1/13/2025 BCSC School Board Meeting

001that's as Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for all all right good evening everyone thanks for joining us on this geni first school board meeting at 2025 each school board meeting we like to revisit our mission vision and core values and just remind ourselves why we're here first uh vision is that bcse is the choice to learn work and play our mission is to develop expert Learners by partnering with our community to invest in people and our core values are that we all can rise to the challenge of high expectations that learning is most effective when we have Choice flexibility and see relevance that we Thrive when our physical social and psychological needs are met that our

002community and School District are stronger when we partner with one another that we flourish because of the diversity and variability in our community and last but certainly not least on this night swearing in our democracy and Democratic institutions are strengthened by Civic minded citizens well thank you Miss Wen as Dr Phillips noted tonight is a special night for us it is not only the first meeting of the year but it is the first meeting of this group of board members we have some folks who went through the election process in the fall and as part of taking office tonight we have to have you take your o of office so miss won Mr Blick and Miss Lloyd if you up in front we're going to go through the O's and have you take those I

003will read the oath if each of you raise your right hand do you solemnly swear that you will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Indiana and that you will Faithfully partially and D ly discharge the duties of the office of bartholomy Consolidated School Board according to law and to the best of your ability so help you got I to all right thank you congratulations to all of you I do have some forms that you have to sign and we will end up getting copies of these for you as well so I'm going to pass these down if you would sign and then pass them back to me and then at this point uh just for the benefit of the audience because this is the first uh first

004meeting of the year uh brief kind of summary uh Miss Welden as the ranking member from the prior board can call us to order this group will then elect a temporary chairperson who can lead us through the process of electing officers for the coming year and then that elected president for the group will take over and run the meeting in that point for you call the Mee we do have AUM so I'll call the meeting order believe I need a motion for a temporary chair I move that we appoint Nikki will as temporary chair I'll second all those in favor of myself serving as temporary chair please say I alos for a few okay because we are about to make a decision on future officer any public comments related to officer selection should take place

005now so I don't is making it way to don't know if there's anything Miss will since we have um votes on one specific item here depending the officers the selection of officers I prop that we take U public comment at this time specific to that one vote and then uh the regular portion of the agenda when we do the public comments folks signed up to speak um we will call for you at that point in time at this time since we have a vote pending ahead of us we're required to take by state law we're required to take public comment um before a vote occurs and so since we have this pending vote um at this time we would want to ask anyone in the audience who would like to uh submit a public comment

006come up and speak specific to the selection of the officer slate for calendar year 2025 at this time anyone from the audience feel free to come up to the podium and speak to the Slate of officers for 2025 okay thank you there will be reg the regular portion U later on the agenda when we have the folks who sign up speak um so I feel compelled to tell the audience that this is the meeting of all meetings okay we have a lot of um process to go through tonight um the process for us electing officers will move like this we will take nominations starting with President down to secretary so there's three officer positions are made we will vote every board member gets one vote of whatever slate of nominees is presented um majority rules

007and if we don't have majority on the first go ahead uh we'll continue to vote until we until we do so um at this point I believe we'll take nominations for school board pres Nom thank you we in for school board president like schs for school board president Nom all those in favor of um ni serving as BCS School Board please say I get one vote all in favor of school presid say I agree um next we will take nominations for school board vice president I would like to St as vice president I'll nominate Jason major for vice president any other nominations same as before you get one vote um all those in favor of Mr ands School Board vice president please say I I all there in favor of Jason maor School Board vice

008president please say hi for three Mr which our vice president do you conf m next is secretary any nominations yeah I'll nominate Tom I'd like to nominate Mr any other nominations all those in favor of Mr Tom School Board secretary please say I all those in favor of Mr secretary say congratulations so n president Rich vice president and Mr all secet before 2025 congratulations we're not going move seats congratulations yes we'll just I believe next on the agenda is United all right thank you members of the board um this is our annual um celebration of our longstanding relationship with United Way of bartholomy County every year in the fall both our students and our staff each do a campaign to raise money for one of the most important uh organizations in this community and we

009are proud of the fact that this year our um between our student campaign and our staff campaign that our uh we raised nearly $24,000 and I believe that we learned earlier today that the online contributions actually pushed higher is that right Mrs Christman that actually was the numbers from last year oh okay thank you so last year your numbers higher but we uh again you know we're proud that um we know that many of our families and bcsc as an organization benefits from the hard work that Sarah Davis and other folks at the United Way do for this community and so um this time we are excited to present this giant check to the United thank you very I would just like to say how thankful I am for the partnership that we have with

010bcse not just with the fundraising piece um but the student support line and all of the other things that we are able to partner with to help make um things happen for kids in our community um that would otherwise not have a resource to to make those things happens for them so we are super grateful for all of the Partnerships with the teachers and uh all of the staff that that support United Way and utilize us to help the kids that you're serving so thank you here we go this first first one of the Year scrunch we'll see how the height of the new board works out pictures yes you do good evening you know I didn't have to wait an hour and a half tonight this is awesome um each year in the month

011of January we're required to have a uh Board of Finance report to the board um this is a requirement from the state legislature we have three different pieces to this that we need to do we need to uh appoint our finance officers we need to discuss the investment policy that the school board has and then also talk about the distressed um unit appeals board or doab everyone's favorite uh phrase um as is typical for bcsc um we appoint the board president and board secretary to our Board of finances officer so congratulations mcole and Dale um I I know you're ready for this right looking at our investment policy we follow uh bcsc policy 6144 where we are able to invest uh School Corporation monies for up to two years or less in US treasury notes

012Bank CDs or in Money Market sweep accounts in 2024 um we had some of our um funding within the First Financial Bank with their money market sweep account uh for the first nine months of the year we had a a rate of 4.5% % the last 3 months it dropped to 4.25 but we were still able to receive a return of a little over $677,000 um new to bcsc this year we uh joined in the trust Indiana Investment Group um that's made up of municipal government facilities uh units throughout the state um we pull our money uh for the first nine months of the year we have an interest Return of 5.31% the last three months of the year did drop a little bit but maintained above 4.5% for the remainder of the year and

013in that we had a return of 2.6 million and finally uh within treasuries we invested our uh extracurricular activity reserves $950,000 of those dollars that annualized return of 4.3% which gave us a little over $38,000 for the year for the full year with those three investment areas that we used we had a return of 3.35 million which is a 10% growth over last year and if you look the eight preceding years that's more than double uh any year we'd had previously um of course interest rates across the board we all saw were great the last couple years and we were able benefit from that any questions on investments What's the total amount of invested principal I'll I'll look that up and get back with you and I'll get a to of you tomorrow morning and

014the final piece of our Board of Finance report is to discuss the distress unit appeals board uh the fiscal indicators um this was a legislation that took effect back in 2019 as a result of two separate Indiana communities that had school corporations that had serious Financial issues um they placed these uh doab indicators are at the website if you plug in doab into your Google it'll take you right to this site and will um show what the indicators are that gives them an idea of how School corporations are doing financially um unfortunately what's on the site lags a little bit um the majority of the numbers on there are from 2022 they have some 2023 numbers now loaded just in the last week but when I checked two weeks ago right after Christmas they still

015just had 2022 numbers so they do lag a little bit but that tells you about the complexity of school financing and how it is hard to get it all in one place and to gather it all together um but the board has very talented very well educated people in the finance field that um study these and can give a local education unit plenty of time to notice that there starting to slide into a distressed area they'll notify the board they'll work with the board to improve their financial standing and if we were ever in that case we would immediately report to the board if we had any situations like that um but as you can see from our investments we've had we are in very good shape and in the fourth quarter report that I'll

016give you at the next board meeting you'll see bcsc is in very good Financial standing any questions Dr bosan I think I said do have twice right thank you very much have any member reports I will start on any committees currently served that you met last meeting um yes I have an update with the council for Youth Development we met December 12th and um the big news there is that they are hoping to partner with the search Institute and three other cities Philadelphia San Antonio Texas and San Jose California on a three-year project called thriving in thriving cities thriving youth in thriving cities and the project will identify and Implement Community strategies to support opportunities for for Youth and identify and mob local leaders to help Implement and then we spent a good part of

017the meeting looking at local data and commenting on future strategies from that most of our future strategies were yeah the Hall of Fame committee met in December and selected it winner it is Carla she's a 40e educator Middle School um the social stud's chair um she's been involved in coordinating a lot of the DC trips for the past uh years and also several other extracurricular um activities and need that for the students so I just want to let everyone know that she has been selected and the re next it's okay uh I had a county Redevelopment meeting today um a couple of uh notable items there are two major facilities being built by The Interchange on 31 and and Highway 65 you see one starting to get walls um that's a Pickle Factory very exciting

018it's called it's part of an irresistible food group um conglomerate that is building several facilities here so they are due to open this 2025 150 jobs so this is very exciting bring money into the the community and then there's been a lot of press about Kings Hawaiian um you can see their concrete pad now so they don't have walls yet they're a little bit behind on the on the building project but they will open in 2026 another 150 jobs so um started seeing some some more work going on in that side of town um this this committee meets usually four to five times a year the next Mee until sometime in April so that will be the next meeting by April 15 add to that that the irresistible food group has um been very excited

019to partner with us as a district particularly the partner I elementary schools they reached out multiple times about they toured the building once and we be told them that we have a food c located inside of Taylorville Elementary they said taxville we can excited about that partnership Mr nothing Mr thank Mr nothing from past meetings this new I've got upcoming meetings heal trust for example is on Friday so okay cabinet reports M will before we jump into cabinet reports um I could just take a moment um to uh commiserate about snow um but more specifically uh just share some information uh and some Reflections on last week uh we had a little bit of everything last week and we had a teacher work day that turned into a virtual day we had a first day

020of school that turned into a snow day we had a second day of school that turned into a 2-hour delay and then we had a third day of school um that frankly uh we missed we swung and missed on Friday uh we you know we do the best that we can with the information that we have in front of us at the time um and the uh the decision not to cancel school on Friday um you know was frankly the wrong decision U there was ultimately my call we talk to lots of different folks uh we we C uh almost always talked to the city and the County Emergency Management our trans a department our operations Department U engage all of those folks in conversations about um you know what's the most likely situation what's

021the uh what's the um the best outcome for kids and for the district and uh but ultimately it's my at the end of the day someone has to make the decision and on early Friday morning um to make the decision to to go ahead and go to school we thought at the time I w't go into the details of it but um because of that I know that it put a lot of folks in a tough situation on Friday afternoon uh some some people I've talked to have said well it seemed you know it there's a lot of snow coming down but it didn't seem that bad and I said to some of those folks in the admin building you didn't hear the transportation radio if you would have heard the transportation radio you would

022have known how how bad it was so um of course I know we put you know our students and our families in a tough situation getting that day thankfully everyone arrived home safely um but we also put our bus drivers and our operations team in a really tough place on starting U you know Friday afternoon they were scrambling around not expecting snow to come down that quickly um so we had people exerting themselves physically on Friday afternoon trying to get that snow clear before the kids walked out of the building and then um you know well into the evening on a Friday evening we had our bus drivers and our transportation team out um you know both struggling to get kids home and then also struggling to get our buses back so um I want

023to take this opportunity to number one say thank you to those teams um who really uh did amazingly and got every single one of our kids home um unharmed and safely on Friday I also want to say thanks to those who contacted us directly I know some of you may be here tonight I didn't meet everyone before the meeting but I spoke to several of you on the phone and emailed to several of you um and every person you know heard back from us within 12 or 24 hours or so either via email or U via phone and had posit uh productive feedback from you and really good conversation so thanks to those who who reached out to us with their concerns on either Friday or all the way even through today um we also

024are grateful that we had three days of learning um but not at the expense of the safety of our students and staff I do want to point out there are a few things that we are doing as I reflected over the weekend and then had conversations with our leadership some of our leadership teams this morning um number one we're looking at our internal processes for examining all of the variables that are out there when you make a decision about whether or not it's safe for kids to come to school or not um the factor that was the biggest outlier for us um this year is that we've not had a situation where we had that much existing snow already on the ground now I don't know if that would have made a difference or not

025if it was no snow the snow was coming down pretty hard by Friday afternoon but um we already had 12 Ines of of snow on the ground prior to Friday afternoon um one of the other things that um we've always it was 2004 actually the spring of 2005 some of you may remember the last time this District had an early dismissal I think I Bale remember was up north of me um that was the last time we had had an early dismissal was an unexpected early dismissal looking out in the crowd that some of you were students at this time I think um uh it was an unexpected early dismissal due to flooding we had a lot of snow on the ground but then it rained on top of that and there snow melt and

026the county called us and said we're getting ready to close about half the streets in this community so you better get these kids on now and it took uh I want to say six or seven hours to get everybody home because it was unexpected one of the things that thank to Dr bman and actually of parents that I spoke to um an unexpected early dismissal is a bad thing and can be chaotic but we've had a uh a late uh arrival schedule in our place a two-hour delay schedule in place for years we've never had an early dismissal schedule in place and so we're going to work with our teams um first educationally but trans Transportation wise to build what a schedule would look like if we would have uh had that in place for

027Friday we certainly certainly would have considered let's just follow our early dismiss schedu go to school until noon at half in and then get the kids home so that's one of the things other things we're going to work on and then uh also there was a decision around canceling Eye Care that came very late in the afternoon that we're going to revisit that whole process because it it U disrupted um you know not only the situation but the staff as they were trying to figure out okay we have 20 minutes to get hold all these parents and figure out what to do with these students but then for parents we really put um parents of students that are in iare in a tough spot as they scram to figure out how to get to their

028students so those are just a handful of the page page and a half or so of items that we're working on um but I wanted to I know I know there's probably some folks here tonight that signed to speak um on this topic and please do so but I wanted to let you know that number one um we own the fact and I own the fact that it was a but a wrong decision on Friday and we're doing things to address to that well I was asked to just bring up two topics so one is maybe next year prior to Christmas kids take the Chromebooks home that way they're at least prepared in case the weather gets bad and um for some parents you mention uh early dismissal um but early decision is I think

029what a lot of the parents I've heard from really look for especially ones that have work that may not get cancelled even though school does so it it puts an extra burden on them to take a vacation day to take a lost day point or something so they really want to make sure that whatever you come up with um from an improvement that we can get the decision out efficiently effectively and quicker so that they can play in on what they what they do and how they manage their time with their kids in case kids have to get picked up or watched during the time they have to work let me speak to that just really briefly um the two things that we want to be sure and do is one we want to go

030to school for Camp um and so there's often times where we're waiting to see what the conditions are going to be at 5:00 because we're relying on a forecast frankly sometimes is incorrect and so we're waiting on that and the and so we're going to assume we're going to go to school until that happens now on uh Tuesday or Monday and Tuesday there was no indication whatsoever that the conditions were going to be meaningfully different between 9:00 the night before and 5:00 the next morning those conditions were bad so those were relatively easy to make that decision and put that information out by 9:00 often times though when it's a situation where it may warm up and turn to rain or it may turn to ice we're waiting to see what that'll look like the

031second thing that we want to avoid is making two different decisions and have families have to react twice so we never want to do a delay and then change that to a cancellation because we say delay and folks make PLS they say okay I got to figure out how to have somebody you know watch my child until 9:00 or whatever the time is and then if we change that to a cancellation we know that's incredbly disrup so those are the two things that as we think about the timing of of those announcements I know folks would like for us to sayable just say you're going to delay but we don't want to do that to then change it so we do like to make sure we uh make one call and make that would be

032too disruptive though to be able to say hey here's the game plan we're going to go with a two-hour delay with the potential of maybe cancellation that way parents can be planning and teachers and staff as well can plan ahead uh I to me knowing that there's a game plan and there's a stair step possibility there that's not as disruptive it's just a two hour away in the last minute cancellation um CU a lot of my feedback was why was there nothing communicated at all period and kind of what Jason put out but I don't know I think communicating the plan showing intent is way better than no communication and living and dying on the subance what was that last thing again last thing so showing intent and communicating a game plan even if it

033is going to change that communication is there and we as a community Corporation superintendent so on so forth if we're going to just live and die on assumptions there's going to be mass chaos so if we at least communicate a plan there and show that there's a intent to with the plan we can develop some plans at home as well I I think let me just make sure I understand what you're saying that when folks don't hear anything they're making assumptions and so by saying something and sharing what the plan is then folks can act based on that plan as oppos to assumptions is that right when you said on assumptions so people no idea what's going on and like you said we we are making the assumption that we're going to school so at

034least communicate a plan that we're going to go to school whether it be the decision The Cut Off plan is at 5 or six whichever it may be or hey we're going to go with a 2our la with the potential of closing school so just communicate prior to like we are the only school corporation in the area did not that did not communicate the plan even was our intent is to go to school that communicates to the community that there is a decision made that's what everybody's request because we're on the topic I was actually going to say for the end but one question I got and I got from several parents is were a county so County the city roads are off there my road unfortunately lives right on the city limit so the

035city doesn't claim it neither does the county apparently um so we got our first plow on Saturday um when a parent deems that their child is unable to get to school the standing order has always been that's an excused absence and I'm getting a lot of conflicted feedback across the district so I think that's one thing we need to make sure we clarify with the public because pars it's not safe for M get to the bus stop I mean at that point I don't know penalizing the child parent at that moment makes the most sense so that was one thing that I got feedback from i' say at least for us the having experienced absence situation and just uh just to be clear and I'll say it here and that's on YouTube so go back

036and record it put that there so if a if a parent keeps their child home because of U WEA or inability to get out of uh their driveway or down the street because of WEA as long as that student doesn't have a chronic treny issue um and they already AC you know in that 168 absence time frame it will be an excused absence the one thing that I do want to make sure is that we have all these technical terms as Mr rer shared earlier in the language in the world of Education that does not mean a non absence it doesn't mean that the student is counted present it just means that it's an excuse absence there's no punishment and the student can make up any work that's missed on that day is that right

037Miss is our Dr hack is that accurate description that is correct and thank you again for letting us go on that rant there share the work that we've been doing to get that to ensure that's communicated well is that in handbooks or is that in policy I I have to go back and look at the weather specifically the weather related one because the state has changed the codes around so much we take a look that might be good even if it's not in the handbook um that might be another thing for next year too is to just let people know through handbooks that this is the Weather policy you remind me of one more thing and I I apologize for on this point but I I do want to point out another thing that continuous

038Improvement um work that we're doing if school's supposed to start at 8:00 and you have a 2 hour delay what time do school start at 10:00 that's right but that doesn't mean that all the other things change in the same way and so thanks to Dr stong and her team um we've developed a two-hour delay schedule that will be on our website that shows if your um start time was this what is the start time and that's for every school uh even though you know you can make the assumption that it's always two hours right after that so that'll be posted on our website from now on as well we got a whole lot of phone FKS what time does start3 please I would be happy to thank you Mrs Wen thank you board members

039and Dr Phillips um we have a standing item on our uh board agenda for Envision 2030 updates and sometimes I'll give you updates and other times I will not uh just depending on the flow of work and things are um we we have a um most of our board meetings coming up are now monthly versus uh bonly so you may see a little more frequent update from me um and for the most part I'm going to reference the slide on the on the screen you all have copies at your seat and there are uh some available on the table there for members of the public that that uh maybe didn't grab one you're welcome to grab we take a look um so just as a reminder this is phase one of our Envision 2030 projects

040that we're working on I'll speak through these um briefly and answer any questions that you that you may have highlighted at the top is the the L Francis Smith Elementary renovation that project is currently finishing design development and moving into construction documents which basically means uh we are getting very close to guac bid for that project that's about a $20 million near full renovation of Smith ele um interesting item of of that work is we have been uh working with and Consulting with uh gentleman named Christen Johansson who is the son of the original architect and Chris and his dad actually um designed the additions on Smith Elementary in the early 90s so he's been working with us via Zoom he lives in Upstate New York uh very supportive of the work and a lot

041of fun uh to have those conversations with with Chris and learn about some of the history of that that building uh moving around counterclockwise I suppose the uh Richard o Johnson Early Education Center that phase one project is complete you have an approval item in your board packet tonight for contractor approval for phase two um phase one of those four classrooms on the south end are now occupied by students in their Childhood Program while be being work on the north end of that building uh continuing on Smith I spoke about already columus East High School is a project within the C4 Department upstairs on the second Flo floor that is a biom med uh two classroom biom Med and lab renovation to that space that will um you may recall our time in the past

042talking about our needs our extremely high demand in the C4 area with our students so that's helping address that need there at Columbus East I'll skip over to the bottom right hand corner Columbus North High School is is two classroom project um very small scope for biomed classrooms and lab work at Columbus North High School tool for the same purpose Mount Healthy Elementary um we we are starting that uh organization of that design team here this month so that's the latter of the phase one projects I'll show you a schedule on the next slide that will remind you of that timeline but just getting started with Mount Healthy um that's that's a building as you all know that needs to be addressed it's no concept building that creates U because of that design there's some

043learning environment challenges that we need to add my space moving up to Middle column Central Middle School that's uh another smaller project to do some work in the media center and then address repurposing space for wellness for those that are providing counseling services so they can be essentially located together to provide their service for families and students uh versus in random offices throughout the building Schmid Elementary has finished phase one and is now in phasee two phase one is the um completion of the main offer and relocated to the north end of the building along 27th Street Phase 2 um is the existing kindergarten wing and the addition of three classrooms in the West Courtyard if you drive by Schmid you'll see that the foundation is poured and the steel framing is up for that

044the new Elementary School number 12 which will not be the name of the school we'll get that named with your support here in the next few months hopefully by the end of this semester uh that with a lot of work from CSO and how and un out of Boston is coming along quite well um finishing up some decisions on the exterior facade of that building uh Howen Yun and that team were in town just last week working with the teacher design team to um address some some exterior and some interior finishes there um keep your ears open we will um here soon invite the community back out to the Westside Community Church for a full present a of that um of that building when we get a little bit further down the road and a

045little more confident with our construction drawings and budget and finally Northside Middle Schools you know um the larger of the projects up there outside of the new Elementary that's a $50 million near full renovation to Northside Middle School that is also exiting the design development phase into construction documents um that that project's had a lot of budget work done to it um but fortunately no major Halls to the teaching and learning environment and we will soon be ready to put that out um to bid and on the next slide this is the same schedule that you've seen before who has a clicker thank you um so just as a reminder these are most of these projects are under packages with construction managers so you see Norths side and North are combined together Smith and East

046uh as a reminder north side and Columbus North are with Meer AUM um Smith Elementary Clem High School of Maxwell construction the new Elementary is with Taylor brothers and pepper construction they're working together on that and the GC or general contract bids um at the bottom you see there so we are uh soon to go to bid here um first with um Smith and East will be bid together and then a month later we'll put Norths side and North out um on the street and open those bids and then finally the new Elementary for the top three packages there with that that is your vision 2030 update I Havey to answer any questions how's the team that Schmid holding up with all of the renovations uh they are doing well um the any of these

047projects as Parks side folks will tell you is there's always light at the end of the tunnel and there always tough to get there but um but SCH sm's in a good spot for sure so everything's on schedule and um even with some some weather challenges the past couple weeks obviously um we're still on schedule for things and uh not to get nerdy on things but they to get concrete poured when we had that really warm weather about two weeks ago and got the steel put up the next day and then the cold weather and snow hit and we're fortunate because that really want to set us back we we uh we were fortunate there so so far so good thank you um we talked a couple meetings ago about temporary classrooms at Schmidt is

048is that can you remind me is that is it still on schedule and is it for next August our goal is to get them in there by spring break that might be a little aggressive um but I I approved the the PO for it yesterday so we're we're moving in that direction still so yeah and again that is due to um increased enrollment of Schmid that we're seeing to um Rectify some some of those concerns all right we are going to skip ahead one as uh Mr Edwards is uh traveling and is still a little bit out um probably 20 more minutes out so we stick ahead to policy review that's okay so this is the third package of policies that were consolidating the existing old theola policies into uh more digestible and more friendly

049to the public it's much fewer policies I don't think I took a opportunity to point out last time but I could be wrong um so stop me if that's the case but probably more than a year ago Mr major made a suggestion that we have all of our policies U at least translated or able to be translated into Spanish the largest second language spoken in our community we're proud to say that all of the first round of policies the ones that probably three to four board meetings go those are all posted to uh board docs now and then at the bottom of them there is a Spanish version for all of those so we're sending those off it w easily able to be automatically so I believe we're part process to translate those documents for

050us and every one of these new policies will also be available in Spanish thank you thank you for the suggestion U so these next uh this next package of policies is 10 um policies that will replace all or part of 18 policies you might remember that U week ago when this agenda came out it was 11 and 31 or so something 11 new Poli 31 because of the new title 9 uh guidance ruling that just came down and the new uh Federal Department of Education Administration moving in this fall or I'm sorry this January um we made the decision to pull the anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policy leave the existing policy in place and we're uh we've been told that it's very likely that that new gu will come out from the new Administration within the

051next couple of months so we'll bring that back in front of you when that time happens in the meantime we have these uh 10 policies communicable diseases board authority and philosophy age ENT entrance age that's kindergarten first grade entrance age requirements test security provisions for assessments uh field trips board staff Communications college and early University programs purchasing procedures and capital assets use of credit cards and vehicle idling is the last one you'll notice um on the screen that after 8405 the Neil policy on vehicle idling says at a later date uh there parts of 8405 that need to stay in place until the the new policies catch up with them so 8405 will stay in place until even after you approve whenever you do approve g45 the vehicle iding policy uh 84 file will stay

052in place until that will place that whole thing uh come back we will uh we will try to note on that policy on the website that many those have been replaced by g245 so there's not conflicting policy on website just a reminder as we talked about I I get several pieces of feedback and questions from board members and we had some uh some email exchanges if there is an interest on the board um to schedule a board work session to discuss any of these policies in further depth between now in the next board meeting um it would just be a motion uh to pull one or more of these and then we would schedule that board work session on that policy and hopefully bring it back U at the sen meeting in February for a

053second reading even even with the changes as long as there are certain number of days between the the work session so any questions discussion or um desire the part of the board to pull any of these out and schedule have on d175 I did see responses come through from Dr Philips on those and that was the only policy that had more than one and it maybe wasn't tot straight forward which is why I wanted to make if you're comfortable with the respon current I had emailed several questions and Dr pH answered very promptly I I have some ongoing questions not about the policies but how we communicate the information in the policies to people that yeah I think the hardest one for me is a board staff Communications um I think at some point all

054of us will be in a situation where we were not supposed to talk to people about the problems they had but the problems will be brought to us we can redirect we can tell them to talk to other people but at some point they're talking to you because they don't know that they could probably trust talking to other people so they're looking for someone to talk to and I think um it's it's a difficult one because uh you know obviously we're not going to talk to people about the temperature in the room right is it it's it's said at 72 and I wanted it 68 I mean that's not stuff that we would talk about but I I can tell you that I've had and I know other people have had um some really interesting

055conversations about problems they have and uh try my best to redirect those where they can I I know uh before Christmas I spoke with a bunch of students at East that had some questions and and I redirected them to to the appropriate people and I know that uh Mr hack is going to take care of the concerns that there are um but I think sometimes there's going to be people that want to want to talk to someone else different it's not about undermining anybody it's just they don't for whatever reason feel safe or comfortable talking to the person that they would have to talk to next and so I think that one I struggle with because again it tells us we can't do that so that's why that's why I feel that one should have

056some flexibility uh especially when you know it's it's a a person that has a problem with their leader whatever level that may be that's one of the ones that I had it someone with and and my concern is that I have had a number of um staff members email me or text me and say they would like to talk to me about something but they're not sure they're allowed to talk to me and that's or I think it's that we need to communicate to staff what's an unofficial communication versus this says staff shall submit all official Communications in a certain way but sometimes it's just a conversation about school stuff but it's not necessarily something that needs to go to their um higher supervisor or sometimes just think they've already talked to their higher supervisor

057on they just want the board to be aware of the situation so so again it's not as much the policy as is how do we for me how do we communicate What specifically staff members um how can the approach I don't want that I don't want to be unapproachable and and also I mean I've also had staff members talk to me about things with their kids that's not about their position as a staff and and those same people they think they're not allowed to do that and I think part of that goes to a history several years ago that might as a staff member I thought it was true well and and I think from a standpoint of them talking to their about their kids not a problem and it's again going back to right

058before break I sent I summarized everything that I spoke with those kids about we had a I think there was a counselor in the room with us when I talked to the kids and and I sent all that to all the appropriate people so I think from that standpoint we need to have the ability to do that because that's where that's where they felt comfortable talking um I think we've all had other conversations that lead to a side conversation somewhere with another individual that says hey you might want to think about this because someone's frustrated right so I think it we should be able to be a additional conduit I don't think we're the leaning post for everybody's problems that's why we need to be able to redirect them to the appropriate areas and that's

059where if they don't feel comfortable doing that we should be able to listen at least I think I don't know if anybody feel we need to rewrite this I think there's a concern about how it's interpreted by the staff of bcsc and generally speaking every M probably be open to having that conversation with the staff but recognizing some of the things that we should redirect we don't want people to be afraid to to conver with us so maybe you could recommend how how this um could be communicated to staff in practice necessarily a policy change but just making sure that we um we don't have misconceptions that could be lingering from old ways of do am I summarizing appro for folks I I think the way it's written now to to allow those conversations you

060have to rewrite it it's not you can't rewrite it and say or you can't leave it where it says they can't talk to us about school things like that and then tell them off to the side go ahead and talk to them because now you've got conflicting things so if if we want to allow them to be able to have a conversation with us and we all understand that we have to follow a process and push them back towards the right people and give them good guidance then we would have to rewrite the policy so so let me add here I'm okay not rewriting it but if Mr major thinks that we need an executive or whatever kind of session Public Work session to work on that I would be happy to second that okay

061I can't make motions but other people can make motions I motion that we pull d175 for a public working session prior to the next I second that Mr maor um okay all those in favor polling d175 to be discussed in a public work session that will be scheduled and and shared um we website please say I all those post please say n public will be scheduled thank you any other questions on the other policies the only question I really came up with uh do we foresee any of these being challenged or potentially Furbish change Bas off incoming legislation uh heading the next couple weeks just the one that we pulled already a100 the anti-discrimination anti all the rest cons La not subject to F okay thank you all right all right we tried Charles he's

062he's just a handful of minutes out so we're go ahead we're going to go ahead and get started on this portion of presentation on our uh 2024 bcsc graduation rates uh we do have some guests here this evening from uh both North and Columbus North and Columbus East high schools from last year's senior cohort teams and so um at whatever slide you all are supposed to come up you come on up and I'll stop talking at that does that sound good thanks thanks L okay so um our graduation rate back in 2014 2015 even in 2016 was consistent pretty close to the to the state average um and right around that 90 that 90% uh graduation rate and um particularly at the time we were very proud of the number and the percentage of academic

063honors and Technical Honors diplomas that we had um as the State graduation r started to TI down bcs's also did so but actually had a faster clip U and the last two years with the graduation in 2022 of just over 81% and in 2023 just over 83% um we came to this board or or board look very similar to this and asked um to really make a pretty dramatic swing at um at a a new program that we thought could dramatically impact this and um he's not here yet but I'm going to give him credit when uh somebody I don't remember who it was on the board asked Mr Edwards during a meeting a while back how long do you think before we see results and I thought I cringed when when Dr Edward said

064immediately man he's really he's really he's really U you know swinging for the fence with this one um but we're excited to say that this cohort model uh immediately did have an impact with the very first cohort group that um worked with a team pause slowly make sure believe I and Lori don't stand up and get up here so um a reminder to those in the public and those on the board what we did was create grade specific uh list of Student Success teams here with each of the cohorts so there are eight teams four I say coverts as graduating coverts so there four teams at North four teams at East uh at Columbus East each of the teams has a an assistant principal a counselor and an academic coach and at Columbus North an

065assistant principal a counselor and two academic coaches because the cohort uh the number of students at North is much much higher than over at East and so uh through taking a large High School um that one of them has 12200 students in somewhere around the neighborhood of 2200 and making it a small smaller School experience surrounding each cohort with a group of adults that stays with them from year to year allows them to build relationships and give each one of those students a more personalized experience um we really felt like and after we looked at other schools that had implemented this model um that there was no way it could have a negative impact and we just really didn't know how immediately such a L impact and the cohort model is built on very simple

066principles get to know your students get to know their families and help C that's it now there are lots of things let's look at the team members of the cohorts that are sitting out there right now and there are so many things that they do to make this happen um the number of resources that they bring together the number of different programs that they know about and they get kids enroll with and they connect students with uh Social Service entities that meet help meet the needs of our students um this looks really simple these folks know how really complex uh the cohort model can be but I'd like to talk about and I had talked several times this year about clearing the path for folks um because when you're a public school I used to

067call it the walm martiz of public schools which means we're all things to all people and it's very easy to get caught up in wow we have students or we have 2200 students and we have this unlimited number of complexities and and problems that these students bring to us and stengths that they bring to us and um it can be really overwhelming to try to say we we have to meet all the needs of all these students all the time and by clearing the path and say Here's a team of adults you're assigned these students and you have one task help them graduate by building relationships um and the the results um speak for themselves here out here he's going to speak to the common sheet which is a really critical element of the cohort

068model um is using a Common Language and consistent across all eight of our teams in the two high schools about how we speak about the progress of each of these Team all right thanks for the opportunity to to come in here tonight and celebrate this we're really excited want to thank my team uh who who have done a great job getting us through this uh we have our I team and our special ed coordinator here with us and then also uh our cohort team and place academic coach and our guidance counsel academic coach may be here today and then so just want to give them a shout out thanks for taking time to be here um every Monday we get together as a group and we meet and have a conversation first thing in the

069morning 8:00 we like the the early time slot so we come in right away have a conversation we're using the common sheet using the common sheet sheet and going through very specific pieces of information U and that is going to look at demographics it's going to look at uh some of our data points that we analyze and go through on a weekly basis and what we're doing is we're trying to make sure we're capturing every individual that we can to uh help put supports in place to get them where they can be successful uh so every every every Monday we go around the horn and we talk about what we can do to support those individuals um those who may be credit deficient but also those who are doing well and what supports we may

070be able to do uh to continue to allow them to grow in in our building in our space and the common sheet is part of that part of that guide um as we work through that we also want to put a big emphasis on communicating with families and last year our goal was to make sure that each one of our cohorts was at a 100% communication with families uh and so we were striving to have that accomplished before graduation day which we were able to do at at North for all cohorts this year we challenged ourselves to uh move that up to have it done at the end of semester 1 which we were able to to accomplish here so a little extra challenge for us to make sure we could make a a contact

071before we went into winter break with every family which we we were able to to uh do and part of that is having conversations in those meetings uh what's going well we want to celebrate do the celebrate the little ones uh as well as uh the big ones and we want to make sure not all of our contacts are uh about issues we may be seen but we want to celebrate those those individuals as well so some of those conversations happen and passing we P we see people at Kroger and we can stop and and share a great conversation uh others are through parent square or emails or some phone calls but finding different ways to make those contacts um and be able to make those touches I'm Miss shamley uh Sant principal at East

072High School and I'd like to recognize my 2024 cohort team coach lber academic coach Callie axom special and Carrie Aba Administrative Assistant of the team and Brian Hansen who was a counselor last year but is not with us tonight um along with what Levi Simpson was talking about communication is a key component of the success of the team we really build relationships with the students we learn um their interests their talents things they struggle with whether it's academically or outside of the school setting we also learn about their families we build relationships with their parents we truly build a partnership with the families and really try to individualize an academic experience for their child not only leading in the next four years of success at school but also leading them in building a pathway or

073outside of the high school and what pathway they will take whether it's in college or a career um another thing to emphasize with the communication with families and students is when we are meeting with families we are um individualizing a plan of action for those students if we're meeting with a family where the child is struggling we really come together as a team and brainstorm possible outcomes possible solution solons that to help support that child so that they can be successful not sure if you pull yeah that' be fine so as we as we work through each cohort will have a common sheet and these are pieces that we're putting together together as we as we go through and one of the really interesting pieces on here uh is where we're able to identify some

074of our projections of where we're at but also the the groups that we're working with uh and some of these items that as we're trying to figure out which supports we want to put in place we'll look at uh those total numbers and be able to help help our students out that way uh if you scroll down a little bit Dr Phillips we see as we're we're tracking our parent contacts this is uh through quarter 3 something that's interesting to us as we as we look at what's in red on the right hand side is pre cohort model and then uh what you have uh so the 2223 is prec cohort model the 2324 is semester one where we left off and so we're looking at jumps along the way and as I had stated

075earlier we challenged ourselves this year after reflecting on our our processes last year and our successes last year we were reflecting on that to get to 100% before the end of semester one which we were able to do and then we're able to to look at breakdowns and have conversations with uh so I'm dropping in grades now to have conversations with uh department leaders and chairs and coordinators and then we also talk about our 50 to 55 or 50 to 59% and we talk about getting those students who we can gather and we and get them to that 60% or above and so we have a student who's sitting at a 59.1% we have a conversation with them and they may leave our office after sitting in our academic coaches uh space during their resource

076for 20 minutes they may leave and have three assignments done and all of a sudden they went from a 59.1 to a 65% based on what we were able to help them with and so we're able to identify that uh that student and the help that they need and give a little individualized uh attention to them that they may not have had before uh which is so much fun to see and so rewarding to see those successes uh and see them get excited about that uh because we don't think about a 59% or a 55% necessarily being a struggle for someone but they've just been struggling to get over over that hump right and we're we're able to give them that final push and and help them get there it's a very exciting if we

077can continue to yep um another thing to emphasize on the grades and how we have it broken down by subject U we are also keeping an eye on CDP students CSA and McDow so um while many of those students don't physically attend our particular campus we are communicating with the directors or leaders of those campuses as well as meeting with those students and keeping an eye on their progress um also the academic coaches position um I know coach hillenberg really works very hard in developing a partnership with classroom teachers he is an advocate for students but also a partner with the classroom teachers and he creates makeup days throughout the quarter pulling in students to help work with assignments or make up work they may be missing and a lot of that is coordinated through

078communication and partnership with those classroom teachers it is a crucial role in our function as a team but also the success of our students um in the first quarter beginning in into the second quarter we had a pretty large number of students that were failing classes but through the hard work and dedication of Jurg and working with our students and the academic coaches role we were able to significantly reduce the number of students that were faing that now pass the first semester and earned their credit so breaking down the progress of students really uh sheds light on where we need to focus our attentions and developing those Communications and Partnerships with teachers as well we can move on done I'm I'm going to be honest with you guys we live in this quite a bit

079so uh we can we can spend a lot of time talking through this so I won't I won't take us through each each piece uh individually per se uh but I will I will share with you as if we go down one thing we look at is uh our discipline pieces and we'll break them down through through quarters and semester same thing with attendance you know one thing that our academic coaches do tirelessly is work on making contacts attendance and working on raising our attendance rates uh which we've we've been able to do uh and building those relationships and and discipline but if we continue to to scroll down once again I don't want to eat up a ton of time on on this uh one piece that ties if we go to credit deficient

080students and maybe uh identifying students who may not be on Pace to get to graduation and we'll pull those individual uh students out and and allow us and the data and information that we have and the relationships that we're building to be able to make those connections uh and I know whenever we stepped into this uh into this spot we had several uh more that were quote unquote credit deficient so that means not on Pace to be at 40 credits at the end of their senior year 40 specific credits so we have to gain 10 specific credits each each school year uh we're able to p pull those individuals out and have a little even even more individualized approach on how we're going to uh tackle those situations and whether that's through our other programs

081or uh finding other unique ways to help them out we're able to have those conversations and and zoom in even more Levi this are these are 36 students that are credit efficient from last year's senior class in the third quarter is that correct going yeah going into the fourth quarter so this common sheet would have been done uh right at the start of fourth quarter and so it gives us a snapshot of the the final moments that final push that we're trying to make towards the stage U and then you know a large a large chunk of these we were able to get across going to ask two questions about it yep and and just believe Mr Simpson um about how many of those students did you get across the finish line and then to

082the communication piece uh how many times per week would you say someone from the team was touching base with the students at North it was 36 students this time and East was a different number but how many times per week would you say that a member of the team is touching Bas with these kids that are credit efficient on the credit deficient it's almost daily uh and a lot lot of times were double and triple quadruple dipping so guidance counselor may have a conversation that uh you know Miss fresh hour may have had a conversation at 9:00 a.m. and then IAD you Lucy had a conversation at 10:30 and then they come around in the afternoon and then miss Rosenberg and myself had a touch point they may have come through we we have students

083uh who actually find their way to the cohort office to stop in and just say hi because we've changed that that culture of you're not in trouble when you come see us it's a supportive space and so then our admin assistant Mrs Brown is also having a contact point and we're each learning the student uh personality and and what makes them tick and finding ways to have those conversations and and get them there I would say um fourth quarter was go time we were really focused and Laser focused on these students Miss abdulla was calling parents and scheduling meetings we had parent meetings um with particular students once a month and then it started leading to two weeks every two weeks we were having a meeting with the parent and the student and creating a

084timeline and checking where are they now um coach hillenberg and Brian Hansen were checking on our CVP students and it got to where we had a the majority of students were behind credits starting that fourth quarter were our CVP and so coach hillenberg was bringing in students and checking every Monday and Wednesday at 2:00 you're going to be in my office working um we would have meetings with those families and set timelines of expectations with progress we did home visits and talked with parents and students at home that were unable to come to our campus Kelly axom was able to really pull through some of our special ed students who were struggling and um it really took a team effort in pulling a lot of these kids um and making that progress and we were

085able to get all of them to walk across that stage in May so I'm scrolling out and look at what I feel like is the most fastic question before pleas um so we have multiple students so we can see it at least somewhat here that fit in different places so this is north but CBP and I don't know if that means fulltime CBP or kids that are just some McDow are they half day or full time I don't see CSA new tech but thinking about those three I think my question is first of all my statement is I would imagine it's a challenge to meet with some of those students who are in your building just part of the day or maybe not in your building at all and has that worked out how do

086you meet that challenge last year um CVP was our greatest challenge of 2024 um and CVP functioned differently um we had meetings with Mr bble reviewed over students that were not making the expect expected progress and then we would schedule parent meetings and we would all meet and set timelines and and progress we also met with um Mr du about McDow and worked with Angela as well with the McDow students this year with the change of how CVP um is now operated we now have more direct input in working with families on those students who are doing the CVP um something else that we did at East is at at the end of first semester those students who were CVP we made decisions do they continue or do they need to come return in person

087um we also scheduled times if it was CVP then they had check-ins where they would come to East Campus and either meet with Mr Hansen or melenberg to work for amount of time or review their progress in with the team or with them individually I just want to point to the this it was this quarter's meeting that we had um last year that following looking at this data I have highlighted there 66.5% of it as were students who were attending the majority of their classes at CDP it was following this meeting that we met with the leaders of both buildings and said do you want control over which of your students are in your building and which of your students are a CVP and they said yes please and we immediately made a change starting

088for this fall um dramatically changed the relationships between the the different it may have been I won't call them walls between the the organizations or the sub organizations and those are almost entirely G and Mr now to answer your question on uh where they were located on from this sheet uh so CVP that's a full-time CVP student that was credit deficient and so that doesn't Encompass our entire CBP load at this point in time but just those that were fulltime credit deficient uh mcdal it's pretty rare for us to have a full-time mcdal student right so just based on the programming so that those are students who are mostly half day McDow half day at North uh CSA at this time was uh doing a nice job with their group and they were all on

089track at that point in time uh much smaller number in there com uh comparatively right compared to our total number which we also have at the top I would just add to that that I I think one of our great strengths is the many Pathways we have for kids to find one that fits them but but in doing so we complicate your job so appreciate going to the thank you both of the question follow so welcome Mr words I was going to have the whole group in here we were going to have the stage and when you walk in we were just stand up and start clapping but I decided to hide a s Le well if you if you were going to clap you probably should have been clapping for those folks don't don't

090go anywhere probably so it was uh I I debated on whether or not to start with a joke I'm not gonna I'm GNA apologize for the jeans though uh I got dressed uh upstairs as quickly as I could and came down and um we're were driving from Indianapolis listening to the board meeting um on on um on our phone as we drove and uh the there's been a wealth of information shared and the thing that I I I'm I really love is that everybody who's involved can speak it so fluently um and so it it really is uh it really is it really has made a difference for so uh I wanted to say that but um changes to CVP those were were just covered but the other thing that um I wanted to talk

091about U on an earlier slide and we don't have to go back but I do want to talk about um that what happened when we brought the teaming model to Columbus is that it changed the accountability um you know you go from a system where everybody's responsible for everybody to a system where this particular group of people is responsible for a cohort um or a group of students and so you know they become my students and so um they go the extra mile they make the phone calls to CVP and go visit CVP and work with those leaders to make sure that the students are getting exactly what they need you know and so North is over 2,000 students and David Clark is great and and and Michael Parsons is great but asking them to

092be responsible and know and understand well what each of those 2,000 students needs that that's a big LT and so we you know brought the team in and the team has made it their that's it's their group of students that they're responsible for for four years and so um I did want to um go ahead to the the next slide and so you were just talking about the the common sheet and quarter 3 and what that looked like and this is this is realistically where we were after quarter 3 so we meet um with the cohorts on a quarterly basis um and talk about and we meet more than that but we sit down and we meet with the cohort about uh four times a year on a quarterly basis to to get a really

093big snapshot of where they are get a great overview of where they are um look at the common sheet ask a bunch of questions and and give specific feedback and guidance and so um what what I heard them talking about um were the steps that they go through on a weekly basis to make sure that everybody's getting exactly what they need so this slide right here demonstrates or shows how Student Success is process driven it's a process and so they come to the table every week and I heard that talked about and they sit down and igad's part of it um and certainly benefits from the uh it's a symbiotic relationship with with igrad and uh you'll notice or you you did notice that they posted their first 100% graduation rate and it's no coincidence

094that it happened this year they were at the table having those same conversations and so iat's a part of what we do special and it's a part of what we do and again those are partners that we we absolutely need because again it is a process so um if you look at Columbus North where they were uh at the end of quarter 3 um again uh 83 .4 um the East was sitting around 87.5 that average is out to 85% which is not where we landed as a graduation rate so again working the process understanding what folks need delivering on that on a weekly uh basis St in day out right it's the old how do you eat an elephant and it's it's it's little by little action by action and so on a weekly

095basis again we are seeing these actions that lead to Student Success now I'll just point out that these averages that you see up here or the numbers that you see up here those are the realistic graduation rates so when we ask them we say what do you what where are you going to land they give us a couple different numbers they give us the hey if everything goes exactly as it's plan number this is where we'll be and then they give us the this is a realistic place of where we are right now based on whose credit deficient if we had to graduate today this is where we would be and so that's what this number represents next slide okay so waivers um starting with 23 24 cohort you the state made a change to

096the waivers um and how we were able to um function with waivers and it affected us the grad rate in North was um was caed due to the issues of um um alternate diplomas and so alternate diplomas are diplomas for students with severe cognitive disabilities and so the state says you can give up to 1% of your graduating class or your entire cohort uh uh can be an alternate diploma and so we as a district uh 931 was our cohort and so we 1% nine we could have nine um and we actually we went over um and so uh North issued 7 um Columbus East issued three uh and because of it we were capped our our graduation rate was capped uh next slide so it doesn't say that students can't graduate it just says

097that you can't use those numbers to be a part of your of your graduation rate you have to take those stud on your graduation rate so they graduate and they get their diploma but they can't count toward your rate if it's over the 1% cap for an alternate diploma now for just a basic waiver uh those are cap two so 9% then it'll slide to six and then it'll slide to three so this year was we could not be over 9% of our graduating class and we weren't we didn't even approach it we were at five inant change um and then next year it slides at 6% and then 5 to 3% and that's where it will remain um so for us that uh amounted to 51 students getting a um a wa yes okay

098this is a slide been waiting for um this is uh we're probably 15 minutes into this uh presentation um and several different slides and we buried this slide on purpose because it's a lagging indicator right this is a this is an indicator of the work that has gone into um the students and so this again speaks to the process and so yes it's super important but working the process is is what's what God is here so 90.1 is where we congratulations and again uh I'm going to assume that those uh are applauds for the cohort and all the students that they worked with and the students who put in the hard work and the parents who put in some hard work too um uh next slide so this one here is uh special because it

099shows again the impetus for the program when we dip to 8108 uh again in 22 and that is part of a CO dip we saw that across the state and again we don't want to use CO as an excuse but it it was part of what happened uh the state was at a 10e Lev in 2022 um and so again part of the co deck but then you see how we rebounded when we um when we uh rebounded to 834 again we were already working on how do we implement the cohort model um and this is is U that demonstrates kind of the uh dramatic gain that we were able to make in in the course of the year and uh Dr Katie Jenner Secretary of uh education for the state of Indiana said there

100is an urgency to continue this positive momentum and I will Echo those words there is urgency for us to continue this positive moment next slide this is interesting so of the 158 public schools of more than 150 uh students in their graduating cohort Columbus East percentage Point gain was 10th highest in the state in Columbus North percentage point game was 15th highest in the state in that group which is again pretty dramatic and it speaks to the work and I don't want to get in the weeds but when we started the cohort model and these folks took over the the senior class they were all already there were already students who had migrated out of the cohort and so without going back and explaining how all that works it they were already a little bit

101behind because there were already students who had decided that they weren't going to be with us or they weren't going to continue in school and so um we were working with a limited ceilings the best and so for us to be able to make those kind of gains uh was pretty impressive next slide here we go so graduation rates for bcsc versus State and this just shows kind of how we moved over the course of the last uh five years six years um versus the state and so we were 90.0 state was 9023 and again I mentioned earlier that there were a couple students uh with alternate diplomas that we weren't able to count but had we been able to count those students we would be lock St with the state rate 9 9.22 is

102where we would it out so 9.01 officially and we're proud of that uh but we were we were tracking the state pretty hard next slide Yep this shows some demographic information um and so we made gains on almost every significant uh demographic area so our uh Asian population was up um black uh White um Hispanic multi-racial um our e and our mult I'm sorry our e and our Hispanic numbers were uh incredibly uh impressive and again that is um under the leadership of uh Dr Nicole Leech who um is working very hard with those folks to make sure that those students are getting what they need in with the uh the coworks Mr words I believe I missed this when I looked at this the gray is supposed to 23 graduation rate is that right

103no that's against the state that's against the state state versus b y State versus bcsc yep and so I did not uh I did not show our gains but I I I know them so I can I can tell you what they were um next slide more demographic information I believe yep again showing how our paid are free and reduced our gen Ed uh special ed nonl uh elll folks males and females did this is pretty interesting so of the 24 large districts in Indiana with similar demographics to us so greater than 30% free and reduced uh greater than 6% El uh and greater than 12% Special Egg um our graduation Point increase was the highest so the average growth among those groups was .94 so less than a percent and we were 6.6% points

104gain and that's a list of the schools over on the right that we would be comparing ourselves with the uh similar demographics uh next diploma types this outlines our diploma types um and I heard Dr Phillips talking about our academic and Technical Honors and academic honors earlier uh this is pretty uh incredible because what we noticed was that when we've got a group who are working with a group of students and they are focused on what they're doing um we're able to say Hey you know if you just took one more class in this direction you'd be able to get that technical honor if you just took two more classes you'd be able to get that Technical Honors so that number represents an 88% increase over the largest number of tech honors diplomas that we've

105given over the past 10 years um which is pretty pretty impressive again and it's the work of the cohort and it's the work of those folks focusing on what students are doing coming to the table every week and noticing um when there's an opportunity to to help them achieve at a different level that was something this uh first quarter when I attended with Mr Edwards uh the meetings at each of the schools eight different cohort team beings I was impressed because you can really easily focus on the students who are credit deficient and and get in that world and live there and we need to spend the majority of our time there but um I learned from the cohort teams that many of them if not all of them are looking at things like like

106Mr Edward just said well student instead of taking this U science class next semester takes this science class they're on track to get an honors deployment and they don't even know it and so just having that brief conversation with them that did you know if you took this one and you as long as you get a C+ or better you're going to get an hment when you finish U so it's not only looking at those students that are struggling it's looking at the whole um you know the whole group the whole all the V and and that is uh that's such a true statement that there are some really academically minded and driven students who walk in our doors and they know exactly what they're doing when it comes to pursuing an academic honors or

107an academic honors or Technical Honors um and and they know that and they are driven and they're doing those things but we also have a bunch of kids who are just great students and they come in and they take classes that they're interested in um but they they they're close and they they don't know and so us being able to say you know if you just took one more class if you just did this you'd be able to get that I don't know if you want to wait to the end but um and I hesitate to ask this question because I don't want to take anything away from the remarkable job that they did but but I don't know if I'm reading this correctly this is what I emailed you about um the top line

108is students have received academic honors and Technical Honors and then the third line is students have received just Technical Honors and if you add so if you look at total Technical Honors um it's 219 in 2023 and 219 in 2024 so I inter that is we actually have fewer students qualifying for both honors and I don't know if I mean maybe we're asking students to focus more I don't know but so the thing question there somewhere yeah so here here's my best attempt in answer um those numbers have moved independ if you look at that chart those numbers tend to move independently of of one another and so we can see that the academic and Technical Honors has dipped over the years but it so it's it's a it's up and it's down so it's

109it's wavy but the thing that I noticed about the Technical Honors which is what made me say in the first place is that it was never out of the 30s like it was it was never like it didn't it was never it was never in the 50s you know what I mean and so when we when we see this phenomenon where it's like well we've been in the 20s we had we've had you know uh 30s but then we all of a sudden jump in the 50s you know something something was going on there and it's like what was it that caused us to finally you know issue so many Technical Honors of f but if if somebody asked me how many Technical Honors did bcsc award or did our students earn wouldn't it be

110the 53 plus to 166 you're yeah no you're not reading it wrong yeah yeah so it's 219 right it's 219 but what I'm saying is that first line and that third line move independent of one another there's there's no there's I don't I don't want to say that there's not a correlation but really there there isn't one um and so when we when we see um the the number of Technic that we were able to award I don't I don't maybe we need more data um like another year of data to be able to look at it and say that it's meaningful but it's not it's not something that we've seen so it was something that I thought I would point out thank you yeah I just have one question on the did not graduate

111the 92 um I believing if I remember correctly on our last discussion this is a fouryear graduation right so like when you said there was a ceiling you know how roughly how many of that 92 by the time you instituted the te model were really already pass that so really that's a great question and I I don't know the answer um but um because essentially right that's your opportunity as we now have multiple years in here so I guess that's what forward is how much came we were able to say essentially a little little under half from the last year so I mean I would assume that would yes Mr chain Mr Simpson do you have any idea what we took over many out of the numerator so the exact number I do not have

112off the top of my head but there uh the max point that we could have could have reached would not have been much would not have been much higher than what we were able to get to um there were there were maybe a handful of percentile points that we could have moved from from that point in the in the low 9 s uh so as as Mr Edward said on the front end we came in and there were some numbers that were already moving in in a different direction so yeah and so the thing that hesitate to make this but I'm going to say it anyway the thing that you know um I'm excited about is I'm excited to see the first 4year graduation rate with the cohort model uh and that's not to take

113anything away from the folks who were um you know haven't had their students for 4 years because they're certainly doing some phenomenal things um but that first foure group will um that'll tell us a lot is there is uh okay and so additional strategies I think this is the last slide um but the thing that uh again we kept learning as we were going through this school year last year and so we were able to do some things that would give students additional opportunities to to pass and so um it was like well what else can we do and how else can we help students and when can we get you know how can we give them more opportunities more chances and so again the summer school for the cohort that was something that we

114did that was extremely successful um bringing folks back in person so this was the CVP change that we talked about because what we knew um is that if we could get students into the school have them be around the cohorts they had a greater chance for success but we also know that there are students who need to be virtual um and so we respect that but that is now a decision that is being made by the folks who are running the C- because they want their students in their buildings so they can get as many chances as possible uh to help them uh the instant accountability again we're meeting on a weekly basis we know who needs what when if we know that somebody's not doing homework when the meeting breaks up we can go

115get that student bring them down in the office and have them sit in the office and do some homework and then we can get it back to the teacher and it's a it's it's a closed loop so we we get the student and they do the homework and then we don't give the homework back necessarily we take it to the teacher so that it doesn't get lost or crumpled in the bottom of the backpack um so for those of you with children you know exactly what I'm talking about by Ching me voice but I mean High School boys that's exact so um the N9 week evaluation that was something that we had never done before that the schools had never done before and so it was interesting that you know after the first nine weeks

116they were able to take a look and say are our students in the right classes you know are you know is you know this student having uh too tough a time in a super advanced math course or a super Advanced English course um and do we need to kind of right siize this student so again by looking at data we were able to recognize some opportunities and those were things that we did um is there is there another is this the last SL I can't remember this is the last one I just I put the uh this up here for a question slide but I'm going to I'm going to jump and add on to this that the most I won't call it the most exciting thing that I've learned in the two quarters that

117I've set through these meetings and participated in these meetings with the 18s um is the work that each team is doing to innovate and so um you'll sit in one of those meetings you'll hear about well we learned that it's it's kids in biology that are really struggling and so we talked to the science department chair and now the science department chair and a teacher are during the advisory period they're pulling kids who are struggling with Biology and just working with those students on biology because they have the list of kids they got it from the office they know exactly who meets what um and they're targeting the their efforts towards the students who need a very specific outcome um that's just one example we learned of another group that's taking U students who are

118um either native Spanish speakers or they speak Spanish at home who are seniors and who are doing well academically those kids during their advisory or during their resource period are coming down and working with freshmen who are struggling with English language not that they can't speak conversational English but reading a biology textbook or an Algebra 2 textbook is incredibly difficult for someone who's not an inded English teer it's that academic language so a student who speaks Spanish while was working U you know in high academic spe is working with someone who's struggling those things are happening every week across our um Co a cohorts and I'm I'm excited about the when each of those things gets grain across all of them uh I'm going to mention another one that's not up here right now and

119that's the already proactive effort to reach out the middle schools and so the you know the senior the senior groups right now they're already um thinking about and I I believe had already gone to the middle schools and met with the the eighth graders just to start building a relationship we gone and had conversations with the eth grade teams about hey this is who we are if you come to East I'm going to be your assistant princi I'm going to be your academic coach or your counselor year um and so the the pushing that down reaching that down into Middle School level is going to be another one of those things that continues to to grow the capacity in this to really impact students I'm going to say a couple more things then then I'm

120in the rap I I get I can talk about it a long time it's um it's been a great thing for us but I I just want to say um Lord chambley um never and I don't want to Discount the work anybody's doing but Lori chamble is the principal that you all asked me questions about last year how's she doing because she has two cohorts so she was she was running two cohorts at columbuses last year and managed to um turn out a pretty spectacular uh uh result with the the the 2024 cohort so I just want to give Lor a special shout out because again she worked really hard um and then I I will say that um this is built on principles that we would want to build any of our programs on

121um relationships um outcomes for students and accountability so um those three things have combined to help us really win in bcsc and we know that every cohort will present its own uh unique set of challenges but um based on what we know right now it's working exactly um the way we wanted to Mr Edwards I Lori introduced um some of her fols can you both come back up to microphone please have the members of your teams from last year who are here stand up for us please thank you sure thank you Mr Edwards for your kind comments but I couldn't have done it without my amazing team please stand and come up here yes have them come on yes come on thoroughly embarrassing just they really are an amazing group to work with um we've

122got G abdela my Administrative Assistant who calls all the parents and schedules all those meetings for us Kelly axam who works with our special education students and Trent hillenberg our academic coach and then Brian Hansen was our counselor last year as well and they are just really a tremendous group really a pleasure to work with and dedicated and committed to those [Music] students all right we have uh IAD come up first Bob and Lucy at igad they're in our our meetings each morning uh going through that process with us and then special ed coordinator Daniel ho comes comes into our meetings our guidance counsel counselor Sandy fres hour and then our academic coach last year we had one of the seniors Amy Rosenberg and then our admin assistant who could not be here today was

123uh is Mickey Becky Brown Excuse me Becky Brown so she can be here with us today here's our team congratulations okay now one more thing and then I'm promise uh Dr Parsons and uh Mr Clark uh thank you for um again being um working with these folks and and training them in providing um providing an environment where they can can Thrive so uh the building principles have been absolutely essential in this as well questions yeah yeah at the half year mark what is uh the current projected graduation rate for this class so I've got a bunch of numbers that I managed to compile but that's not one of of them but I can tell you uh that it's over 90% thank you and to put you on the spot the closer you get to perfect

124the harder it is I recognize that so I might not expect 6.6% next year but if you were a betting person Mr Edwards what kind of improvement think expect to see so it's not putting me on the spot it's putting those folks on the spot um and so I'm yeah I'm I'm going to yeah I'm going to say it out loud uh but I I really do think that we'll uh approach 92 if uh if not it's not there um there were two um areas where we significantly outpaced the state average um English language Learners was one of them special ed Miss Kelly Mr hoe Miss F in the back and Miss London I can spot those faces here in the room that that um really made that that department and our programs there work

125for students I want to give you a round of applause thank you very much and while we're hanging out Kudos I'm sitting here right now but we know the person who was sitting last was done leading helping lead this district is also room Dr Roberts conratulations [Applause] thank you for the good questions and really allowing us to um celebrate this we appreciate so um I would like to maybe celebrate us as a board um there was discussion of this came up I know the quandry was do we implement it right away or do we plan for a year and then implement it and it's um obvious from this that we made the right decision to implement it right away um I have well another comment or request I think um when we were adopting this

126new program um there was a teacher survey that really was not strongly in favor of it I've I think I've mentioned this before but now that it's been in place I would love to see a teacher survey again down the road of um I'm assuming that a lot of teachers have changed their mind on whether or not this is a good plan but but it would be nice to survey the the teachers at at the high schools and see what their feelings are at this point um and well I guess my other Challenge and you already mentioned your goal for next year statistically agression towards the meeting would say we're going to go down next year and and I fully get that challenge statistically but I appreciate the efforts and I think with two years

127of doing this how can we not go up so really quickly is we just um to listen to the teams talk among one another and talk about what they're going to do and how they're going to get students more involved um I they they keep getting better um and so they keep learning things and then they Implement those things right away um and again just to be a fly on the wall in some of the meetings to hear the way that they talk about some of the things that they're doing and the thing that I'll mention because it just sticks out uh Cory Williams um and some of her folks uh hosted a I can't I don't even know what it was called but they hit a bunch of reers around uh around Columbus North

128and folks had to go around and find reindeer if you found reindeer you could turn it in and you can you know for prize and so it seems trivial um it seems small but if you like coming to school um then you're going to go um and if you can get into what's happening while you're there um that's that's where the mat happens that's and so every little thing that they're doing and they do those things at East too every little thing that they do to get students and teachers to want to be there and create a better atmosphere um is is making the team stronger making the school stronger and making the challenge maybe a little easier and I I do have one question to help my understand um and I actually warned Mrs

129I might want to turn to her you can but but help me and US understand so there's waivers there's alternative diplomas and and also I mean the whole spectrum of special ed um we have students in life skills are they part of our graduation rate how does that how does that all fit in yeah I'll take a swing at it um so the answer to your question is yes they are part of the graduation read and um the the the alternate the alternate diploma so some folks say alternative some folks say alternate like officially it's the alternate diploma and so that is a diploma for folks with severe cognitive disabilities and so this is the thing that kind of um I had a hard time with because how do we say we're only going to

130get out X number if we have more than that who have done the work and who are deserving and who should get those how do we cap it at 1% like how do we decide who gets one and who doesn't so that that for me was was difficult U but the answer to your question is yes so students with severe cognitive disabilities can receive an alternate diploma but the State caps that at 1% of of your graduation and then the waivers if students qualify for a waiver that's a regular yes yeah yeah I I would just like to second one of the points about the survey because that was one of the we were doing the deliberation I think it was about year and half ago that was one of the major points that kind

131of came in at the 11th hour if I recall 90 teachers from the teachers union I believe there was only one maybe two that were slightly favorable the rester um asking for a delay and opposition to it and so at the same time had to believe the people on the ground and so I think Not only would I say we need a teacher survey I think also we should look at the parents and see like how do you feel about this how is this making you feel engaged and then also the students perspective I think you get those three as part of the survey I would still recommend using the same source so it's comparing but for the teachers but the other two I think can be done through ular the public comments portion of

132our meeting tonight remind everybody what this process looks like if you attend the board meeting there is a sheet at the table when you enter the room you'd like to speak um you can the on us you get 3 minutes there is a Time War there to help you stay on time and we do need to stay on time we'll make sure Tock to that um if you have someone that has spoken before you and they've made your point it's okay to pass just say I agree with so and so and you can move on um please do not use the nams of individual students staff members Etc don't use specific titles it's the same things you can't principal e for examp um the same sure we're we're umol and um and then no cheers

133and from the audience it is sometimes difficult to get up and back all right so first name I have on this piece of paper is humy yeah my first name okay I'm very sorry about that mind introducing yourself thank you my bad no problem is it on okay yeah it's on hey everybody welcome back um thank you first off for accountability for the weather decision on Friday um I kept my home my kid home from school that day because I didn't like the decision that was made to keep School in session um my nephew attends Mount Healthy which is out off of 58 going towards Backwoods and my brother had to leave work early and go pick him up from iare or from school because iare was canceled and it was hectic it was crazy

134and the roads were absolute garbage by the time he got to driving out there um I know you talked about a few points and covered actually most of what I was going to talk about but thing that I'm concerned about um the walk zone for our schools is half a mile from the home school that that student attends um there's safety concerns there because the sidewalks aren't cleared and we have students that are walking in the streets at 7:30 in the morning when it's dark outside because they don't want to walk in the snow that's still covering the sidewalks and I understand y'all can't control the snow on the sidewalks but at the same time take into consideration the safety of those students that are commuting that way because not all of them have the

135luxury that my child does being in the walk Zone I can take him in a car um because if I had to walk with him all the way to his school it wouldn't happen and he wouldn't go because I'm not walking in six Ines of snow on sidewalks that haven't been treated in any way shape or form and a quarter to a half an inch of ice packed down underneath of them it's dangerous it's slick and it's a fall hazard on top of several other things we have people that don't pay attention when they drive we have people that just are completely oblivious to these kids walking on the streets and I hear a lot of people or I see a lot of comments online where people are like back in my day well it's

136not your day I care about my kid I know other other people care about their kids there are things that need to be done and put in place to keep our kids safe and I know you guys do it to the best of your ability at that time and holding yourselves accountable for mistakes made or decisions made is fabulous but at the same time every County surrounding us on Friday canceled school and had an e-learning day every single surrounding County and we did not and we had bu that took 2 hours to get kids home because the weather was trash we had parents that were panicking to get to their kids and I know we had teenage drivers from high schools that were leaving and don't know how to drive in this weather so I

137just ask that you guys take that into consideration the next time the weather is Indiana thank you good evening I'd like to thank Dr Phillips for taking accountability earlier I didn't know who I was writing this to earlier I just had concerns wanted WR so my name is Randy day I come here this evening as a proud bcsc employee of more than four years hopefully more to come I'm also very proud to be this mon employee the mon as well as driver of bus 165 which is also in the mount hey area I'm also here as a parent a grandparent and a genuinely concerned citizen of P County I take my job very seriously which is why I'm here today on Friday January the 10th a decision was made to carry on as usual for

138dcsc district this even though the information was provided forecast very Grim weather patterns and potential danger the student body was equipped Thursday with their tablets in preparation for an e-learning day or at the very least an early dismissal was this talk as you aware neither of those things happened the students were sent in for a full day of school thus causing them to be sent home right in the middle of the winter storm that had been predicted this is where I'm genuinely concerned as they were released onto the terrible Ro conditions and passible roadways and many experienced automobile slide offs as well as wrecks in general to further the Carnage many of those students were sent on buses that also experienced many of the same situations listed before many buses became stuck on the Slick

139roadways or slid off into ditches some with children on board I was in one of those buses I was stuck until 6:30 p.m. luckily I dropped off my last student how that decision was made to have school that day needs to be investigated whoever is responsible for the decision needs to be held accountable just as my colleagues have been reprimanded for voicing their opinions openly on social media so shall you be reprimanded for collectively endangering the lives of thousands of students teachers bus drivers parents and people of the community I'm here today to voice my con concerned publicly as a bcsc employee Baria County resident and tell you shame on you shame on you whoever was involved in a core decision made that endangered so many I truly hope the lessons were learned and the

140next time excuse me the next time a situation like this arises it will be considered more carefully more respectfully to the community as a whole all they do with this problems are good problems give us a chance to resol to problem solve to find an answer or a way to make a problem better today I ask you to solve this problem to apologize to those affected to assure the respective community that you represent that this will not happen again and again all that has been addressed and I admire and thank you H first of all I'm going to apologize I'm probably going to reiterate some things that have already been said but already typed it out so now you're going to get it um again my name is Lacy I live here in maram County

141I have a 2-year-old daugh sorry I have a second grader and that's 7 years old and I have an 11y old in sixth grade I'm a nurse here at Z and I deal with unknown factors on a daily basis I completely understand that weather is not completely predictable however I feel BCS has completely dropped the ball with the safety of our children and they have all the known factors at their fingertips it is deeply concerning that the safety of our children is not the Forefront of our education system bcsc has most students in town but also a lot in the country I live in town a very popular neighborhood and still to the same having out of my driveway I cannot bom how bad the country roads have been if I'm still having trouble living

142in town as an RN I am very well prepared to deal with weather I have to report regardless of weather but if the hospital where I work is still providing rides to get staff to work there's no way that blessings should be transporting children back and forth I am concerned with the decision to hold School while all the surrounding counties are delayed or canel we are under the same red and orange weather advisories as surrounding count C after speaking with the City and County Emergency Management and the knowledge of surrounding cancellations I cannot B how our school corporation made the call to go ahead with the school and remainder of last week why are we not being as proactive and planning for the worst case scenarios when it comes to the well-being of our children

143our faculty and our community there were multiple reports of buses getting stuck sliding off of Roads taking much longer and time to get home and sell communication and delays in ation were not had concerning Friday I spoke earlier that as a nurse he work with the unknown factors but on Friday we had the factors with plenty of warning and still the ball was dropped it had been snowing for a few hours and still less than 25 minutes before dismissal the call was made for Eye Care to be cancelled my child's Chrome book was sent home on Thursday why was there still school on Friday when the prediction was that the snow would start at 10 you simply cannot drop the ball or have a miss when you're handling children as and prek kindergarten and up

144I understand you cannot make decisions to please everyone and making this calls has to be incredibly hard but I can't reiterate enough that the safety of our children has to be the most important and unfortunately it's felt across the board that it was not handled the correct way past week I hope with the upcoming forecasted inclement weather that better decisions can be made with our children at the Forefront of the decision good evening everyone happy New Year my name is coin I live on the North side of Columbus and I also first just want to take a moment to uh express my thanks to Dr Phillips for the tremendous humility that it takes to admit when you've made a wrong decision and I I really appreciate accountability that you've taken here tonight the issue I

145want to speak on has to do with student apet but not uh does not have to do with snow but it's to bring light to an issue that I've discussed here in the past and that's is the issue of violence within our schools so since your last regularly scheduled meeting a school shooting occurred on December 16th at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison Wisconsin a student and teacher were fatally shot and six others were wounded the start of a new year in school is usually exciting and refreshing but not for those affected this like many other acts of violence taken towards schools feels as if it disappear just as quickly as it had occurred the news headlines move on and accountability at the local level is brushed aside with the mentality of it will never

146happen here or there's nothing that we can do about that both of those positions are fallacies I call on this board to continue to ensure that all necessary steps are being taken to prevent such an act from taking place at our schools all kids deserve to feel safe when they go to school I remember when I was a student in bcsc and seeing the news of Sandy Hook and Parkland and thinking what if I'm next and I know kids are seeing the same news and they're likely asking the same questions and that is a crying shame and as the newly elected school board members are sworn in I think it's important to call out all forms of violence especially political the previous election for your seats you hold was uh particularly enthusiastic so to speak

147I think that's a good word and unfortunately with enthusiasm often comes anger whether it be heated debates regarding School curriculum or Library materials or discussions involving Vision 2030 it's imperative to remember that we should treat others how you would want to be treated and that goes for all present here tonight during the past election cycle threats of violence were made towards candidates I witness threatening behavior towards sitting board members simply for the views that they held or for the votes that they had taken and that is unacceptable we should settle our disagreements as the battop fox or here during public comment and that being said that is why I think it is much more important for the Safety and Security of students teachers board members and the public that safety is a priority thank you

148for all you do I'll cover these These are uh some approvals that are outside of the normal monthly board meetings these are annual approvals related to the business office uh under number 9 a through D those are all related to appointments and authorizations on the part of the board for the business office to appoint Mr grer as the corporation Treasurer Paul Petro as the deputy treasur those Curr and then authorizing them to continue to invest funds and then also improving um bonds to Ure not only our treasur treasur but um each of the school treasurers I request approval for items 98 I move that we approve line items 9 A9 second all it say I those pleas item number 10 is also board organization annual board organization requirement uh and these items include the board

149remuneration that 10 times fast um these are this is the board pay Remains the Same as the prior year and it's set by law that's item 10 a item 10B is uh naming the Republic as the official newspaper where we ad Public Notices and then item C is are several public disclosures of conf conflict of interest both for um members of administration as well as members of the school board request approval of items 10 a through C thank you Mr just for people who are interested this conflict of interest forms are located onard dos and they were available if anybody would like to see what so all those in favor of approving items 10 a c please say I allos item 11 a through item 11 P are the board appoints commity VCS committees as

150well as Comm Community organizations those are included in pack M aren on the screen but they are request so I think I have a motion here but I don't know which version of when I saw once it was correct and then I think it was incorrect so so my motion if it's stated that way is so I have for the past year been um the board rep for the council for Youth Development um I will be taking on two new roles around legislative leaon so my motion is that that assignment would be um given to Whitney Lloyd and aside from that I think that she would do a tremendous job there probably motion to am all in favor of am Tok thank youor aming 11 so I motion to approve line items 11 a through

15111 L amended 11 M and the original p a second than anys all in favor of what SCH pleas thank you very much under old business we have the minutes of the regular school board meeting of December approve LS 12 question coms alling minutes from meeting please thank you very much um under new business items 13 sorry 13A 13k they include the normal approvals uh of supplemental contracts leaves fundraisers the claims for December 2024 pre runs uh the large dollar amount there is reflective of our semiannual debt payments that happen every December and every June and that occurred on December 1th and December 27th uh item e is the renaming uh sorry I should say the original naming of the Columbus North Press Box Columbus North honored Sam simmer maker back in the fall prior

152to the nor East football game um and so we request formal approval now from the board retroactively to approve the naming of that Press Box in honor of Mr Sam simmermaker the two appointments are or items item f and g are the appointment of the school physician Dr J Harwell and the continued appointment of Mr M gber as our school attorney we also have landscape contracts for calendar year 25 and 26 in the item H item I are the uh contracts for the second phase of the Johnson Early Learning Center that Dr ref to earlier and then um under item J the final transfer for 2024 between education the education fund and operations fund that final transfer puts us where we are right at under 10% of the education fund budget um the maximum set

153by state wall is a 15% transfer and then the last item uh item K is ready with Y Grant as there also I grant that were involved with the ready Grant to support stem work across the district uh for $100,000 this year approval board to accept that Grant request approval of items 13 a through 13k Ive to approve L it presented there any questions I have a discussion point on 13j I know we've had this discussion several times on transferring money from education operations fund collecting relatively sizable I do think it's in the public interest is I think the the reasoning behind it has been the state has changed accounts of what can be pay for out of one fund versus the other I would like to see in a future Mee thees and minuses

154of what would have versus transfer just to make sure that we're remaining on that aspect so we say that hey these line items would have been PA for out of Education fund the old concept or why we allow 10% transfer so line item make sure it matches up with the transfer I can provide that to the board the next meeting any other questions the only thing I add is on I for Johnson Early Learning I think we've heard from teachers that have talked about elementary middle school and high school uh changes to the schools and the development process process or how they arrived at what ultimately the school is going to look like because Early Learning is so much different than those others it'd be good to have some of those teachers that are part

155of that design team come in and speak to just kind of share with their experience and and what those uh changes look like for for those kids because they're they're not uh they're not 12 years old we're talking about little ones so it's a different thought process how they manag room and the things that they put into place for those kids so it might be might be good to just hear from them too motion to approve 1 all inor say I all those say good evening the seven Human Resources recommendations consist of five appointments and two resignations I request that you please approve the personel recommendations as presented I to Jan all those in favor of one easy question is just the understand halfway through the year how are we looking as far as uh

156we've had some people retire resign uh move around are we do we have like five openings or 50 openings just kind of just an update to see what what your workload looks like yeah so I'm going to speak to certified staff only because classified there are a lot of complexities there so we have three openings right now for certifi staff specifically speech at Richards C4 Health Science pathway and uh an English position at East and we do have a plan and are filling those with certified teachers right now thank you thank you and the additional human res recommendation for this evening consists of one appointment so I again request that you please approve the additional Human Resources recommendation as presented I move that we approve the additional human resource recommendation as present favor of approving

15714 as presented first of all don't recently I listen too many but I heard that part of the interview for um for going to the international station they asked when was the last time you apologized to um so I which the rationality is that you're been very close to people but anyway in light of that um Dr Phillips I really appreciate your transparency and and honesty and your your reflection on your on the decision making I also I was wondering that same day like we have it to our why don't we have it to our early release plan so I appreciate I don't know what it would look like that's up to you but I appreciate that that you're thinking along those lines um the other and the of course the graduation to was absolutely

158fabulous um I am going to continue to beat this drum that I don't want to wait until next year when we get our graduation rate to talk about it again um we just finished first semester um and Levi Simpson was absolutely accurate when he said they they live with that form every day to us it's pretty overwhelming but but I think that this year's senior cohort groups would be very capable of taking the semester data comparing it to last semester senior and and giving us an update of how we're doing so far I don't want to wait I want to celebrate again but I don't want to wait until um next year at this time that so it's one of our goals let's talk about every time um and finally um in my new role

159as legislative liaison or whatever it is um we don't meet again for a month and the legislator legislature started meeting this week um I don't have any specific updates and I I'm sure I will not do as good a job as Mr Grimes did but I will tell everyone board members and everyone that isba has a website um isba.org or you just search Indiana Schoolboard Association and go to the legislative um legislative Tab and open that Tab and there's some really cool things there I mean there's a each week There's a three minute video and in three minutes you can get what's what's really important and there's also a um there will be a bill tracker which is probably pretty overwheling because there going to be over 100 education bills um and then there's a

160Weekly Newsletter that you can link on so there's a lot of stuff there that you don't have to wait until next month for an legislative update on what's going on because it will affect us in years to and welcome to the new board members so mple things uh first kudos to Cary for being selected again for the education Hall of Fame the distinguished career that's still ongoing at Central Middle School um I want to thank uh the bus drivers uh that got everybody home safely thank the teachers and staff that did their best to get their students to the transport whether that's clearing out parking lots clearing out sidewalks getting kids to cars I had multiple reports of you know just trying to get everyone there and I do appreciate Dr Phillips's apology and just

161reflection on the events um I I did have one concern from the public comment is and I believe his name was Mr day was the mention of disciplinary action due to a public comment um I want to make sure and this isn't time to discuss it or would it be appropriate if there was disciplinary action I would request an executive session to see how that's going to with policy 4310 and the ND code 20- 28-10-14 um just because given that I think it was at this point we've all reconciled and reflected I don't I would be concerned about the disciplinary action or just understanding at Le so if that were the case then I would request that but overall I just appreciate the reflection and that all the students were able to make it home

162safely and um finally kudos to Mr Edwards and his teams on getting the graad Cs I know that was a bumpy start but it definitely came off the strong fin so appreciate um most my com kind of around snow removal uh I talked to Sate schools as we saw across Facebook one of the biggest issues was the roads around North side and north um and talking with some of the school Personnel some people didn't really know what they're responsible for as the school so as we develop plans and processes uh we need to make that a clear guideline of pay school property to my understand we're responsible for that um to that point is there anything from the board that you need from us to assist with that further do we have the proper equipment

163personel to help facilitate movement gred side of public it's property owner across the city the proper owner city as whole and then may directed towards you say for instance we develop a plan where we reach out to the community um and ask for assistance I don't know how that looks in terms of who runs the stone removal processes and contracts I know in this day of age you be looking at liability risk pretty heavily and whether they're bonded or insured companies one thing it was said earlier tonight we kind of forget that we are a still a rural community in some instances especially with our some of our schools I don't know what that would look like if there were farmers or heavy equipment operators in vities and schools I rock poville healthy so on

164so forth that may volunteer their services is there a risk there that for liability RIS some thoughts that popped in my head we had discussions day I mean some of the roads out east side of County I was one of them help remove of on H North and it was pretty impressive to see the amount of snow that we got and seeing the results I also want to remind everybody that our I scores did have a 5% increase um well by two and points for to get that regly as well I we want to make sure getting the outcomes we need and being supportive so the team for that um Saturday there's a beex um robotics competition at um East High School so as a stem girl um I really enjoy seeing our kids um

165participate in those things it is remarkable what these children can do they are so much smarter um then probably all of us are really um see what they can do so if you havee see that um and and just support them um thank you to the Mount Healthy kiddos oh my gosh this is super sweet they made each of us a card um honoring us for school board month January School Board month that was very sweet of them so for the teachers that help facilitate that as well appreciate that um and just want to congratulate um Whitney and Tom it was it was a weird campaign season and I think we all felt nice it was another big moment for us things T in tonight and and we've got to get to work there are

166a lot of people behind all of us um getting to these getting to these seats and I hope we show you all that we them we're do thank you Miss Welden congratulations to the new board members tonight starting new terms be starting in first terms uh look forward to working together as a team uh thank you thank you all the folks that were involved in presentations tonight uh thanks to those folks that attended the meeting the four folks that spoke during the public comment session I appreciate all that input that will help us make better decisions thank you yeah what a week uh what a change in the last week you know I was prepared to come back and welcome everybody back from Christmas now it's just welcome everybody back out of the snow right

167so it's uh um been a crazy week last week let's hope that we uh take that put it behind us and move forward um Nikki mentioned the big thing for me was to mention the St event on the 18th this Saturday it's at East and uh it's supposed to be one of the largest in the state from what I understand um I can't remember there was like 70 80 teams or more some crazy number like that uh so if if there's anybody that would like to assist with that I know Mrs Haynes would love to have addition help um so if you would like to participate please talk to hering tonight Todd always did that and I always thought it was a really joyful moment but I thought being my first meeting better not so

168stay tuned for February it's going to be a good one uh I just want to congratulate our teams on a 90% graduation rate that's absolutely phenomenal I'm so impressed and applaud our teachers and our faculty for the incredible work that they're doing that is no small need so congratulations also want to say congrats to pcsc on an amazing United Way campaign almost $24,000 that is a significant amount of money that will have a tremendous impact on our community um that's spread across 17 agencies that are serving our students so that that is just really impressive and I think it's a wonderful opportunity for our students to be exposed to Phil at a really young age I know it's one more thing on our students and our teachers plates but I think it's a really important

169lesson and so congratulations um I wanted to thank the colus robotics of the La Tech Team so we got to go out and um see them kick off their season I was wildly impressed um I felt very small next to these middle and high school students who were talking uh what it felt like to me a different language and so they got their um aing of their season and what it was going to be and so I can't wait to see what they come up with for rescape um I'm looking forward to Saturday too I think that's going to be a great thing and I just want to say thank you to to Sherry and to Nick and to everybody that have helped me get set up in this role I feel like I have

170the tools and the resources uh to be successful and to all of the bcsc uh employees who have taken time to welcome me to talk to me to show me around um you know I I think learning as much as I possibly can in the school is going to be really import and so I appreciate the time that you've shared with me so thank you sorry uh I forgot to make a notes so this past weekend many of you may or may not know there are quite a few successes u i athletically um the pom Valkyries which is the girls wrestling program they have one of the toughest regionals in the state and they as a team qualif girls for state next week it's going to be Friday this coming Friday and also to that

171point they won the team title so they won the first Regional girls team uh that's a big one TI is doing great program over there and then the boys wrestling e they compet in Thea ihsca state tournament this year they end up pulling third I know they had higher hopes I think they could but and then boys basketball programs here continue to have excellent success throughout the holidays and it's see moving forward so academically we're doing great athletically we're doing well as well this will just a couple more notes I I want to also welcome the new board members and um thank all of you for serving this is School Board member appreciation month um and so the rest of the months you get nothing from us but you get these cards for these great

172not healthy kids and uh really U thank you for giving of your time to this district and to this community it is very much appreciated although I know sometimes it doesn't feel like it I do want to remind folks that uh in addition to this Friday's uh state championship up at the State Fairgrounds for girls wrestling Friday also a professional development day for BCS so we're out of school so all the students can go up and cheer on the girls wrestlers up uh the State Fairgrounds uh the following Monday of course is the mar Luther King junor day and there is a community celebration 6:45 a.m. at the commons on we from today on Monday um and speaking of PE days we did receive a request U to consider moving the um the PD day

173and sorry get myself all caught up here there's a PD day currently scheduled for April 17th that date is in the window of I read testing I learn testing and AP testing the student day that we would be making up on May the 22nd is after all those windows are closed it is the new last day of school um so we've been given a request to consider um switching those and actually having the student day on April the 17th so it's a more productive use of those seven and a half hours and it comes to student learning and then moving the PD day to May the 22nd and so the students's last day would still be the 2st the 22nd I'm sorry the yeah 22nd would be U Development Day for teachers and then the

17423rd I believe is still a half work day for teachers which is a records day to get all your grades done and then you're wrapped up so um putting that out there publicly now for you to think about and consider and also um if members of the public and parents and students have serious concerns about that we want to hear about that um before we bring that to it would be a calendar change and we bring that to you on February 3rd because we want to give folks as much time as possible to prep if made that change um so that's the professional development day and then um last I want to just reiterate again thanks to um our drivers and operations teams which um in spite of all the difficulties as last week really

175did do a direct job and I told Mr Blake when we talked earlier this week that couldn't believe it one night 9:00 I don't remember what night week it was last week it was a it was a blur but uh I'm driving checking roads at 9 9:15 at night uh I thought I saw some lights in the distance and all of a sudden I realized I was right up on him I the shadow of something a farmer out on this track around 100 South um clearing clearing the road at 9:15 night when blinkers on so um Dale earlier you made the comment about U people feeling close to one another 880,000 people live in this community um and it's still a small am I still feel like when I apologize to somebody for something that

176that mistake that we made or bad call we made or we celebrate we're still celebrating the people that we we live with we go to church together we go to school together we go to the store together we stand on the soccer fields together so um I appreciate that comment more than you more than you know and and just remind members of the public you know if you have concerns you have questions reach out to us reiterate what I said um theight that uh that you all approved me for this position I'm not going to get on Facebook and read comments I I never will as long as I'm in this position so you have to pick up the phone or send me an email every person that did that got a response then we

177talk 24 hours from so thanks again for great board meeting tonight appreciate our next meeting is February 3rdd uh we do have our education Hall of Fame reception so we'll be 6 p.m. the board meeting which immediately closed at 6:30 p.m. and then as you heard we will hold a public work session and so just look for when that will be announced on the on the website there so you can keep T okay thank you all have a great evening