I need to provide many more superior we would also have a media center assistant I think many of us agree that our technology department does a fabulous job and as you know in your world technology is changing faster than we can keep up but this department is terribly understand this budget would add one more building technician as well as a district level application specialist we have seven upon district level applications we need someone to manage those as mr. Fletcher mentioned just like any business we need to remain financially stable this budget allows us to do that retaining our outstanding teachers are attracting new teachers if more competitive salaries is also part of this budget again we're not going to fix that over number that's going to take
053slow steady incremental improvement catching up just a little bit every year and even though this slide says competitive teacher salaries remember this district wouldn't run were it not for our amazing support staff members we need to make sure that we maintain their conversation competitive with the market the school marm you'll notice that there are no building needs addressed in budget some people think that we have some building needs some expansion there's some roof repair or some other things we are not going to spend a penny of referendum funds on anything other than teaching and learning additionally you'll notice that the referendum budget does not include any administrative positions as I said earlier tonight we have one thousand three hundred and forty three more students today than we did in 2009-2010 and six fewer administrators we're
054in particularly tough shape in a long high school they have grown 700 students since that time but we've not added a single administrator quite the contrary were six down despite that we do not believe that the referendum can possibly fund any additional administrative positions going forward we are fortunate enough to have growth money or some other way to do that we may be able to address something at Avon high school but we are not going to spend referendum money on administrators or building projects but this essentials budget means for our middle and high school students again we added eight middle school teachers at the start of the school year and one and a half high school teachers we would be able to retain positions this essential budget would also allow us to add or more
055middle school teachers for class size reduction remember the target here is 28 or fewer and as mrs. Brown said some of our subjects can get as high as 35 40 today this could also have one high school special education teacher one middle school special education teacher and five more high school classroom teachers a high school counselor again 700 more students but not a single name counselors is 2009-10 and a high school band teacher an additional e.l.f assistant would be added in high school this budget would also improve the extracurricular pay or silence for our coaches and directors right now our coaches and our directors if they are so fortunate to be paid to coach or to sponsor a club they are earning the exact same stipend they may earn in the back of $2,000 how
056have we managed them so far we have not increased our salaries or extracurriculars despite the fact that we know how important that is in the white house dude coach's pub sponsors and directors are currently earning the same amount as they were eight years ago this budget would specifically increase our opportunities at the middle school we would have assistant coaches at track and football like that because we have hundreds of kids going out for those sports and only a small number of paid coaches those are sports where we don't have to cut kids those are sports any middle school youngster can participate in but without additional coaches without adequate assistant coaches we aren't able to adequately provide programs for our students this budget would also add back middle school B teams for girls basketball and bouncing
057it should be noted that in our conference there is only one other school district that does not have B teams for basketball is this time in students lives when it's most important for them to be able to experience activities not be cut as the middle schoolers with haven't yet Iran or matured or been able to develop we do not want to decrease our opportunities for middle school scores except a critical age of their young lives now some people have asked us but why would a do soccer to middle school wiretapping baseball before the referendum in 2011 we're thinking about adding baseball and softball and believe me we would love to add it all but our coaches and our athletic administrators have said to us we need to do what we're doing now well before we
058add anything else we also have great partners an H AAA in our community and many soccer programs many youth leaves and so we think that doing what we are currently doing well is where we need to start right now we have 50 clubs at the middle school level and high school level that teachers sponsor without getting a pennant for them more than 2,000 students participated in those clubs and we don't think it's fair that our teachers continue year after year to sponsor those important clubs that give every student a sense of belonging without any this essential budget would address that so now you know that the essential budget would do for our students but what is natural is for you to want to know what does that mean for me as a taxpayer and so
059we'd like to share a very specific budget for this particular slide addresses the essential budget which would increase our taxes 27.4 cents for every $100 of assessed valuation now for most of us that's gobbledygook so we're going to do a couple if you don't across the top line of this table you can see that we have listed various market values of almost it goes from one hundred thousand on the left all the way up to five hundred thousand on the right we have highlighted one column in the yellow and that's the common that according to today's information from the Hendricks County Auditor according to today's information the average home price market value in Washington Township is one hundred seventy two thousand six hundred and seventy dollars now many of us don't realize that we don't
060pay taxes on that full market value of our own so we'd like to give you an example of different deductions that we get many of us not all of us many of us on our market value of our own prior to change tax so let's use the come on the far left the $100,000 you can see that they many homeowners receive a homestead deduction of an a mortgage deduction if they carry a mortgage of three thousand dollars that produced a hundred thousand dollar home market balance down to thirty two thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars for what we call an FSS family that's the amount on which you would pay your increase property taxes so let's see how much one homeowner would pay for the essential budget and let's go ahead and use that average
061home of the 107 2617 dollars once those deductions are after in this homeowner homeowner would pay a little more than eighteen dollars a month in a petition to what they currently pay for there's another as we move forward there will be a tax calculator because I don't care what the average homeowner is going to pay I want to know what I want to pay and I want that information from a trusted group and so I will be providing a tax calculator on a website going forward and the point that I must make to you is this is not a straight math problem you can't say oh if the $100,000 homeowner is going to pay 18 dollars more then that must mean that is a $200,000 will paint over that it doesn't work because our deductions
062vary according to the Nemesis by overall so let's talk about the improved bundle and then she's before that the first budget would increase our taxes or regenerate seven point three two million dollars the improves budget what would that mean for the school district that have made an additional eight point six six million dollars per year and again let me remind you what's in that essential budget in addition to every person in this improvement in addition to everything that we talked about in the essential budget this improves education for elementary and intermediate students by targeting class sizes of 25 or fewer at the intermediate level the essentials are generally had them a twenty-eight or fewer the improves budget has been a 25 at this budget also adds an intermediate can't learn to be shared between east
063and west and into more of their special education teachers it would add for our interventionist of the intermediate level and again lots of people what's an interventionist that sounds are other medical to me we have some very highly skilled teaching assistants who work with our students in small groups if they are struggling to keep them moving forward or if they are excelling to make that were challenging them and so the interventionist model is one that has worked very well at the k4 level but this improves budget would add into intermediate interventionists recall oh this would also add one more building technician for technology so what is the approved budget do for our middle school and our high school students again at the top you see it generates a point six six million dollars each year
064for eight years but it also adds a new school special teacher high school special teacher for more classroom teachers at the high school level economy is central there were five more classroom teachers this one for more additions back and another counselor today the high school by special education assistance would be added to the middle schools along with to middle school interventionists this budget would also add more positions in Avon high school to allow more opportunities for students to be able to participate again that's what it means for students what's the impact on taxpayers you can see that the essential budget increased twenty seven point four seven additional 400 dollars of assessed valuation this draft budget takes that to 30 2.30 - MS let's again just review one example and let's be consistent and review the
065example of the average home in Avon 1033 one hundred seventy two thousand six hundred seventeen dollars the yellow highlighted table when we deduct the various mortgages that that homeowner we receive the net assessed value of that home is now seventy nine thousand nine hundred and fifty one dollars so the monthly impact for the homeowner would be $21.58 a month or two hundred and fifty eight dollars and 96 cents a year let's move on to the under this budget would raise nine point seven three two million dollars annually as far as elementary and middle school the only addition would be to increase the clubs that we have at the intermediates will love the activities we have for our students but it does have a more significant impact of a secondary school this optimal budget would reduce
066our middle school class sizes to twenty five or fewer recall that the essential budget had class sizes that the middle school is Bru's budget had class sizes at 28 or fewer so we would have for middle school teachers to choose that we would have three and a half high school teachers we would add new support staff positions with two middle school music assistants six more interventionists of a noticeable level and two high school support staff positions these are not instructional support positions these are simply positions to help that building run it's a very large building of over 3,100 and we have not been able to add any sort of support office clerical staff this budget would also increase the number of clubs and both middle schools and it would even provide an activity bus where
067our middle school students four days a week whether they're staying after four extra health to attend the study tables to participate in a club or athletics we know that one of the barriers to middle school students being involved as a lack of transportation we also know the keeping students engaged at the middle school level is the key to their own success when they go on to high school so the optimal optimal budget includes that we'd love to have it at the high school also but at least some of our high school students have licenses and are less likely to be impeded from participating in extracurricular some of you wonder which clothes would you add how much you increase the stipends for the extracurriculars and we have to acknowledge that that is negotiated between the school
068district and the Union that is not something that I can say the yearbook advisor has earned this for the last eight years but we'd like to increase that stipend $200 but our administrators and our athletic directors have given us a sense of what we could accommodate we will still not be leaving our conference right now our coaches that Avon high school are the lowest aid in the comments our music directors Avon High School are the lowest faith in the conference we aren't going to catch up overnight but we do feel that we need to both make progress for retaining those great coaches and directors we also need to make progress to expand opportunities for our students that's what it means for kids was it me or a taxpayer the honorable budget generates 36 point 37
069cents more or $100 of assessed so again using that highlighted calm of the $172,000 own the taxpayer would pay twenty four dollars and twenty three cents more per month and currently painting again I will never utter the words your taxes are going to go up this month because that is entirely dependent upon the market value of your home whether or not you have all these deductions whether or not I'm carrying a mortgage and we would rather that every taxpayer knows exactly how much this would cost so to do that I really have to know a lot about my name's value and a lot of and I have to use that tax calculator these are draft budgets notice that every one of these says direct they're not final ultimately the school board has to decide if
070any of these three budgets is appropriate to ask for our tax payers or if they want to modify these three budgets to make a good decision our board wants feedback and we've been getting a lot of it from our staff and we hope now in our community when the community engagement meetings are done which will be Monday night after our session January 22nd at 6:30 our board will make that decision we have already scheduled a special board meeting on Monday January 29th at 7 o'clock and the administration Center in anticipation that the board may take some action that is about it as long as we can wait and still make it to a May election given all the legal hoops that we need to jump through I believe that this referendum whatever level it ends
071up being at is a must-win for our community in Ferb days I also want to be very thoughtful about what we asked from our taxpayers particularly our seniors and those that unlimited interests so I have struggled through these priorities debated them talked about other principals and teachers and board members and I keep asking myself this impossible question if there was one item in this budget that would mean we would lose when I remove it it's an impossible question it's a disturbing and uncomfortable question and it's one I'm gonna struggle with right until we make a decision some of you won't agree with these priorities that's great speak up tell us what you think is right or wrong about these bunch of priorities that's why we're going to go into the small groups and get information
072from you but please know that you are we talking to a couple of dozen administrators who have been intimately involved in crafting these priorities based on information that their teachers and staff members parents have provided for them so in the summer I hope you'll all remember a movie here we will be asking our community to support the general on refraining to reduce class size to retain great teachers and to support our students needs we will not ask for additional funds to build or renovate or add-ons to schools we will not fund administrative positions and even though we have serious technology infrastructure needs we will not use referendum funds to improve or upgrade equipment what are their sales well we will be more explicit about that once we have actually kind of evolution our org and
073we've established a budget and there were many many many opportunities to hear about a referendum going forward I can make one very clear stay in Li the differente for ever and them doesn't pass today we will not stay where we are today this will be as good as it gets for our school system and for our children and how do I know that because the meager 1.3 percent of the state of Indiana has provided that the inflation requires us to trim our expenses don't get me wrong I'm not down in the state of Indiana these are good people doing hard work trying to prioritize all sorts of needs so I am NOT critical at all of our hard-working legislatures and the tough decisions that they've had to make for all of our state I don't
074always agree with them that's okay they were elected to do that but what I can say is they have provided a mechanism the new normal in Indiana and that mechanism is if you want something different for your students and your community then your community needs to support it so what a minute we can't do this alone we have a tremendous amount of support in this community but many of our parents are not registered to vote most of you are not registered to vote most of our staff are not registered to vote workers registration is the public document and we've been studied we know who goes to the polls we know who's likely to go to the polls in minute and right now we won't winter up remember unless the people who understand this issue get
075registered by April 1 there is an online link here it is very easy to check and see if you are registered I had 20 different people tell me Monday that when they went here they thought they were registered vote and they weren't maybe they moved maybe they were purged if they haven't voted in several they might be hurt so already 20 different people have said Wow Maggie oh so think I've told us about this website because I thought I was registered to vote and I'm not so certainly our enemy is against the people who are most likely to vote to the polls and they are the least informed about what we've done to keep our community away camera ringing that in general they're over 60 and they don't have any association that they run Community
076Schools we remind our patrons especially our seniors that our own values are directly tied to a quality school system I think of our home as my 401 K my retirement and if the quality of the school system erodes the quality and the price of my home is going to go down Realtors have already been speaking up to this why they did it and you'll hear a lot more from our local Realtors during their campaign so our win strategy certainly includes reaching out to current registered voters they are important active members of care about this community regardles every time and vote for every different election so we need to reach out to them and we will but we also know that we can't win unless the people who do know get registered by can go mana
077and show up on the cold I'm an unready you know some people said to me go to the polls and I don't know what's going on I don't know those judicial things in this prime area I don't know who's running for Town Council I don't know who's running for township order you know what you can vote one thing if you want you don't have to fill out the entire ballot if you don't feel like you are prepared to make an informal vote maybe you don't like to vote the primaries because you don't like saying that you're a Democrat or Republican and they hand me that big ol D go go over there that big little dog over there if you don't like that I found out that's not from someone in our community a community
078leader you can just say I just want a referendum out so if that's your hang-up about voting in a primary you got to come over you can vote early remember election they'll come and you'll get a flat tire or so will be sick and suddenly it will be quarter to six and you will not have voted we will be providing information to you about how you can vote early and I'm so excited that our Hendricks County and our Board or excuse me our election supervisors Laura herself will be providing us an opportunity this primary for the first time to have centralized both only locations I am a high fidelity voter you never remember where I'm supposed to go to vote I have to look it up every time is it this church is about four
079miles well starting in May Pender's town have 26 different polling locations you go to whichever one you want now chances are you probably gonna want to come to one of the six located in Washington Township but it will be very very easy to vote right after the board passes a resolution a path for political action committee is formed it will be made up of hundreds of volunteers I hope including everybody in this room they'll be co-chairs a treasurer a social media coordinator yard site coordinator learners to behavior coordinator a volunteer coordinator an absentee ballot coordinator get-out-the-vote coordinator there's a job for everyone so there will be a whole cadre of fifteen or sixteen people who are really really committed and maybe you're not ready to commit that level but there's still a job for you
080we've been thinking about this for a long time we've done a lot of research we know what it takes to succeed some of us have been asked are you getting advice from other districts you have we are we're learning and the common theme is if you have a great pact with hundreds of people filling a role that they feel comfortable filling you will win it I also want to emphasize to you that this is a political pain that is governed by new laws laws that are different than the last time this district ran under our new campaign one of the most important laws is that a school district may not use school time school resources computers or website or email addresses anything to promote the referendum we won't even hold our PAC meetings in our
081lives that's not appropriate because what does have doing they're promoting a political campaign so we will look to our community partners throughout the community and our regular cafe teams will be held somewhere else we'll find supportive community members to provide a space just like Kingsway my goodness they have rolled out the red carpet for us Monday night January 27 they've been unbelievably supportive about our need to hold a meeting October and I want to emphasize to you this is a good law this law that restricts what we can do this is a good law we're not going to use school time to talk to kids about this we need to be teaching them not talking about we are going to be squeaky clean and completely applicable about how we conduct as political campaigning once the
082board passes resolution I assure written information would ever so we are all very very clear about what our obligations are I will explain them what they can do what they can't do when they can do it I'll explain that if they have a personal email account and they want to use that off school hours to promote the referendum or to oppose the referendum they may do so yeah I'm talking like everyone's gonna support it but our employees also cannot oppose the referendum using school resources they can use their social media accounts off school hours to promote this they can wear a button or a t-shirt out of school hours but they may not promote the referendum during school hours now somebody's going to come up to some teacher or some employees they don't think about
083that referendum they are allowed to provide factual information so we'll be scripting them to say something along the lines of it I can't really tell you if I support or oppose the referendum but what I can do is direct you to some factual information and guide you to where you can get some information this is a good law it's going to allow us to conduct a good campaign there are some exceptions the superintendent the associate superintendent assistant superintendent and the director of finance and operations belong with the School Board may promote the referendum on the school time we may not useful resources so you won't be getting any emails from MEP Horniman at avon - schools org but we can use full time to promote it and what I love about this law is that
084our kids are watching us I want our students to say when it's all over that we ran a great positive political campaigning some people have asked me quite people I've asked me oh there will be alcohol out eating for the pack coming up and you can do everything from writing letters to the editor to contact and alums to get them involved - using your circle of influence to invite me or anyone from Avon that you think would be helpful to your clubs your churches your homeowners association I just got invited tonight to speak to five senior citizens who have a candle express concern about being on a fixed income but they still want to know they still want to understand they're not looking forward to those meetings we'll go anywhere you want us to go
085now I'm going to move to the cafeteria and invite those of you who choose to stay to pick any table that you want to sit at maybe you want to go to an administrators table if you know the administrator maybe you don't want to go to an administrator you know and they will simply be taken notes they're not going to ask a name they just want your questions your comments your feedback this will probably last given the small size or group and that some of you may choose to just say don't we're not you know kind of what I need I'm outta here this will last probably no more than 20 minutes but I do want you to know that what will happen at the conclusion of those 20 minutes is that each of our
086administrators will get out and they think to tell us what you said that way you get to hear your voice heard and more importantly our school board gets to hear your voices heard so the first administrator would get up dr. LeMay he's drawn the short straw he's going to probably have a longest report and then the next administrator will say well I'm not going to repeat anything dr. LeMay said but there are two other questions that came up from our table or two concerns and I'd like to add those and work our way to and until we get done we do want your feedback whether it's a positive or constructive criticism we want to hear from you I am Not Afraid of anyone telling me that opposed to this or that they think were wrong
087I'm welcome now that's civil discourse that's healthy we welcome matter once the resolution passes it will not be me who's communicating so much when people submit a question to the PAC website or read the FAQ and say it isn't clear it will be packed leadership the words bomb I want to communicate and say one more thing that I said to the staff I am both optimistic and I'm terrified and honest as I can be I'm terrified because I know what the devastating impact will be on our community and our students if we do not succeed but I'm optimistic because we have a great story to tell I've been superintendent for coming up on six years and I've been doing everything I can to avoid this moment and I'm proud of it and it's not me
088we have been doing everything we can to avoid this moment but we are out of ideas I'm also optimistic because we work well to become lean and efficient to generate the resources to develop great relationships with our legislatures and don't get me wrong even if a referendum passes it's not like happy days are here again we must continue to be fiscally conservative to live within our means and to become a vision to become moving more initiative we must continue to work with our legislators to explain the importance of a very simple concept not asking for more just give us enough to keep pace with the cost of living but now I'm optimistic because I know we can't wait any longer we must move and I'm also optimistic cuz I feel alone even as recently as
089six months ago I felt really alone with this but I died because of the oral advocates because of our staff and because of our community and because I recognized that the referendum won't win because I do such a great job communicating the referendum will only win if we all work together and that makes me I'm a mystic because we have a great history of working together so my thing is that you and those watching at home will become informed you'll become involved and I hope you'll become committed I've appreciated your being here tonight and now going to take a break and move into the cafeteria thank you very much