001and welcome to a board work session for the Board of Trustees, Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation. We're beginning this work session meeting at 5:00. Um reminder to board members and to the public and anybody watching, a board work session is intended to allow the board to have conversations and discussion, uh often questions and answers with outside consultants about work that we're undertaking. It is not a forum for decision-making. Uh as such, there will be no public comment during this meeting, but we will be following this meeting with a regular board meeting, and there will be opportunities for public comment at that meeting. Uh as we begin this meeting, I'd ask that we all rise if we're able. The flags over here, we'll say the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United
002States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, everyone. We'll uh go to item 1B, call of roll. Um Mr. Schultheis. Here. Mr. Glick. Present. Ms. Whitney. Present. Uh Mr. Stahlnaker is here. Mr. Nollan. Here. And Mr. Major. Yes. Got a text message from Ms. Wheeler, and she is on her way and will join us as soon as she can. Uh Dr. Phillips, you want to start us off with the mission and vision for the organization? Sure will. Thank you, Mr. Stahlnaker. Well, I would I would if I had it memorized. Uh so, look, it's not on this slide deck, and I'm afraid I could get most of them right, but not 100% right. And so, if it's all right
003with you, I'll wait and do that before the regular We'll summarize it by saying together we learn. Thank you. Uh presentation and opportunity for discussion with uh group school school perceptions. This afternoon, I think uh Mr. Glick and Ms. Whitney represented of the board on a work committee with school perceptions with regards to the upcoming possibility of a referendum. Uh Dr. Phillips, you want to introduce the topic and and the speakers? Will do. Thank you, Mr. Stahlnaker. Um as you know, several months ago, we engaged uh with a company called School Perceptions uh to just explore whether or not it would be a good idea for us to take a survey of the public uh regarding their feelings about the possibility of renewing the operating referendum in 2026, knowing that there's only one option after
004that, and that would be in uh November of 2028, uh just 2 months before the expiration of that of that operating operating referendum. And as you said, uh Whitney Lloyd and Tom Glick represented the board on the committee, uh myself and Dr. Bozeman, Dr. Stallbaum from administration, and then also Mandy Keel from uh CEA uh was part of developing the survey. Uh but, I will tell you that uh School Perceptions really they are experts at what they do, um had done thousands of surveys for strategic planning, but also for referenda for districts uh in Indiana and other states. And so, I'm just going to hand it over to them tonight to run through the results, and Scott Gerard is here representing School Perception. Uh he'll uh he'll run through these results, and then we can
005work on questions and discussion afterwards. Scott, thanks for joining us. Thank you so much for having me, and uh board, thank you for your time tonight. Uh I am going to share my screen here. All right. Is the presentation showing up for you all? Yes, it is. All right, wonderful. Uh so, we'll get started. So, here we are uh to deliver your community survey report on March 2nd. This is a little preview of the different types of information you're going to see throughout the uh slides tonight. So, we've got background information that's largely going to look familiar. Um it's it's mostly taken from your survey as a reminder of the content that was in your survey. We'll have survey and respondent information about who took your survey. We'll have results and analysis, of course, and
006then time at the end for wrap-up and questions. Uh so, as Chad was saying, uh we are School Perceptions, and we've been doing this work since 2002. Uh in that time, we've conducted more than 3 million staff, parent, student, and community surveys, including helping more than 1,300 school districts navigate strategic planning and referendum planning processes. So, your survey, the fun stuff. So, your survey ended up with a February 9th deadline. Originally, that had been February 2nd, but we did extend that given the inclement weather you all had, and I know uh we wanted to make sure folks could get to their mailboxes to get the survey. Um so, we did extend that by a week. By the time the deadline rolled around, uh we had 4,518 respondents, which is good for about 13 and 1/2%
007response rate, and uh a really strong response. I think it's this school year our second biggest group of respondents on any survey we've done, um and it's more than 10 times the number you would have needed for a statistical significance. So, we felt really good about that response, and you heard from a lot of members of your community uh about this this topic. Given that number of respondents, there is a plus or minus 1.49% margin of error. That's entirely just based on the number of respondents, uh but it's just a good number to keep in mind as we go through the survey and look at the results uh specifically around a potential operating referendum renewal renewal. Age demographics uh of those who took your survey, a quarter of respondents were 65 plus. Uh so, that
008was the second biggest group. We like to see that. Uh it's a uh big group in your community that isn't as directly connected to the schools as, for example, uh staff or parents, um and they also turn out to vote uh very reliably. So, very happy to see them as one of the top two respondent groups. The only one higher was at 26% in the 35 to 44 age group. We had 45 to 54 next at 21%. 16% of respondents were 55 to 64. 11% 25 to 34, and then 1% 18 to 24, uh which is very typical for our surveys. I think I've seen that number be anything other than 1% maybe once on the more than uh 50 or 60 surveys I've been a part of. So, it's it's pretty rare that that
009is any higher. So, really good data, a good mix of uh age groups here responding to your survey. 94% of your respondents have a primary residence in the district, which means, of course, were there to be a ballot measure, they could vote on it. Uh 1% of respondents were not sure. Uh there's always 1 to 2% that are not sure. And the remaining 5% do not. Those could be staff that live outside your uh boundaries, could be open enrollment families or things like that. Um so, while their feedback is taken into account in some of the pieces of the survey, when we're looking at a potential outcome of an operating referendum renewal, we need to filter down to just those folks who can vote, so we do that. We did ask in which municipality do
010you live? 68% of respondents are from the city of Columbus or the Columbus Township. Uh and then the remainder is broken up between those areas. 11% from County West, 10% from County East, 6% from County South, and 5% from County North. 28% of your respondents are staff members. 46% of your respondents are parents. And that leaves the remainder as non-parents, non-staff. Uh and that's the biggest group in your community. Uh we feel really good about the levels of representation you had from each of those three kind of key subgroups. Uh and you'll see as we go uh on later in the survey results that we kind of break it down into staff, parents, and non-parents, non-staff uh as we interpret some of the results. We did ask if respondents had any other relationship with the
011district. More than half of your respondents are parents of a former student. And nearly half of the respondents are an alum alumnus or alumna. 21% are grandparent. 18% have been a volunteer. And 15% are former staff member. We asked how would you like to receive information from us? And this is the first time you're seeing uh some of that breakdown between subgroups. So in purple are going to be your non-parents, non-staff. And again, that's your biggest community group and the least directly connected to the schools. Um so it can be uh helpful to understand how they want to receive information. As you can see right at the top were mailed newsletters. And that's something we're seeing across a lot of districts we're doing surveys with, uh especially in that non-parent, non-staff group. Uh if they
012want if you want their attention, they want something that's mailed that they can hold on to. Uh so it doesn't get lost in the, you know, dozens of emails that everyone gets uh on a daily basis that you have to filter through. And a close second to that, which I think reinforces that point of sort of wanting something to hold on to, uh 35% of your non-parents, non-staff said they would like information in the Republic. What uh your website at 31% was the other option to surpass 30% for that group. Among your parents, meanwhile, 68% very clear uh majority, more than 2/3 of the parent respondents want to receive information via email. A little more than a third also like the website and online newsletters. And then 31% uh said Facebook or social media. So
013this is a reminder of the information presented on the survey about uh how the funding from the 2020 referendum has been used, some of the successes that have been seen on that, and a way for folks to get more information on the referendum performance goals. We then explained that the funding approved in 2020 will expire in 2028. We explained that the funding provides approximately 10 and 1/2 million dollars in property taxes in 2026. And that the district needs to plan for the future. And asking is asking the community to provide input about renewing the current operating referendum at a lower cost to taxpayers. A renewed referendum would provide an average of no more than 9 and 1/2 million dollars each year from taxpayers. And we outlined some of the things that with that funding the
014district could continue to do including maintaining compensation, supporting school safety, and providing STEM opportunities. Then we asked the question. Would you support renewing the operating referendum to provide our schools with approximately 9 and 1/2 million dollars each year? So this slide is just the staff resident respondents. So this is staff members who live within the district's boundaries. 87% of staff residents said they definitely or probably would support renewing that operating referendum. 6% said they definitely or probably would not. And the remaining 7% were undecided. When we move on to parents, 73% said they definitely or probably would support renewing the operating referendum. 11% said definitely or probably no. With the remaining 16% undecided. Finally, that non-parent, non-staff group, 60% said they definitely or probably would support this. 26% definitely or probably would not. And 14%
015were undecided. Now what we have to do with those numbers then is some waiting for what your electorate is likely to look like on election day. So about 75% of your voters are going to be non-parents, non-staff. And about 25% of your voters are going to be parents. So what we do is we weight the support from those groups to come up with uh like what we would predict for support for this referendum if it were held today. So in that equation down there, the 0.25 represents the 25% of your voters that will be parents. We multiply that by the 73% support that parents had on the survey. On the other side of the addition sign there, we've got 0.75, which represents the 75% of your community that are non-parents, non-staff. We multiply that by
016the support from your non-parents, non-staff, which was 60%. When we add those numbers together, we get to 63.3%, which if the election were held today, that's the level of support we would predict you would see on that operating referendum renewal. And remember the margin for error here on this survey was a 1.49%. So you're well clear of the necessary threshold there for support from your uh community. We then looked at some potential additional funding. So we explained that there are some other initiatives that the district could consider addressing. And we wanted to understand what the community's priorities were. So we asked them to prioritize on a high, medium, or low scale early childhood education, additional safety and security, and enriching STEM programs. So what we did is we applied scores to each of those levels.
017So if someone wrote answered that something was a high priority, it was scored as a three. Medium priority is scored as a two. And a low priority is scored as a one. You can see in those charts there what percentage of folks said high, medium, or low for each of those initiatives. And then on the right with those numbers assigned, we came up with a priority score. So the overall score based on responses, they're all pretty close. Uh they all fall between medium and high. And they're all right around that uh as you can see, 2.24 and 2.30. So uh your community thinks that all of them are are between a medium and a high priority. We then needed to understand are they is the community willing to pay any additional funding to address these
018priorities? So we explained that while district leaders are considering a referendum renewal asking for a lower amount than the 10 and 1/2 million currently received, the district wants to understand if the community would support additional funding for the initiatives above. So there's a lot of numbers, a lot of colors on this slide. So I'm going to start and ask you to look at that top row where it says non-parents, non-staff. So when we asked the question, what additional funding amount, if any, would you support? Starting in that dark green space, 8% of your non-parents, non-staff said they would support an additional 4 million dollars. As we move to the right on the non-parent, non-staff row, and the colors change, we're going to lower amounts. So the next green where it says 3%, 3% of your
019non-parents, non-staff said they would support an additional 3 million dollars. What we found historically is that respondents who would support a higher amount will continue their support as the amount gets lower. Therefore, we add those numbers together as we move to the right to determine how much support there is at a given level. So in that case for your non-parents, non-staff, we would add the eight and the three, and we would say there's 11% support among that group for an additional 3 million dollars. As we continue to move to the right, for 2 million dollars, another 6% of respondents would support that, which brings us to 17%. Another 13% would support an additional 1 million dollars putting us at 30%. And what we really look for on this graph is where do we cross the
02050% threshold? As you can see, you do that in the yellow for all three groups. But again, we're we're focused on the non-parents, non-staff. When we add the 26% there, we get to 56% support at no additional funding. So that basic level that you had already asked for. 22% of non-parent non-staff respondents were not sure or needed more information. And 22% to the same level would not support any referendum. When we look at parents, similarly, we start with 13% supporting the highest amount. And as we move to the right, we pass that 50% threshold within the no additional funding. 30% of your parents said they were not sure or needed more information, while 8% said they would not support any referendum. Finally, staff, once again, they had the largest support at the highest level with
02114%, but you still don't surpass 50% within that group until you get to the no additional funding option. 22% of your staff respondents were not sure or needed more information, and just 4% said they would not support any referendum. So then we have to take these numbers and apply the same waiting formula that we did earlier. So again, I know there's a lot of numbers here, but what we're doing is taking that exact same equation from earlier and applying them to the support at different additional funding amounts. So that first equation for the additional 4 million, parent support was at 13%. Non-parent non-staff support was at 8%. So when we add those together with the waiting, we would predict a 9.3% support on the ballot for that. As you can see, as we go down
022the amounts, you do see an increase, which is not surprising, but you top out at the additional 1 million at 32.3% weighted support. So ultimately, what did we learn from this survey? There is enough support to put an operating referendum question on the ballot, and there is majority weighted support at that 63.3% for renewing the operating referendum at 9 and 1/2 million dollars as tested in that base plan. So that's the end of the presentation, but I would be happy to take any questions you have. Sure. Board members, do we have questions this evening? Ms. Willan? Can you hear me? Yeah, there we go. >> Yeah. Um I can't remember the exact number, but I know you provide this service um often. Is there anything in the data you collected in Bartholomew County that stuck
023out to you as being different or unique compared to other clients that you've had in this space? Yeah, I would say that 63.3% weighted support um that you had for your base question is quite a bit higher than the trend we've been seeing. I would say the trend, specifically this school year, uh that we've been seeing on our referendum surveys has been much more toward toss-ups, right at that 50/50 level within the margin of error, um and you're just significantly above that. Uh so that that did stand out as as pretty strong support compared to the trends we've been seeing this school year. Will not go out on a limb there and make an assumption that because we're renewing or proposing renewing uh funding for existing um programs that have been proven to show results,
024great teachers and staff, safe schools, I think that's different than maybe some of the other communities that are more unknown like we were back in 2019 and 20, uh you know, how effective would this investment be? I I was going to ask um in the different groups, I think uh non-parents, non-staff, Yeah. there was about a 14% undecided response. Uh how how does that compare to other surveys that you've done? Is that high? Is that low? And then how does that undecided group get fit into the 63.3 prediction? Great questions. Um so the first thing I would say, um I'll jump back to that slide here just so you can see. Um 14% I would say is about average, maybe a touch low. I'm not surprised if you see that even into the high teens
025or 20s, um because school finance is really complicated. Um and so a lot of times people just aren't sure, but I think 14% uh is right at the lower end of what we tend to see on these for that group. Um as far as how they're a part of the weighted calculation, so if you jump back about 7 8 years, uh 2018 2019, about a third of undecideds tended to break toward uh a yes vote. And so, you know, when we would look at our data for support and then we'd look at an ultimate outcome, it was about a third that would trend in that direction. Since 2020, that has gotten to a tenth or less of undecideds trending toward yes between the survey and election day. So we actually don't include them in here,
026which means they are uh in effect included as no's because the data has just shown that those undecided folks really overwhelmingly break toward no. And is there any indication in the survey as to what uh what might help them reach a decision? We did um I believe we had an open-ended question. We haven't done a full comment analysis or anything like that to this point, um but I believe we had a question on there asking uh you know, if you wouldn't support this, uh why not or what are the main reasons. Um Ultimately, you know, the trends we see, I would say, are it it often just comes down to cost right now. Anybody else? Other questions? I've got a couple and maybe there'll be some follow-ups, but can you tell us how many of
027the respondents, because at least unbeknownst to me prior following our last meeting, there were several modalities to respond to this uh survey. There was the mailer, there was a link given to the staff, I believe, the day after the meeting, and then there was also a link in Parent Square, if I'm aware. So can you say how many responded in each modality out of the 4,500? Um I can tell you how many responded by print versus online. And we had 1,169 respondents uh responding via paper, via mailed survey, and the rest were online. So uh about 30 3,300 between 3,300 and online, and that uh 1,169 responding via paper. For what it's worth, that's pretty typical. I would say generally, we get about between a quarter and a third of respondents responding on paper, so
028um that fits right into that average range. Yeah, I guess when I'm looking at it is like so right, I'm a parent. I'm also a staff member, quote unquote. Um and I'm also a taxpayer, so I actually got three. So how does that formulate go into your weighted average when right, there's a reduced friction for those that have children and those that are staff rather than the non-staff non-resident, because the 25/75 is really, I'm assuming, more of a population distribution just based off active voters um and current parents and current um staff member counts. So like how are you weighting that into the 63.3 that some are more likely to have multiple opportunities rather than those that aren't? So that weighting of the populations here, that's what corrects for that. So even if a parent
029took the survey twice, um which we just the data has proved reliable with the system in the past, but even if they took it twice, because of that 0.25 weighting, uh that cancels it out because that is representative of your voting population, that 25 and 75%. So what what number are you using for our parent population? Uh 25%. Okay. Me, I'm curious to know, are we going to be able to see and get a copy of people's responses to the open-ended uh comments? Cuz I I think that'd be kind of interesting to see, give give some insight and feedback for the community on both ends. Um cuz if I'm in all grant in all with all due respect, if we're not see that, it's kind of a wasted effort on that part and a wasted
030question, I think. Uh certainly we can uh we often, I would say, sometimes when you just have all of the comments and share them, folks get concerned about anonymity or losing that anonymity. So one thing we can do that we do for a lot of districts is put together what's called a comment theme analysis. Basically, we go through all of the comments and generate sort of the general themes that show up in uh each question and then deliver that report and that kind of finds that balance between your understanding the content that was shared there and folks feel better about their anonymity. But we can talk with your administration about which approach they want as well. Mr. Glick and Ms. Lloyd and and obviously your whole team. I think the questions and the way the
031data is presented is very helpful to me. I wasn't sure sometimes you put out a survey and you get stuff back and you think oh gosh, what am I going to do with this? But this seems very clear and we're all deducing right now. You know, just hearing it but I think it's going to be very helpful and and at least me helping me make my decision on where to go next. So, thank you. This is our chance. This is the purpose for the work session. So, if there are other comments or questions I have one more. Given your history with other school systems traditionally do they give the cost to the taxpayer in these kind of surveys cuz I believe ours did not include it but I'd just be curious if they do. Yeah,
032most most usually yes because it's easier for a taxpayer to understand to know the impact on their tax bill than a number like nine and a half million dollars. But in some cases when a survey needs to go out and you know, changes to state funding formulas or what have you can make that more difficult. And so in this case, you know, we talked a lot about trying to do that but it just wasn't going to be feasible. So, we went with the numbers that we could be confident in. And then the other question I had for either you or Dr. Phillips under the state law will we be able to say continuing or will it be the traditional Bartholomew County asks for an increase of X, Y, and Z for ABC purposes? Really good
033question and one of the decisions that we're going to have to make collectively. So, we'll have if we do not exceed the 15.6 cent rate under the current referendum even though that 15.6 cents will generate a lower levy than it currently does. If we don't exceed that, we are allowed to ask use the the version of the the referendum question that starts with do you agree to continue to increase property taxes. But if you choose that option the um the negative of that is towards the end of the question that looks like a paragraph because it is a paragraph. The end of the question concludes with actually I think it's the second to last sentence concludes with if you vote no then your property taxes will decrease by some amount. So, because they're saying it,
034you know, with that 15.6 is in place now. So, if you say no, that 15.6 is going to go away. The other form of the question and I'll send you all both of those those forms of the question. The other form of the question says do you agree to increase property taxes? It doesn't use the term continue but it doesn't have that statement at the end that if you vote no your your property taxes will decrease. Our contention and what we intend to do I know the survey didn't include it is through education through lots and lots of public work sessions and through lots of over communicating is to make sure that people understand that if you vote yes we will be collecting less property taxes than what we are today by an average of
035about a million dollars per year assuming that the board ends with a conclusion that we leave the referendum at that average of 9. 9.5 million dollars per year. And Mr. Schultz, I would just add as a reminder for folks on the 23rd, you all have a session that is scheduled specifically that is for training. Board members are allowed we're allowed to have sessions for training on particular topics with outside folks and that will be on the mechanics of a referendum, what is permitted as a question, what isn't permitted as a question to really kind of make sure that you have that baseline understanding of what you can and and can't do. And so that's on the 23rd later this month. Yeah, no, I I agree and like my the basis of this question right is
036this entire campaign has been focused around the idea of continuing. So, right? If we don't use the term continuing I would fundamentally disagree with the last slide that says we've got that support. I think the other call out for you Scott was on the municipality. It shows 68% within Columbus Township which by far is our largest township. However, when I just pulled the quick census data of the precincts in Columbus Township, it's only about 38%. So, I think that's the other call out that I would just watch is like it it's heavily indexed. I think we may may have made a mistake of just saying the city of Columbus which can capture like I live in County West but my address is Columbus. So, I think that would be the other call out just to
037watch out as a risk is over indexing in a certain area. More questions? All right. Dr. Phillips, we thank you and uh thank you Scott for your time this evening. We appreciate the the work. As Ms. Wheeldon said, we want you to send your send our thanks to your team. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. I will and it's been a great project to work on and if you think of questions after this, Chad and the team know where to find me too. So, don't hesitate to to have them reach out. Thank y'all. Thank you. Dr. Phillips, I believe that's the only business for this meeting tonight for the work session. Upcoming dates, again we do have a regular board meeting in this room at 6:30 tonight. We have an executive session that Mr.
038McIver just spoke about at 4:00 on the 23rd. That one will be closed to the public but again no no decisions will be made. The focus of that meeting will be training. And then our next regular board meeting will be the week after that, Monday, March 30th 6:30 and for that one we will be at Columbus North High School in the cafeteria. There being no further business for this work session this evening we'll adjourn the meeting.