9/23/2024 BCSC School Board Meeting

001e good hello it is 6:30 so we're going to go ahead and get started for those that are able if you wouldn't mind standing for the Pledge of Allegiance please Al the United States of America and to the for stands Nation indivisible with liy and justice for all we are missing Mr Schultz tonight but we still have a quorum so I will call this meeting to order Dr Phillips thank you Mrs wien thanks everyone for being here this evening we' like to start each meeting with reminding ourselves and each other of our mission vision and core beliefs as a district and our 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 core beliefs

002are that we all can rise to the challenges high expectations that learning is most effective when we have Choice flexibility and see relevance wouldn't mind to get us started sure no problem wouldn't mind to get us started sure no problem thanks for asking um many of you know that last a week ago Friday evening um we received notification of a threat that came in through social media to some of our students and specific school um it was a little bit surreal as I looked up at the football game at North High School and there was a 12year old or so just a few rows in front of me who was holding the same screen that I had just looked at on the text that came in watched him turn to his parent that he was

003sitting next to and show it to the parent and they shook their head and then the kid kid just swiped on to the next to the next post so it is a sad commentary that that's where we are today that we have to address threats to direct threats to the safety of our students and our staff in our schools but I want to first and foremost um thanks thanks thank those who worked to get it right last week um because it was there was a lot of pressure um to act and act quickly and the police departments involved the individual detectives who gave up their entire weekend to CH uh chase this case down um instead of working to get it done quickly they worked to get it done right and so I want to

004thank them for both their time and their attention to making sure that that's the case also just want to ask again to remind families please talk to your students to your children um and clarify what it means to see something and say something what it means and what it does not mean and of course it means report something that you see directly to a school official law enforcement Andor apparent it does not mean to click or Elevate that post that message in any way um and any student who does so will face consequences um so report those directly to school members parents uh or a or law enforcement um the last thing I want to point out is that um thank you to those in the community that reached out with a sincere desire to

005help um we um our fourth core belief there states that our community and School District district are stronger when we partner with one another and it's sad that none of us individually can guarantee that we will not have a tragedy here in Columbus Indiana but if we all do our individual part together as a community we can dramatically reduce the likelihood that something like that will happen and I want to thank again the community members and law enforcement who worked hard last week to make sure that we all did our part to make sure that everyone could be safe last week thank you Dr Phillips next on the agenda we have 202 for appropriation Dr bosan Mr berer he's sending you up there all by yourself his name was there too I I am but

006he's right there okay he's close by good evening um bringing to you the uh additional appropriation request for 2024 uh discussions on this began last year shortly after the collective bargaining agreement was put in place I believe Dr Phillips brought this up that we would need to do an appropriation most likely for 2024 to cover those expenses um and we are bringing those to you today as we discussed uh with the quarter 2 uh financial report uh a little over a month ago we know that our revenues are going to be um enough that we can cover these costs without going into our Reserves at all so while it looks like it's an appropriation into to our reserves it's an appropriation on top of what was approved in the budget during last year's cycle um

007and these costs in the education fund we've got $3 million uh for salary and benefit increases due to the contract negotiations 300,000 for increased substitute costs 130,000 for literacy coaches and that's within the education fund for a total of 3.58 million there and then in the operations fund a half a million in salary increases and 120,000 for the data analysis contract for a total of 620 within the operations fund all total 4.2 million of additional appropriation again our res um revenues and are high enough this year with lower than anticipated expenditures that we will not have to dig into our reserves in order to cover these costs we do have sufficient funds in place to cover these so miss Welden this is uh the first of two public hearings this evening so if you'd like

008we could take uh questions from the board first and then the public if need be yes D I have one question that I should know the answer to but I don't so I'm going to ask you um the increase in substitute costs is it because we're paying them more or we're using more subs or both we're using more subs okay we increased the pay a few years ago so this is all usage thank you Dr the uh the data analysis portion um that $120,000 I'm I don't have a I don't have a problem necessarily with it other than the one thing that I think I was concerned with is when I read the document it said something like it was reviewed with administrators but it didn't confirm that it was intereview with teachers so I

009think we have between now and next time we have a cic meeting I'm just asking that that be I don't I don't know if it is between now and then but I think it's in October or this week is the next cic meeting uh November actually I believe is it November okay so my only concern is before we commit to spending a lot of money that we have that scoped out with teachers too to make make sure that it's going to have what they want as well because it again it just said administrators so I don't know if it's been through the cic and the teachers are all good with it then I'm fine with it but it did go through review at the last cic meeting not there's no formal voting or approving process

010there but we discussed it with the cic answered a few questions and that was it okay yeah I just want to make sure they've seen it and had the ability to provide feedback if they've had that then I'm good okay okay at this time um anyone from the public who would have a question could step up and and ask ask anything you like on this topic yes sir hello maybe I don't need these glasses hey my name is David tyy Columbus resident and I've got uh four questions here for the board tonight um on the school board School Corporation website I did a search under the policies and under the subfolder called strategic goals that's what's in there so looking in that folder it was empty there's nothing in there um so there's there's two-part

011question to that so if the information's not posted in the subfolder yet is that's that's my first question is it just there somewhere just not posted that's my first question was there was nothing in there and the second question is how does the existing proposed budget fit in with the school corporation strategic goals especially the financial ones so that's why I'm interested because if we're going to build this budget it should align with our strategic planning spe you know especially financial goals especially with the taxpayers and everybody else kind of paying attention to what we're doing here so I'll pause right there this isn't actually a back and forth conversation but we'd be happy to take your input thank you you can keep going okay my uh next question is how are we trending on

012the current year actual expenses versus the 2024 budget so I see the budget numbers but I'd like to know um how are we trending with expenses versus budget they again in the documents today wasn't provided where we are in actual expenses okay my third question are there any school board members on the budget committee and if the answer is if not why are school board members not are excluded from from this oversight and then my last question uh on the on the big one there that was on our budget was the utilities and supplies and you know we all saw that that it's up nearly it's it's projected to be up nearly 30% so one of the questions I had related to that is have we considered negotiating long-term contracts with utility companies if that's

013a possibility I'm not sure if it is or isn't but I know in Private Industry it is a possibility I wasn't sure if that was applicable to the school corporation okay okay thank you thank you for your question Mr Ty I can answer a few of those questions it's it's a public hearing on the on the um on the additional appropriation a look into the goal section of the website um but the so we do a quarterly update to the board on actuals versus budget and so that last one I don't have the data in front of me right now but that would have been in the or one of the August meetings and so if you want to go back and look or we can send you the the update that the board gets

014every quarter um and we are tracking below um expenditures overall and higher Revenue um for a variety of different reasons some of that being higher rates on investments but mainly um student count being higher than we budgeted for as well as this uh per pupil support from the state being higher than we budgeted for and then last on the utilities and Supply budget line um there was just a one-year dramatic decline in 2024's budget so when we look at 21 22 23 you can see that it tracks along for electricity is somewhere in that 2 and A5 million doll Mark in 24 we had carried forward Appropriations from prior years um so often that we just reduced the budget for that one year to use the cash that had been carried forward from the prior

015years knowing that the next year in 25 it would go back up and so there's really not that much of a dramatic increase in utilities we see some in water and sewer but um the others have been pretty flat and Dr bosan I know can speak to our agreement on natural gas um that's really where we've invested a lot of time and energy in hedging the market and make sure we do have a long-term um strategy there with prices around natural gas sure ween a uh large group Co-op purchasing for natural gas um with some of the larger school districts across across the state um to where we um we basically uh we meet uh at least twice a year but we go through and we basically we hedge our um purchases out as far

016as seven years in advance um based on what the Market's doing Etc and we also save um because of just the bulk of of gas that we're purchasing we don't have that opportunity with um our electricity um certainly if we did we'd be all over it um because reaped some some good benefits for us on the natural gas side yeah I get I guess just to answer one other question regarding the committee assignments uh we've had a a list of set committees we had made some alterations to those although of something like a budget we would really want the input of the entire board into that process which is why we have the regular reviews um why we have access to the team um we really want everyone's input not just one board members necessarily

017and Mr shinner pointed out to me it was the August 19th meeting was the last uh that was Quarter Two update and then in uh October the next meeting we should be doing the uh quarter three financial review thank you appreciate it thank you okay anyone else have any questions comments okay you appreciate it effective way time I actually count my head Chad you were two seconds too quick but that's okay and so um 2025 budget hearing is next right and I think Mr tyy you were referring to this one generally they're technically two different um hearings but we'll take comments anytime so back to me yes back to you all right um this is officially our 2025 budget hearing uh two weeks ago uh Dr Phillips led the uh work session I appreciated him

018doing that as we are looking at a deficit budget for this year uh and he explained those reasons I do want to tease him a little bit he wanted to save me from having to do that and then had me do an additional Pur Corporation so thank you um again work session two weeks ago today is our public hearing for the budget at next month's regularly scheduled meeting we will bring forth uh the full budget for your approval and then we are told by dgf by January 1 they will provide us with our official budget approval with our official tax rate at that time what is on this slide is the public notice that we put on the state's Gateway website uh we got that in on Friday the 13th meeting the deadline to have

019it 10 days before today's hearing it has the information on our five tax supported uh funds what our uh budget estimates are for those funds and what the levy appeals we are the current tax levies and the maximum estimated funds that we would be raising from taxes for each of those funds I borrowed from Dr Phillip's presentation here this is the highlights of the 25 budget again there's been significant investment in staff over the last few years um again we are proposing a salary increase for next year uh looking at 3% for classified staff and the teaching and administrative staff is still to be determined um we have 12 full-time equivalent uh positions being added several of those are a part of the Esser Cliff with the Esser funding ending uh uh Monday on September

02030th we were then um pulling those positions within our education fund budget um we have significant Capital Investments as part of this budget um with safety in uh infrastructure Dr Phillips again mentioned two weeks ago looking at a $2 million investment in safety equipment uh the initial thought had been to do a $500,000 invest over four years but as we can afford to do it within our budget and keep the tax rate the same looking at the $2 million investment where if um equipment comes on that is technologically advanced where we would want to purchase that now instead of waiting four years we can go ahead and do that now um Regular facility maintenance of about a million and a half dollars co-curricular programs and again as I was stating a little bit earlier no

021anticipated increase to our tax rate looking at the education fund uh specifically um revenues compared to last year we're see uh anticipating a 3.2% increase in revenues again this is our best guess estimate because as this we will know what our first semester revenues will be from the state but until the state uh meets and sets the budget for the next two-year cycle of the state's budget we won't know what our fall um revenues will be in relation to the education fund so this is our best guess estimate uh again a 3.2% increase looking at our expenditures um 95% of the budget within the education fund is for employee salaries and benefits um huge part of the budget and slight increases from last year to this year um we're looking at Professional Services a slight

022decrease Communications a little bit of an increase supplies a little bit up uh overall the education fund budget 90 million compared to 84 Million last year is a 65% increase as Dr Phillips explained two two weeks ago um because of the health of our reserves within the education fund we are looking at doing a deficit fund or deficit budget for this year's cycle uh the beginning of 24 we have 6.6 million in there we were trending ahead in revenues lower in expenditures so that that um Reserve level has grown for the first eight months of this year and again even with that additional appropriation we're anticipating ending the year um close to that 6.6 million with the deficit budget uh we anticipate 25 ending with 4.6 million again a very healthy balance for that education

023fund operations fund uh revenues anticip ating a growth of about 4.4% from 33 million to 34.7 million uh expenditures are growing by about 12% a big part of that again as was pointed out just a little bit ago the utilities is has a growth of 29.8% Dr Phillips went through that reasoning and and thought process the property and Equipment again we looked at if you take away we were anticipating first doing a 500,000 for the security equipment in instead we're doing 2 million because we can afford to do it while keeping our rate the same that would have been a no- growth but with adding that extra 1.5 million that's a 29% increase there in our property and Equipment budgeting and total expenditures of 38.8 million compared to budgeted 34.6 for this year deficit budget

024spending um looking at an end of balance of 25 of 10 10 million which is still very healthy Debt Service funds um in 24 we've paid off two bonds the uh Central Middle School 2005 Bond as well as the 2022 go Bond those will both be paid off by the end of this year we um will not have a temporary loan for 25 so that payment is gone however uh tomorrow we are will be the sale of our bond uh that you approved a couple weeks ago ago uh we're looking at the first year of principal and interest payments of about 9.9 million um while that's a significant increase again our financial advisers worked with us to make sure we can keep our tax rate the same and that's what we're going to be able

025to do in 2026 that uh principal and interest payment on the 24 Bond will drop down somewhere in the low 3 million range so that's being built in because we can afford to do that and keep our tax rate this same that's why it's set so high that first year the referendum Bond or better known as the high school debt service fund um it ends in 2029 we have a slight increase in our principal payment next year which of course correlates to a lower interest payment it's a $21,000 increase over this year um very insignificant refere random operating fund we show an increase overall of 99.4% 800,000 uh big portion of that is within the teacher salary and benefit increase of 1.1 million um support staff and benefit increase is stable there's a slight decrease

026in the safety security and mental health salaries and benefits and a big part of that is within the mental health portion of this this budget um when you look at our actual expenditures for 24 we budgeted more for that for 25 and that's where that decrease comes in and then uh within this the uh pardon me the Professional Services line I apologize $660,000 decrease that is for a therapist that Dr Phillips I ask you to correct me if I'm wrong that has been moved to the education fund is that correct other another fund and another other fund so um but again we have an increase of 800,000 or 9.4 % um Mr major I believe at the last meeting you were asking about our SRO um our SRO cost for 2025 are going up 7.5%

027we have a 5% increase within this budget uh to cover portion of that increase and the other increas is going within the operations fund budget summary uh the education fund again is a 65% increase operations at 12 12% The Debt Service a 33% increase and again a big portion of that is the first year bump on the 2024 bond that we're selling tomorrow referendum debt fund stays pretty stable and then the referendum operating is up a little over 9% for a total increase of 10% in the overall tax funded budgets looking at our reserves again uh Dr Phillips explained a couple weeks ago our reserves are very very strong um six over 6 million in education in the rainy day fund over 14 million in our operations fund the operating operations referendum fund is over

0283 million and the debt funds has over 5 million in reserves so very healthy tax rate history um our advertised rate for this year is a1195 which is slightly lower than the advertised rate for last year we're anticipating our adopted rate to be somewhere near 9985 or a little less um and again we are well below the state average um which is pretty good for all that we're being able to do with this money the next steps in this process again a month from now we'll come back for the formal vote on the budget and then by January 1 we'll have dgf approval on what the official final budget is and our tax rates okay any questions comments from the team on 2025 budget yeah I just I've been thinking about this a lot and

029uh you know when we look at how how long have we transferred funds from education to operations was 2018 I believe so about six seven years so an amount that we're transferring is about anywhere from seven to n million um my I've heard so much stuff about the referendum in the last month that's not even something that's for grabs today it's a future thing and one thing I was just thinking through is if we're transferring 7 to9 million from education to operation but our referendum is bringing money into education ultim ultimately to education because a large part of it is going to to uh teacher salaries because we're transferring out of op out of Education to operations if we'd have left that money there it seems like we'd had enough money to pay the increase

030in the teacher pay it seems like operations is where we're either overspending or under taxing and so my my question is you know it's not going to impact the budget of today but it's going to impact the next couple of years our thoughts and strategic Direction on how we approach a future referendum how do we look at not taking money out of the education fund for operations leaving the money there and then then addressing the problem which is in appears to be to me at least in operation side so we can control the expenditure side on the operation side of that budget so if we did exactly what you're suggesting which is don't transfer money from the education fund to the operations fund instead um leave that money there to pay the teacher salary portion

031of the referendum and then um either increase your revenues or decrease your expenditures on the operation side we have no control over the revenue side of that it's capped by Indiana code so this year the maximum it could increase was was 4% um so we would essentially be looking for 7 to time million in the operations fund to cut from a expenditure side okay so can we is there anything we can do to talk to the state about how that number is managed in the future yes we work with local legislators often you're on you're on the state committee right you're the one that would work with the state legislators right now uh yeah for the next three months for the next three months I know that's not going to help us for two years

032from now but it might it might my my my big concern is this right you know every person that I've talked to in the last three months has complained about the property taxes going up this year every person I've not had and it doesn't matter if they're blue red purple green it does not matter what color their politics are every person I've talked to has said I'm paying more in property taxes and I don't like it this they understand where the money goes they just don't with everything else that's being the cost of inflation and the cost of living now was just through the roof and so my fear is this doesn't matter what this board decides if you put it on a ballot in the future you're leaving it to the voters to vote

033Yes or no and there's a lot of risk there so that's why to me if we can talk to the state and we can try and figure out an alternate solution between now and then can we find a way to minimize the impact I mean we're not we're not Chang in the tax rate today but our taxes just our our cost just went up 11% so there's got to be money there it's how is the state allowing us to use it and in this case I think you're able to show pretty good justification as to why you need it I mean you got a 30% increase in utilities can you control that nope are they going to cap are they going to go regulate Duke it's not I mean that's just not we know that's

034not how it's going to work so I think that's where talking with legislator legislature might help us to bring light to that so that over the next year and a half two years they have an opportunity to think it through and come up with a good solution from a state level so we don't run the risk of putting a referendum out there that might not pass any other questions the this this one this one is tricky too because um if you could go back a couple of slides on the reserves this one's hard that operating referendum is when when that question was asked that question was asked that you know it's can the money we want more money for teacher pay and what was it school safety school buses steam stem and like that those

035three or four things I I don't know why we have reserves for that I I've struggled with it for the last year and a half as to why we've got three 3.3 if I was a teacher that taught for the last three years and I knew I was supposed to get another $500 a year I would want my $500 a year out of that and so for me I look at it two ways um I don't think that my my opinion you can you guys can try and convince me otherwise I don't think the operating referendum should carry a reserve I think that's money that we said we had very specific needs and use for and sitting collecting interest was not one of them and I think the average person thought that that money was

036going to go straight to teachers and whatnot so I don't know if that's that was not negotiated well during bargaining I don't know if it's just sitting there to sit there my my thoughts are you got two things you can do with it you can take that money for the last three years and distribute it out to every teacher that worked the last three years or you give it back to taxpayers so we have talked about thank you Mr major we have talked about this one a couple of different times and have worked with the Teachers Association to um ensure that at the end of 2028 calendar year 2028 is the last year we can collect property taxes in this fund under the referendum that was passed in 2020 and so those um but our

037contract with those teachers for that school year runs from August you know September through August we'll say and so if for some reason as you mentioned um the voters have to decide if we're going to renew this operating referendum or not at some point in the next handful of years um we wanted to make sure we can fulfill the obligations we have to teachers that are contracted for that 20 uh I guess it would be the 28 29 school year and so those teachers that start then in September they get their first paycheck in September if for some reason the voters uh did not pass the renewal there would be enough cash to still pay out those obligations through the end of that contract now of course we would have to negotiate the next year

038to see what that was going to look like but um both CA leadership and us have agreed to make sure that we build enough of a balance and maintain it so that when we get to the end we can um make sure that everyone gets paid what their contract says they would get paid yeah and I I think that that's one of the points that was brought to me was if you're a teacher teaching today that's taught 22 23 24 25 26 they retire in 27 and don't make it to 28 they would have had five to six years where they view it as though that money was withheld from them so that's that's the that's the tricky part right do you yeah and you could say the same thing on the education and operations

039side too the cash balances that have grown no no disagreement no disagreement if I can add one thing Mr major some of that uh Reserve cash balance is for um costs that haven't come in yet the buses that were part of that as part of the 24 budget we've not paid for those yet so when those come in that will reduce that Reserve amount yep thank you thank you okay we have another goad sorry I've got I think a two-part question it's slightly less complex than Mr Major's and I I think this is probably most appropriate for you Dr Phillips I I remember a number of Staff positions being added with the erer money um so the two-parter is um one can you maybe refresh my memory of an appro Pro imate number of staff

040that were added with the Esser funds and then two have the bulk or the the vast majority of those positions have maybe not the people but the positions have they been retained good questions um I'm going to give you rough estimates on numbers we had Targets in the first year of Esser funding that I I want to say the target was 42 additional positions that we thought we could afford in Year One and so that would have been in calendar year 21 I believe um knowing that we would not be able to afford to carry 42 positions onto the education fund you know three years later and so the the first year is around 40 low 40s and Our intention with every one of those positions was to make sure that they were truly additive

041and so we looked at you know Staffing in a in a first grade classroom where obviously there'd be a lot of support needed for some kids that hadn't been in kindergarten class the year before um and so looked at those and said okay if we would normally be at you know 23 to 27 kids then how can we make sure we lower that particularly in our title schools and so we looked at primary grades title schools special ed and E and then we tried to make all of those additive positions so we staffed normally and said okay here's an additional spot then we also did a core math science English and social studies at both high schools um we went from about 42 position the first year to around 35 and then to 20 and

042then um last year the last year of funding for that I believe we were somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 um and honestly by the time we got to that point those were not all truly additive and so I believe we ended up retaining about eight of those positions all of them at north of the math science English and social studies North numbers were just so much higher than normal so starting from the the low 40s down to about 15 in the last year and kept around eight thank you you're welcome any other questions from this team okay um it's open again for public comments or questions on the on the budget if there are any yep you can just go on up there if you want just so everybody can hear sorry Cole thank

043you hey it's Cole Bennett from Columbus I just had a quick question about um classified staff can you explain what that is thank you sure sorry for the educational um jargon um we used to call them CL uh support staff in the district so it was anyone who didn't have a teaching license or an administrative license um and so anything from a bus driver to a custodian to a teaching assistant all non certified positions a couple years ago we changed that to start referring to them as classified staff okay good question any other questions sure thank you hello my name is Christina everol I am a parent um in bcsc uh thanks for having me um I have three children at bcsc one in prek uh one in the special ed uh at Parkside one

044in sixth grade at Schmidt um yeah love those kids and I know you all do too um I guess I'll go ahead and start off by saying a a society grows best when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit that's a Greek proverb like many parents in the bcsc school district and Across the Nation it is evident that something has gone arai in the educational environment we place our children in today knowing that my children may not come home to me in the same way I sent them to school is traumatic at best our family has already had to transfer our youngest child this school year due to being assaulted physically with little to no communication from staff I was horrified and sad for my child and the other child involved

045her father and I acted on her behalf that is our duty to protect love and keep each one of our children safe we don't expect utopian ideals when they leave our home but there is a level of conduct that we expect from the people who care for them rest assured the situation was handled beautifully by Administration from child to parent to staff compromise and accountability was made I believe in our Public Schools although I had a private school education however this is not the first or last time we have person experienced violence in the schools or have heard about it firsthand from trusted sources teachers parents and otherwise any threat carried out or not is unnerving it's a sobering feeling when your own Children's School makes the news whether the threats of violence hurt across

046the community were inflated or not this is a symptom of a larger issue within our school system I won't waste anyone's time giving into the political grandstanding or subduing whatever societal Boogeyman lurks in the minds of certain community members that is a large reason why our children and our Educators remain last on the list of priorities no matter what campaign promises may say what I can see and speak on based on personal experience as a mother and a former student myself is that we are largely failing ing our future if you want to look at the health of any civilization look to the well-being of the children in a not so distant future these will be our hopeful leaders civil servants doctors scientists Frontline workers teachers caregivers lawmakers Visionaries and architects of our society while

047there is emphasis on the budget and the improvements made to our schools it is truly a vain effort if what is on the out inside is crumbling and qualified instructors who chose education as a vocation are exiting in Mass while our taxes increase significantly year after year our educational brain the teachers AIDS social workers and other school workers clearly do not have the support that they need to give priority to the heart of every school and that is the children so what good would it what good will it do to fix the outside if the inside is clearly broken this is a topown issue ban books some say our children can't even read or use proper penmanship Indiana ranks as one of the least educated states in the nation our literacy and mathematics test scores

048hover under 50% according to data I can't even begin to understand the logistics pressure and responsibility it takes to run a growing school district of almost 12,000 bright and growing children but I do understand common sense and I know we fail our children when we don't invest in our Educators or let them do their jobs through the ethics of dignity compassionate discipline and a un Ed front from home to classroom as a community parents caregivers and bcsc as a whole we owe it to our future to make lasting changes systemically and structurally from the bottom all the way to the top children need us they are the best they deserve the best I won't pull my children from bcsc but we are the adults in the room room and it's time that we start acting

049like it I thank every single educator or otherwise who takes the time their own personal money their health their safety and resources to show up for them every day you have my gratitude you have my respect and you have my support I believe as a community parents and the school district we can help our children and we can help our our future thank you for your time thank you Miss everol thank you um are there any other comments um on the the budget public hearing for right now no okay thank you okay next next on the agenda we have transportation update Dr BOS good evening I will um as Mr mcken is making his way up here introduce reintroduce to you AJ mcken as our manager of transportation and uh we have a a couple

050of our amazing bus drivers here Katherine Cooper whom I think you'll get a chance to hear from and Debbie gray who's also in the audience um AJ may tell you but our buses travel nearly 8,000 miles a today and um our department is in very good standing with a lot of tremendous people who do great things for kids every day so I'll get out of the way and let him give you an update on on U the department good evening so just a little tidbit of what we do every day uh bcsc has 150 employees in the transportation department uh we have 120 school buses haul approximately 8,000 th000 students a day and travel 1.5 million miles a year so we've got busy busy days every day we travel lots of miles and we we

051take what we do very seriously and getting our kids safely to and from school uh this is my third year in the position uh as a manager uh when I first took over uh we I quickly realized that our routing software that we were using to keep track of all the students was ins suffice for what we do we like most School corporations do not just Hol through 12 kids on one bus to and from school every day we have lots of special programs of bcsc and it takes a uh very complex software to be able to track where those kids go every day and we realized that the software that we had would no longer do that so we in May of 22 we began looking for a new software uh quickly found out

052that there was no out-of-box software that would work for our transportation department um and after researching with uh my staff office staff and it here at bcsc uh we narrowed it down to two different vendors that would be able to provide the information and the software that we needed uh ultimately the last one that we chose uh was the only one that would allow us to use the tablets that we currently owned uh and put there so software on the tablets so in October of 22 we signed a contract with transfinder transfinder has been in the software business routing students for over 30 years um the one that we walked away from had only been in a in the business a handful of years so we went from somebody who didn't have very much experience

053and basically was at building their software around what we needed to somebody who' do been doing it for a long time and was old hat to them so in January 23 we began implementation process I have three gentlemen in the routing and planning department and they devoted hours and hours and still devoting hours and hours of their time into making this software and working with getting our kids uh in in the system and so the schools parents and uh the bus drivers can see where where the kids need to go so as you can tell uh initially we uploaded the current routes from ezr which was our uh software before um we communicated with the software company transfinder what was expected and we reviewed changes with that company in August we did a 23 we

054did a soft start we had some test routes that we ran the bus we ran the tablets on uh we wanted to check out to see how one the uh connectivity with the tablets cellular connectivity was working uh the test driver we wanted their feedback and we also had some test families that um that were out there that we were contacting that were giving us feedback on how things were working out so this is a little picture of what the tablet looks like in the bus now everything that we put on a bus outside of what comes from the factory has to be approved by the Indiana State School Bus committee so up until the past few years the tablets have been able to be on bus but they had to go black when the

055bus started moving so up in the past I would say up three years ago the state changed it to where the actual screens could stay like basically like your phone is in your car when you're uh following it to get to a destination so it's it it it's within driver's reach as you can tell the driver reaching from the driver's seat and the picture next to it kind of gives you a synopsis of what the driver initially sees before the route stops or starts so it gives turn BYT stop by stop directions audibly and visibly um it also gives student pictures student names and um it will also detour you around if there are traffic issues in the area so it's very very user friendly um a lot of the drivers our concept battle is

056I drive my route every day why do I need to use the tablet well also our routing and plane Department uses the information from the tablet every day day to update the bus driver's routes if things change so in January of 24 we went live with the entire School Corporation with uh transfinder so this not only allowed uh the schools to be able to enter their new registration registered students um but all the staff had to be trained at the schools to work the new software um also in the shopping process of the new software I want something that was replacing all the different kinds of software we had in the apartment the maintenance software the trip tracking software that did athletic trips um Sports run I mean Sports runs field trips all that stuff

057I wanted to replace everything so I could have one dashboard that I could look to see what was going on in my entire department instead of going to multiple different pieces of software to be able to see that um so we started in February Trip Finder which is the software that schedules the trips um it also bills the school corporate the school entities uh outside entities that use our buses and it generates trip sheets for the drivers that all the information has for where they need to go their times and they record their uh mileage and all that for the billing purposes uh in March we did started the service finder service finder is what the shop uses uh it tracks all the services for the school buses it Parts in inventory it does everything

058that we need to do to keep track of the maintenance on the bus the drivers are also on the tablet can submit a work ticket through service finder and it goes straight to the shop so if they have an issue with the bus it it's all done digitally there's no paperwork involved when that happens so in August of this year we went live with the stop finder app uh which is an app that the parents can download on their phones that gives notifications of when the bus is arriving in the area and also allows us to communicate directly with the parents so I believe I have a short video kind of tells you what stop finder does wouldn't it be great if you always knew where the school bus was well thanks to an app

059called stop binder you'll know your child is safe in real time you can also set up an alert Zone and stop finder will let you know when the bus is getting close with stop finder you'll have direct two-way communication with your School's transportation department you'll know if the bus is running late and you'll be notified of any changes stop wondering go to stop finder.com So currently we have approximately 2500 parents that use stop binder app every day um we do get calls if something happens and the bus isn't there on time cuzz they rely on those notifications so we actually I mean it is it is up and running and it does work so it's it's new um we'll probably send out more notifications probably after Christmas break and see if we can get more

060parents involved and and want to do wanting to to see what's going on we can also limit what the parents can see as far as I mean we we want to be careful because we don't want people to be chasing the school buses down down so we can actually limit the the Geo field of where they can see the bus when it comes to their house and not the entire bus route so if it if it's within 5 minutes of their house depending on if it's an in town route or an out of town route we can adjust those Geo fenses to make sure that we don't have any people we're not putting students safety at risk of people chasing down a bus or following a bus around um also something a little different um

061bcsc has always always put safety at the top for our school buses we've purchased since 2009 uh three-point seat belts on our buses and up until 2022 was the first year that every bus in the school corporation was equipped with seat belt seats so that being said uh in October of 23 the Ohio Traffic Safety Office reached out to me and wanted some feedback unfortunately when that stuff happens generally it's because of a tragedy so they had a school bus accident uh resulting in a fatality in August of that year um so immediately the governor of Ohio put together a working group that wanted to address safety features seat belts what what could they do to help prevent a bus fatality um ultimately buses are really and truly the safest vehicles on the road they're

062designed to uh roll over three times without the roof collapsing on them um the compartmentalization even without seat belts is designed to keep the kids safe um so we traveled to Ohio in November of 23 and met with the the governor's safety group um they kind of had I thought was some some out of work world uh ideas when they originally were talking they they wanted to pass a law to retrofit all the buses in the state of Ohio with with seat belts which is very unrealistic because it you know it kind of sounds easy to put seat belts in a seat but a seat Bel seat is designed totally different than what a regular school bus seat is it's the way it's mounted to the floor it's the way it collapses in an accident

063it's all it's all designed totally different so they I think once once they met many times they realized that this was an unrealistic uh thing that they were want to do so there is currently one School Ohio school district is doing a is doing a seat belt pilot program um so we do have a uh he's called a citizen representative that's reached out to me several times I've seen him at several conferences that's very proactive in the student safety in Ohio and he's he seems very pleased in what what has happened in in the the governor's group so anyway in November Katherine one of the bus drivers and I traveled to Columbus Ohio um she spoke with the group um there was there's a set group that met uh multiple times a month and when

064she was there they had brought in several different people that had that dealt with students every day different bus drivers specifically her us that deal with seat belts every day so uh the picture that you see up there is her talking to actually I believe that is the governor um asking questions of what her experiences were with seat bels you anything you want to say Katherine any questions for Katherine and her experience at in Columbus with the Ohio Traffic Safety Committee any questions she sitting down she didn't want question the the only question I had um the there was there's a picture right with the hand reaching for the tablet it I'm assuming that it's like a navigation in a car so once you're moving you're not going to be pushing buttons but if you

065stop you can say picked up dropped off correct okay yes that's all yeah the goal is we can we can take attendance with that at a bus stop uh we don't push that at this point uh the goal ultimately is to use student IDs scan in scan off that that's the point that hopefully we can get to um which would help immensely uh for student tracking if we got a lost student we just punch it up on the computer hey this this kiddo got on such and such bus so we're moving that direction um but yes yeah we don't we want hands off unless you're stopped at a bus stop and absolutely have to if not please pull off the road and and address any issues with your tablet don't don't try to do it

066while driving down the road then the software example showed that you have the ability to send push notifications yes uh can you give an example of a time or the set of times where we might do that and if we have any experience with so if if there's a substitute driver on a bus that's running behind we can send out notifications to that parent those parents that are utilizing the app on that spec because it'll just send it specifically to that bus route that hey this bus driver is running behind because I mean we we don't go too specific but yes good the the numbers are always amazing to me the number of miles per day and per year um and I I thank you and I thank the drivers for what they do every

067day it's just amazing I did want to ask in addition to U this update if you could give us a a brief real quick on bus cameras and our use of cameras I know we've outside the bus as well as inside the bus yes we have what's called a a 360 camera it is on the outside of the bus it's we've had those for five years so the view of those 360 cameras comes up in the big rearview mirror that's the driver looks at to see the students behind him so the way those cameras work if you turn on your left turn signal the left camera lights up right turn signal same way if you put the stop arm out it lights up the entire perimeter of the bus so basically it's giving you the

068or the driver the view of basically all the danger zones so if if this is the bus side of the bus it's looking straight down the bus which is somewhere where the driver cannot necessarily see so that's same way with the front same way with the back and that's what that 360 camera provides on the inside of the bus um of course we have stop arm cameras now which unbelievably it hasn't slowed anything down if probably it's it's made it's it's an increase and it's only because we've asked the drivers to be very diligent on on reporting that stuff because we're coming after them so we do have that tool we use it every day as a matter of fact I do have one staff member that that's her job every day that's what she

069does I mean that's I had to hire her specifically to do stop arm violations so um inside cameras uh we're actually transferring to a new company that is all cloud-based it's called radio engineering Incorporated so all we can actually have the capability of dialing live into a bus so if there is an incident going on a bus that needs addressed live uh just just off the wall somebody with a gun or something that we need to Lo log in live we have that capability to see what's going on the bus now it's this is we haven't this will be a process as we get new buses that we we're changing this camera system over but it's if we have to pull video from a bus we can do it at any point in time I

070mean we can log into the bus and pull video for an incident that happens but the the loging in live is is really nice I mean I'm not there to spy on what the drivers are doing I don't have time to do that but it's there in case of emergency situation I think it'll be be well worth it if if needed thank you just as a reminder Mr Stenner the the stopon violations we do work with CPD and send those directly to the prosecutor in those situations and and Mr mckeen's Right Where the frequency is not decreasing unfortunately Mr mcken or Miss copper is there anything else that you could think of that you would want to retrofit buses or our systems with to improve safety of our kids um to be honest we we

071are way above the curve I mean we we do everything that most School corporations do not do I mean as far as seat belts uh the camera systems the 360 view we are we are very fortunate that the school board has allowed us to to fit our buses with the equipment that we've got I mean there really isn't safety wise I mean the new buses are coming out with collision avoidance systems I mean uh rollover protection they'll actually if if a bus is it takes a turn too sharp it'll actually disengage the drivetrain I mean this is stuff that's coming from the factory that we're not asking for this is stuff that's that's just rolling out the door so we we're getting we're getting top-of-the-line stuff I don't I don't know there's anything else that

072I could ask you that to make it what we do any safer okay thank you thank you other questions appreciate the update okay Dr stom good evening thank you we are excited to present an update of bcs's transition to teaching programs Lisa Haynes and Liz or the backbone of the programs and thus they will be providing that information to you and then they will also be facilitating some testimonials from some of our TTT staff members at a high level bcsc has engaged in two different pathway models one pathway model is a parap pathway model and those are for pair professionals pursuing an undergraduate degree so they did not have a previous degree there a 3 to four year program through St Mary of the woods and we currently have seven bcsc par Professionals in that

073program and Lisa will provide additional information about that program our other model is a t2t pathway model that is for pair professionals with a higher education degree so if you have a bachelor's degree a master's or a PhD in another content area and you'd like to be a teacher this is a pathway model for you it is a 12 to 18month program through Indiana State University with we have currently 13 bcse teachers in that program so with that I will hand it over to Lisa Haynes so our journey started in the summer of where do I hit this one I'm I'm gonna end up shutting down the whole slideshow um our journey started in the summer of 2021 uh we be began the partnership with St Mary's of the woods to create a pathway for

074our pair of professionals to become certified teachers we put a call out for information uh about the program and an application process and asked building administrators to encourage uh the par Professionals in their buildings to please apply in July of 2021 we received applications we interviewed 26 of those individuals seven of them we selected to be as part of our our first cohort um the seven Prof August of 2021 then uh those seven par PA professionals are enrolled at St Mar's of the woods College uh they're pursuing uh certification in elementary and special education uh the special ed is all grade prek to 12th and our elementary people will be certified to teach in the elementary buildings Elementary curriculum or special a curriculum um and in addition to that uh our program throughout this time

075we've provided ongoing professional development OPP opportunities for our folks uh we have PD sessions for them we cover and that's all run in-house so we're not pulling in outside people or paying outside people we're using our staff that we have here within bcsc to help with that um so we cover topics like how to manage uh classroom behaviors techniques to keep students engaged professional responsibilities and our evaluation process our next get scheduled session is for October 3rd in which we're going to cover the teacher success rubric with a udl focus and this session is going to be presented by Dr star bong mrol and myself okay and it was this button okay so here you have our first cohort of people uh the seven bcsc teachers and they're going to be Li with licensed to

076teach by August of 2025 I have a testimony from uh Braden swim Simmons who is at Richard's Elementary and as you can read from his testimony that he has shared with everyone um this is a life-altering experience for him um it's giving him a wonderful opportunity and he's very very thankful for it um it's not a path he would have been able to go on with without this program now I'm going to introduce to you um another amazing individual that we have from our program alansa Chino alansa is at North High School in the special education department and she's going to be student teaching in the spring and she's going to share her experience with the program with you hello everybody um I just want to say that I'm very thankful for this program it

077has given me great focus and motivation to reach my goal becoming a teacher I've had this dream since I was um I don't know in elementary school so without this program I wouldn't have been able to do that um it has also really improved my knowledge of teaching and the skills I will need to be a successful teacher and because of this program I just look forward to working many more years with bcsc thank you I'd like to introduce the my other partner in crime listro good evening all right so our transition to teaching model was introduced to the pathways program in the summer of 2022 we began with a partnership with St Mary's of the woods college and the original cohort was comprised of 10 individuals who were identified after applications and the interview

078processes were complete the first 10 participants began coursework in August of 2020 22 after a year of classes eight finished the program they took over their own classes in bcse schools and are currently still serving in those roles successfully as fully certified teachers the next cohort was created in the summer of 2023 unlike the first group they pursued their Co coursework with the district's new University partner Indiana State University this group was derived from an applicant pool SCH of 13 individuals that was later distilled down to six participants from this group five are currently finishing their program and are teaching in their own classrooms they are projected to be fully certified and licensed by December of 2024 similar to the four-year cohort the t2t cohorts received ongoing professional development mentorship while pursuing their teaching license

079and certification so one of the most appealing aspects of the t2t program is that it fills our need to staff critical positions within our district and we can staff those positions with our currently highly qualified staff members who are within our Corporation our t2t cohorts are actively serving as teachers in five Elementary classrooms one Elementary Spanish Immersion classroom two special special education positions including one life skills two secondary science PHS and also secondary language arts foreign language and social studies so this is a statement from one of our first t2t participants Kimberly Owen Kimberly was recognized as the first Olympian of the week at Columbus East High School this is awarded to teachers who have been nominated by their students and their colleagues for demonstrating excellence in the classroom and reflects the exceptional Talent we

080are bringing to our Corporation through this program I would now like to introduce Veronica partia Garcia hello my name is B par I work as a legado kindergarten teacher right now to explain what t2t means to me I need to say that I strongly believe that any student can be successful if he has someone who believe in them and someone who teach them how to believe in themselves and that's what d2t meant to me it's a new opportunity to be something else I'm a former chemist in Mexico so one uh once that I come here I didn't know that I could do anything else and it's a new opportunity once at the beginning it was difficult I had I doubt myself but I have really great people they believe in me they they cheer for

081me and I start to change my mindset and I said maybe I can do it maybe I can as long as I went through the process I start to feel more confident I start to realize that you know what I can do this and now as a teacher I know how hard we work and how much care we put in our kids and um I don't only feel more admiration and um and uh proud I right now feel like we're doing something else something special and in my opinion teachers are changing the world one kid at the time thank you thank you Veronica originally Tracy Le was planned to be a part of our presentation but unfortunately she has a sick child at home um so she could not join us but I will tell

082you a little bit about Tracy so Tracy did her parah experience in the ed class at Smith and she is currently excelling as an lrc teacher at CSA fodrea which again demonstrates how our t2t program is able to fill positions which perhaps have been traditionally difficult to fill in the past and they're doing an exceptional job in them I'm going to hand this back to Dr stalon thank you thank you very much Veronica and alansa and Liz and Lisa so our Pathway to teaching for classified staff again we have those two different models what we would like to do is propose a cohort 3 for the transition to teaching model only through Indiana State University to begin in the upcoming spring semester utilizing our title two funds and I want to again thank you and

083celebrate your accomplishments and I think that it deserves a round of applause as they stated teachers are champions for everyone so at this time again we thank you for your support and our open for any questions um I have a question I just want to thank both Miss gin Miss Garcia for being here and your testimonials were just very moving so thank you very much for that um um could could you having both gone through the program could you offer any suggestions or any challenges that you had along the way that maybe we can learn from as we potentially move forward with another cohort suggestion honestly just continued support Liz and Lisa are amazing and then just knowing that you know we always have somebody to um ask questions too I mean we've had like

084you know some Mis Communications like with some of our teachers and stuff I mean and it's just like little things that they go out of their way on just to be able to be there so just having continued support from both of them it's I feel like it's essential thank you anything Miss Garcia no okay do do we offer mentors um as they as they enter into the classrooms perfect yes and then my other question I'll leave it to my team sorry um is we're moving forward or you're making a recommendation for a cohort on t2t but not for um the per program can you just say a little bit about that decision yes the par program at St Mary of the woods and I'm going to look at Lisa and she's going to nod

085if I start veering off from the path but uh it is it is no longer available in the design that we once had and so moving to Indiana State University who has that program available for the TT would be the path forward for us and then we need to continue to explore what university Partnerships have the par pathway program available if we'd like to explore another cohort with with that design okay good and I light I have one more question um can you tell me a little bit about the application and selection process how do you choose actually I'm going to kick that over to Liz to answer that question sure um so what we've done in the past and um we plan to do if this is approved WE Post um an announcement publicly

086asking for applicants and that job is actually posted on the bcsc website um one of the things that's really great about our t2t program is that it allows working adults to pursue their education and that's actually why t2t was designed right we're looking for people who have a skill set from a previous degree or job experience that could possibly be applied in the classroom so we're finding those people and they're able to work for us um and hone their skills within our classrooms so we put out an advertisement and we also ask building level administrators to recruit PA professionals that are currently in their building that they think might be a good fit for the program and encourage them to apply once we get the applications um we select applicants we select from the applicant

087pool um those individuals who we think best meet the criteria for the people that we think could be successful in the program and then those people are interviewed by a panel of Administrators those administrators then put in a recommendation for who they think um would be they would be good people to pursue for a program yeah thank you sorry team any other questions um well first of all I want to say this in a time when the our schools of Education around the state are not putting out enough teachers I think this is a win-win win for for our district and for these wonderful individuals we heard testimonies from and for our students so I I just commend you for what seems to me like stepping out of the box to solve a problem instead

088of complaining about it although we complain about it too but still um I I have I think three questions so are there other districts around the state that are doing the the par Pathways um and have you is that part of your search for looking for another vendor for lack of a better word yes there are several districts who had the parap pathway model and the TTT model and they are all in that similar exploration phase that we are with moving forward with the TTT model and then continuing to explore the par pathway model and and so the TT is now partnered with Indiana State so what exactly is their role it sounds like you all are doing a lot here but what is what is Indiana State doing they teach the courses so they

089so they're online courses that's right they teach the courses and then they oversee the student teaching and then the degree comes from Indiana State University okay and the other my final question I'm curious about and I don't expect you would have this answer off the top of your head but but I'm curious what what percent of our PA professionals already have a four-year degree so that the TTT fits for them don't don't know I don't have the answer on but I I I would think it's a fair number just from my own experience but I would agree with your assumption and I will need to gather additional information to be accurate because the T tot fits for them but if they don't have a fouryear degree then the the pair of pathway is what they

090would do that's correct any other questions no okay thank you you thank you very much thank you for your presentation nice to meet you okay uh we have school board member reports Mr Bryant do you have anything in the your committees Mr major we we didn't have we haven't had a Health Trust meeting in a while um there was Redevelopment uh there was a meeting last week downtown on the housing study I wasn't able to attend that but they're going to have another another go at that at the October Redevelopment commission so um from what I understand it's basically telling us stuff we already know which is there's not enough houses here so um other than that I don't have anything I I've got two the districting and Facilities committee continues to meet uh and

091do its work on both districting issues and facility issues uh with Dr Ban's leadership um and that work is kind of divided up now between General work across the district and then a whole subset of work that has to do specifically with the uh new Westside Elementary so that that work continues to go well second committee uh is the business Advisory Group uh and Mr Edwards has used the last couple meetings uh to sort of strategically take a look at the initiative that uh we ought to be focusing on and then getting that input from the community in particular the business Community as to which initiatives make sense to them um what initiatives they would be in support of thank you um I serve on the diversity Council and I sent my apologies to um

092Mr Edwards I was actually in United Way jail in my plant so it's a dollar a minute and I was in there for three and a half hours and there's no phones or computers um so I miss the meeting and I apologize for that he did give me an update that I will share however uh we did get to add several new members to the team that bring some some New Perspectives so we seem really excited to have them join the group and um a lot of time was spent on thinking through how we use our professional development days this year and educate help people with our diversity Topics in the school system so be looking for those coming up later this year Mr Grimes uh two quick updates from the school Foundation uh the

093school Foundation is pleased to announce the official hiring of a new executive director deepy agashi V Kumar is in and getting started and working with Administration and uh out making Community connections and also uh furiously starting work on on uh this is probably the third or fourth meeting in a row I've said mark your calendars we're a month and a half away Sunday November 10 the school foundation's largest fundraiser of the year a fun afternoon of basketball Shenanigans with the Wizards at Columbus East High School uh ticket information to be out soon Mr n um the Indiana University Columbus Advisory Board met for their very first meeting ever since the separation from the Purdue part of that um and couple things from that there were quite a few reports but two things I want to

094share one is um Dr Ryan Brewer who's the head of the business Division and also a Columbus East graduate um he gave a report on the um the status of the business division there which is um if not the largest one of the largest divisions at at this local campus um and Dr Brewer was also an integral part of um bringing the sports program to IU Columbus because he saw the potential that that had not only to help students but to help with their branding and to help with um to bring in more more students and partly because of that the the new sports programs um the enrollment is up slightly and the the number of hours taken is up significantly because in order to participate in those Sports they have to have a certain

095number of of credit hours um the other another interesting topic that came up um as a result of them no longer being partnered with Purdue they no longer have an engineering degree that they offer locally so they're beginning to look at possibly replacing that with a degree in informatics or um computer science and they're weighing the pros and cons of either of those okay uh cabinet reports yes good evening thank you for the opportunity to present additional information on the idoe employee injury report as has been noted the report from the Indiana Department of Education was generated from the Gathering of data of School Corporation through data exchange and the request was to determine the number of incidents when an employees injury was required to be reported to the public schools workers's compensation carrier the

096number of incidents when an employees injury caused them to miss all or part of one or more work dayss the number of incidents when an employees injury was required to be reported to the public school pursuant to the public school's reporting policy and the number of incidents in aggregate so that is what is stated in those Indiana codes that you see on the screen bcsc reported each category of our first reports of injury and we are going to go through the disaggregation of those categories today on the bottom of the triangle you will see that we reported 124 informationon first reports of injury so what does information only mean information only means that any time a student and a staff member had an incident that that staff member went to our nurse and our school

097nurse reported this incident in our Reporting System we have a very comprehensive and inclusive workplace culture where we are wanting to report every incident for safety purposes we send all of these reports to our workers compensation provider and we work with our workers compensation provider to understand the disaggregation of all of these these different types of claims that we send their way so we sent 124 informationon first reports of injury which did not result in a staff member needing a medical needing medical treatment that was a component of those 142 first reports of injury on the Indiana School employee injury report of those 142 first reports of injury we had 18 Medical Only first reports of injury those 18 Medical Only claims did result in a staff member going to the nurse and the staff

098member or the nurse or both determining that they wanted to seek additional Medical Care at our Occupational Health provider so that would be inclusive of those 18 an Indemnity report is when a staff member would need to miss work days due to an injury and we had a zero Indemnity reports we do know and this information or this slide has the same information just presented in a table we do know that whereas other school corporations in Indiana reported only the medical medical and indemnity claims bcsc reported all three categories of our claims which resulted in those 142 inclusive comprehensive safe workplace culture reports of injury with that stated some of the steps that we take at bcsc to analyze this dat data in a disaggregated way is to engage in quarterly meetings with our workers

099compensation provider and so we do that to analyze Trends and determine Improvement actions we are going to in integrate employee injury data into our district performance dashboard we do collaborate with the CA and District leadership and we talk about safe work and learning environments we have spoken about this report and then we also are engaging with the Indiana Department of Education to further Define the reporting parameters for this report this is the first time they've asked for this data and thus we are working with them to further operationally Define what to submit in the future so with that are there any questions I've got a couple things Dr stala so I think it was in the second slide perhaps yeah under other school corporations in Indiana reported the medical and indemnity claims only would it

100also be fair to add to that that other school corporations in Indiana reported nothing yes there were several School corporations in Indiana over 100 that did not report the information okay thank you and I think that speaks to uh collaborating with the Indiana Department of Education on the report and again for to Define what what the request is well and that was going to be I guess my second comment more than a question was that I appreciated that last bullet point there of engaging with the Department of Education because I would say I've been in the business long enough to see plenty of school Education data to paint less than an accurate consistent picture and this obviously um more than fits that category and so engaging with them so everybody's reporting the same things and

101that all are reporting would would be yes because this is far from comparing Apples to Apples so thank you I appreciate it I appreciate the clarification um and I have to say it's terribly disappointing that the doe would even put out such an incomplete and misleading report um in your I don't know if your conversations have gone far enough with them to know if their intention was for school districts to do what we did or to do what some of the other districts did in terms of just just reporting the the top two tiers of that it that question is still being defined and so the the conversation has went there but that has not been completely defined for us yet okay thanks Mr n Dale the um information that I've heard is that we

102should expect to see legislation this spring to clear clarify the intent of the legislative action from before and exactly what the ramifications are if districts do not submit their data thank you Aon just to help me um I'm sorry Dr St that wasn't nice can you uh give me maybe an example of a case and it can be made up that you know have a situation that would be in that bottom category and then one that would be in the in the middle category sure so information only um let's say that a staff member opens the door for students and students are going out to the the door to recess and a staff member and the student bump into one another upon exiting the door staff member might bump into the door we would have

103the staff member go to the nurse and there may be an ice pack that's provided uh maybe there's a Band-Aid that's provided maybe it's just hey I bumped into the door student bumped into me I bumped into the door that would be included in the information only claim that is in um our reporting culture that we would report that and all of that gets aggregated and sent to our provider same scenario in that 18 Medical Only so staff member opens the door student bumps into the staff member maybe the staff member cuts thems on the door I don't know there might be something on the door they Cuts with we talked to Dr Boseman about that of course but the staff member um might then need stitches and so they go to the nurse it's

104more than a Band-Aid can handle and they need to go to our Occupational Health Center to get stitches that would be in that 18 Medical only first report of injury okay thank you any other questions I guess one one oh go ahead no okay um so I appreciate some of the actions that um are being taken and I and I I'm assuming that we weren't waiting to report to talk about things that we're doing to help with our safety environments um can you can you give a sense for um how those conversations occur are there certain meetings or committees that they take place and when we may be able to get an update on maybe some of the themes that we're seeing or aggregate actions that might make sense across the districts just so we

105have visibility to those so I think there were several questions there I'll take the uh the last part we our hope is to have um this D board prepared for you sometime in the next quarter so I would like to say October but just depends on how busy things are between now and then but um to have it quarterly then show up in um at the very least in the board information packet and then maybe an annual review at the board level like we're doing tonight in the future okay thank you did that answer all your questions y than good so to that um I talked to Dr Roberts back in early March about the fact that we don't have a school board member on a Safety Committee and we don't regularly get reports and

106then you know obviously this report comes out a couple weeks back and I think most people were probably shocked that it was like that I knew the reason why I talked to Dr Roberts at the time was and now I don't know what's right and wrong um your zero days these zero incidences with no days at the top of the pyramid um I sat and had a long conversation with the husband of a teacher at one of the schools that was tackled and said that she was on workers comp for weeks so I don't I don't I don't know if if that's true or if this is true um but I think in order for us to show there's there to me there's three things that we as a school corporation need to do we

107need to safely pick pick up and return a child educate them when we have them and make sure they're well fed right those three things and uh you know with with all the stories that I've heard obviously I don't know what's real or not now my my request of Dr Roberts then and we've had this uh conversation a little bit in the past is how do we get how do we show show the community that safety is number one by putting I think you'd put either if you don't want to have public meetings for every safety meeting you put two or three board members on the Safety Committee how do we get to a point where we have board representation on the Safety Committee to understand what's happening quickly and where the Board needs to

108provide help yeah I don't think that's a question for Dr SA I think it's a question for the team and as you know we did meet with the Safety Committee as an entire board to get a little more familiar with the work and we have agreed to do that as an entire board again yet this year so that in January when committee appointments are due we can make a good decision when is the next safety committee meeting I don't know that we have it on the calendar yet but we've got more than 48 hours obviously before we would have scheduled that so it was intended for later this year and before we make committee appointments and so the whole board's going to be part of that committee meeting yes just as it was the first

109time any additional questions thank you go ahead thank you I I do support the second bullet point there um I think accumulating data and looking at it as you're already doing but then also setting a metric this is this is the target we want to hit I support that I'm wondering if you could say a little bit more about how things progress from the middle of the period uh pyramid to the top of the pyramid is that a decis when something's going to be turned into the insurer uh are we kind of we're talking about work comp here when how how is that is that our decision is that the injured person's decision thank you so okay let me take that same scenario so our decision and the injured person's decision is to go to

110the nurse as their first report of injury and so it is a collective expectation as I stated and I have on the slide we have a very comprehensive reporting structure for any type of injuries and so it would be it's it's a part of the culture it's you got bumped you know in the in the doorway you're going to go to the nurse and so we talked about that information only set with the bump and maybe I have a ice pack and then that same scenario there was a bump I cut my hand I need stitches I went to the medical provider and so that third triangle might be um there was a bump I went to the medical provider and I tore I have a fracture and so that would be the indemnity claim

111the indemnity claim because then I would need to be out for a surgery and so it would Place me out of work for a number of days in order for my me to have surgery and for for my injury to heal so in that we don't make the decision on if they receive what type of Medical Care they receive they make the decision that they need to go to occupational health and then the doctors at Occupational Health let us know what the course of treatment is so all of this runs through our workers compensation provider even if it's information only they still capture all of that information we still send it to them because these are all first reports of injury and so one information only first report of injury we want to make sure

112we're Gathering analyzing assessing those Trends yes and we also want want to follow it and make sure that it doesn't become um an issue down the line I don't know if that answers your question yes thank you and then uh the numbers in the pyramid here what what's the time frame associated with 142 one school year so this was the 20 this was the 23 24 school year thank you you know I um in my day job I work with OSHA and um this is very OSHA like first AIDS recordables recordables with the last work days is what that pyramid looks like to me and and um you know there's actually ratios that people try to look for you want the bottom to be healthy because it tells you that you have a good safety

113culture and and I will say having worked in a manufacturing site for many years getting a good safety culture is like n910 of the battle um so just having people be willing to come and tell you about these little bumps is is a real blessing because it gives you something to fix so um I know we have a lot of work to do any more than one name on the list a count of one is too many I think in all of our opinions but um so we have work to do but it's it's good to see numbers that we can work with and improve upon so thank you I appreciate it thank you okay uh now for public comments um as a reminder of our process so if anyone would ever like to speak

114at a board meeting there's a blue sheet at the table when you walk in you can sign your name um and you will get three minutes with the team um there is a clock there for reference um I would ask that if um you refrained from using names of individuals or specific titles when the school corporation we just want to make sure that everybody feels comfortable and we're maintaining um appropriate confidentiality where needed um no cheers or deers from the audience I think it's great to support one another but if we can just do that quietly maybe afterwards um again want to create an environment that everybody feels comfortable speaking in um so the name I have on the top of the list is Crystal pump Frey good evening members of the board um my

115name is Crystal Pumphrey um you spoke at the beginning of the meeting in regards to the threat that was made about 10 days ago um early Saturday morning on the 14th of September scrolling through Facebook I noticed a post in regards to the threat that was made um I was surprised to see the post on Facebook as a notice wasn't sent out to me as a parent especially with a child who attends a school in this Corporation and I understand that my child may not go or attend the school that was threatened but as a parent of a child in the school corporation I feel like overcommunication is better than underc commmunication um I emailed the members of the board and uh advised them of how I felt but I felt like speaking today as

116well uh the threat required immediate attention and action to prevent terrible things from occurring which thankfully it received that action um I think my biggest issue is the lack of notification I my child is 5 years old and autistic he doesn't have situational awareness he doesn't pick up on Fear and he he has impulse control so in the event does something tragic like this to occur at the school that he attends my child would not react the same way everybody else's would he wouldn't understand the need to be quiet he wouldn't understand the need not to move so I feel as though by not being notified on Friday when the threat occurred other parents in the district don't have the luxury like I do of being a stay-at-home parent they don't have the luxury of

117if they don't feel safe sending their kid to school they don't have to go to school that day because they're at home there's a lot of parents in this District that work rely on two incomes and don't have the opportunity to find child care with such short notice and I understand that an email or a notification was sent out on Sunday afternoon at 2:30 in the afternoon but that only allowed 18 hours or less for people to find child care if they felt safe or if they didn't feel safe sending their child to school so I guess my only request is that in the event that something like this God forbid happens again in the future overc communicate rather than underc communicate because I feel like parents should be able to protect their children as

118that is their right thank you thank you Miss Pumphrey um miss miss everel you were on the list but you spoke earlier did you want to speak again you're okay okay all right thank you I think that's all we have for tonight all right thank you Miss Weldon um item number eight on the agenda this evening is a request for approval for old business the minutes of the regular school board meeting from SE September 9th 2024 I move that we approve the minutes of our regular meeting held September 9th second thank you Mr gmes and Mr Bryant um any discussion or questions before we go to vote okay I have a motion a second to approve uh meeting minutes from board meeting of September 9th all those in favor please say I I I all

119those opposed please say nay motion carries thank you uh under new business we have the regular items of supplemental contracts field trips and professional leave school fundraisers and the claims and payroll September 23rd claims of 820,000 uh the August 2024 pre- runs of just over 6.3 million and then the September 6th payroll run of just over 3.9 million in addition under new business we have the uh contract with with lhp to complete the data uh building our data dashboard title 2 and title four grants the 2024 additional appropriation resolution the final change order for par Parkside Elementary project which is a reduction of that contract and then approval requested for the robots for autism Grant um that I shared last Friday with you all there's no equipment involved in this one it's only professional development

120I move that we approve all items under new business number nine a through J as presented by Dr Phillips a second thank you Mr Grimes and Mr Nan any questions from the team yeah the only thing I have is um and it won't change the way I vote tonight but will ask I think I've asked for this in the past too um anytime we have like a guaranteed maximum price um or adjustments in an an appro additional appropriation amount can we get like the original cost versus to the new so like if it was going to be 10 million and it comes in at 12 or if it was 10 million and it comes in at eight just so that we have a frame of reference so that we know what it was to what

121it will be uh yes I think I think that's in your packet tell me if you um we can chat afterwards if you want to see something differently but the existing contract is listed in there with a deduction than the final contract okay maybe I overl that's okay I I'll I'll chat with you but com I've got just one comment um this is in regards to uh supplemental uh contracts this crosses my mind almost every time I look at it but and this is a positive um I always notice that a great many of those are um teachers that are um substituting for other teachers and I guess what I would like to say is a big thank you to those teachers that are willing to do that uh they're certainly not willing or they're

122certainly uh I would guess the vast majority of them are not doing it for the money uh they are doing it in the best interest of kids and their school and their colleagues and um you know in in arguably today's day and age many of those teachers being willing to give up whatever tiny sliver of their day they have in a chance to catch their breath and um collect their thoughts they are back in the classroom subbing for for another teacher so I would just like to say thank you to th all those teachers um every meeting that are always on that list for that reason thank you okay I have a motion in a second to approve uh all items on new business 9 a through J all those in favor please say I

123I all those opposed please say nay motion carries thank you Human Resources recommendations the human resources recommendations for this evening consist of one appointment one agreement and one leave of absence I request that you please approve the Personnel recommendations as presented in the board packet I move that we approve all HR recommendations as provided by Dr all bom second thank you Mr Grimson Mr major all those in favor of approving items 10 Human Resources recommendations as presented please say I I I I all those opposed please say nay motion carries thank you there are no additional Personnel recommendations for this evening thank you okay board input and review Miss Janelle would you like to start okay um I would like to thank all the members of the public and some of them have already left

124that that um spoke tonight uh I know it was particularly hard for Miss Pumphrey to be up there and it's particularly hard to be living in a day and age where we have to worry about things like we had to worry about last week um I happened to be at North High School not because of that but for something else that day and and to see how much that impacted the the learning and the environment of the school was just it it it wasn't just a little thing um in fact when I was leaving um Mr Clark the principal was out in the parking lot telling parents as they drove up in cars that they had heard a false rumor on social media that day and that that the school really was not under a

125lockdown and school was going on as normal and and the parents said okay thanks and drive on but it it impacted everybody at the school um the other thing I want to say actually I have a couple other comments that I'm going to put them in application to a session I went to at the isba fall conference um the session was called student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change and the the challenge was um what what we value what we're all about is um improving student outcomes and and so the the challenge was so what percent of your board time do you spend talking about student outcomes um so they talked about inputs and outcomes so tonight we talked about the budget that's always fun and that's definitely an input because we need to

126do it that's us putting input into um investing in our in our students and our teachers um the transportation report um was an input and I was totally impressed that we are ahead of the curve in safety and the way that we communicate with parents through that whole process um I wish we had that when my kids were going through school oh the bus is only five minutes away um and and that's a great thing I'm thrilled that we're doing that and that's another input that we're putting into the system the report um about transition to teaching was fabulous that's that's an outcome but that's an adult outcome and it's an adult outcome that's going to help our kids um so so the question we were asked was what percent of your last board meeting

127did you spend on student outcomes I think it was zero this time um so I won't tell you how high they expect it to be but but my Challenge and I hope I hope this isn't one of those things that I'm excited because it was today and then I forget about it but my challenge is going to be how can we increase the time we spend talking about student outcomes I don't want a longer meeting but I think we don't do that enough uh many thanks again to all those uh involved in the transportation and transition to teaching uh updates information very informative lots of good information much appreciated thanks to all the community members who took time out of their evening to be here this evening and the four that spoke either during the

128uh public hearing or the regular board meeting and then lastly um I would just like to encourage any parents or Guardians who might be out there listening now or might watch this later to consider filling out the bcsc family engagement survey that was in the last newsletter sent out by Mr Bernette dated September 20th I believe and so there is a real opportunity there to uh share your valuable opinion uh in all things regarding bcsc um I'd also like to Echo I appreciate all the participants um today es especially on the cabinet reports I I really enjoy bringing people closer like close to the work so I appreciated Miss copper um Miss Gina Miss Garcia that was really nice to be able to hear directly from them and ask them questions so um more of

129that going forward if we have an opportunity if it's relevant that was really nice um I and I and I agree with a d on outcomes and and results I think that's also a really critical point I think for the the meeting tonight there was just so much um swirling in the community and on people's minds about safety so I although I agree I felt like the time tonight was um well spent on helping people who are worried are afraid understand all of this information around us because it just gives Clarity on like what do we do what do we do next we really need to understand these problems and understand the real events so that we can do something about it and I felt like I got information tonight that that is a step

130in that direction um so anyway I appreciated the information and just can't say enough about law enforcement thank you um here in the room and and everyone who has just supported um the community our teachers in our buildings the last few weeks especially um excellent input and review so far I don't think I can add anything thank you yeah so just to go back you're right it was in there I did look it's the HVAC I'll talk to you after um the uh first thing I wanted to say is that uh like Dale mentioned the Indiana School Board Association uh convention is today tomorrow and I sat through effective School Communication in peace time and crisis it's great conversation around basically I wish Crystal was still here I mean I could just say ditto right

131I mean it was everything she said um you want to be quick you want to be truthful right I mean they give they give you a whole list of things that they tell you to do um and I and I think it was it was timely for me to attend that uh the afternoon session that I attended was on enhancing uh nope hold on where is it that uh great on their it's about a book that uh AJ krael wrote that is uh great on their behalf why school boards fail and how yours can become effective and to Dale's point it was a lot of stuff that I don't think we probably talk about enough um we a year and a half ago year year and a half ago we talked about doing more metrics

132and and Analysis and understanding reports uh to understand how everybody was performing we did not incorporate that into the agenda so it might be something that uh we can bring back and have a discussion about now a little bit later especially if we have a team working on metrics so that we understand how we're going to report those so all good stuff um you know last week we had a lot of concerns from parents students community members bcsc employees uh thankfully the police department was able to help help bring closure to the situation and everybody was able to take a breath and settle down um there's a lot that we can learn on both sides from a community standpoint from our standpoint as well about you know hopefully we don't ever have to do this

133again but if we do this again we hopefully have learned from it the first time so that we do a better job in the F in the future I just wanted to uh Echo Dr Phillip's statement law enforcement got it right it's not a situation of us going out there excuse me not us them going out there and finding this situation but getting the situation right so I thank law enforcement back there for being here tonight and take it to your uh City and tell them that we all thank you very much for the job that you do and Mrs Weldon I just want to add I always love seeing our school board members you know we spend a lot of time talking about those folks who work in school directly with kids all day

134but we continuously see um our school board members show up in the paper as an example for our kids and for our community of strength and Leadership and being good example for others and that was certainly the case on Saturday's article with Mr Grime so thanks for [Applause] that okay uh our next board meeting is on October 28th right here in this building at 6:30 p.m. uh meeting is a jour