9/9/2024 BCSC School Board Meeting

001e e it is past 630 so we will go ahead and get started with tonight's meeting for those that are able if you wouldn't mind standing for the Pledge of Allegiance please Al to United States of America stand na indivisible Justice thank you all board members are present so I will call this meeting to order [Music] Dr Phillip turn on my power here good evening everyone thanks for joining us today we' like to start each meeting by reminding ourselves and others of the Mission Vision and core values of the district our vision is for bcse to become the choice to learn work and play our mission is to develop expert Learners by partnering partnering with our community to invest in people and our core beliefs are that we can all rise we all can rise

002to the challenge of high expectations learning is most effective when we have Choice flexibility and see relevance we Thrive when our physical social and psychological needs are met our community and School District are stronger when we partner with one another we flourish because of the diversity and variability in our community and our democracy and Democratic institutions are strengthened by civic-minded citizens I'll emphasize that both we started with the pledge and that last core value there mean mean a mean a lot this week as we observe uh the anniversary of 911 thank you Mrs vogle thank you for the opportunity this evening to share with you some of the um exciting programs we have in bcsc that promote inclusion and help create me meaningful friendships among students tonight I have with me Brett Finley principal at

003CSA Lincoln Elizabeth DWI special education teacher at Clifty Creek Elementary School and uh the unified track coach at Columbus North and Peggy Meyers special education teacher and unified track coach at Columbus East and I'm going to start off by letting Mr Finley share with you about young champions thank you uh so young champions this is when you look at the unified uh track system it's it's the youngest of the uh of the of the crew so I get the little kids and we're going to kind of go up from there and uh I'm a part of a committee that uh oversees um just the process uh for for the young champions meet and while these are the committee members it doesn't take into consideration uh the teachers the special education teachers the teaching assistants and

004of course the students who put a lot of time and effort into uh this experience so the program for young champions is 12 weeks in length uh each School handles it a little bit different um this was Lincoln's first time um this past year being involved in it so um our view might look a little different than maybe Schmidt or Clifty Creek who has now done it uh for two years and so it involves the special education teachers uh the speech therapists the physical therap therapists the classified staff members uh and in many cases High School volunteers and It ultimately ends in a track meet and that's what we're getting to and so and it is a track meet that includes hurdles relay races uh those types of events but also some other activities to

005keep the kids engaged during the day uh during the three-year transformation um in 2021 2022 it was just the prek program was involved and um uh I was involved last year for the first time and so um there's some things that took place and we had some great things so they used to wear t-shirts last year was the first year we said you know what let's put these kids in the cross country jerseys and nothing's cuter than a kid in a cross country Jersey and um we wanted them to look good we wanted them to feel great about representing their school and um it was a real positive bcsc funded transportation uh we all went to Columbus East yesterday uh last year and there were eight elementaries that participated so two years ago um it

006was just two elementaries plus the prek we had eight and then uh excited to announce that next year all 11 elementaries plus the prek are going to be involved in the meet as we continue this progression so here you can see quickly in numbers and um and that's actually um Mrs vogel's daughter uh in that picture who's uh working with an activity at school but in 2023 we saw 155 students in 2024 there were 355 and we expect with three additional elementaries um those numbers are going to continue to increase so as you can see it's a really uh big event uh we're excited about it we'll be back at Columbus East and it takes place in May and uh Josh Bernett does a phenomenal job as we all know with videos and he put

007this together and it kind of captures the whole uh uh meet last year so I'm going to turn over to Josh welcome to a special celebration of Youth and sportsmanship today we're taking you behind the scenes of the 2024 young champions Field Day held on Sunny Stafford field at Columbus East High School this year's field day is bigger than ever with the participation of several bcsc elementary schools young champions continues to Champion inclusive play and athle atic development for all children regardless of ability young champions isn't just about sports it's about creating an inclusive environment where every child gets to shine from the first practice to today's Field Day these young athletes have been honing their skills in running kicking and throwing embracing healthy habits for the future and it's not just the kids who

008are involved families teachers and the whole Community have come together making it a collaborative effort that enriches everyone involved each athlete here tells a story of perseverance friendship and learning it's about building life skills and friendships that last a lifetime as we wrap up today's event we reflect on the growth and success of the young champions program great job to all the students staff and families of bcsc today you all showed what it means to be a true young Champion every child deserves a chance to play learn and grow together welcome to thanks thank you I mean it's hard to put it any better than that um I can't stress enough the uh incredible hard work by the special education teachers the occupational therapists the physical therapists who put a lot of time and effort

009um I was just lucky to be a part of the the committee the last couple years and helped connect dots but the the bulk of the work were were done by those individuals so as we look forward uh just we want to increase participation we want to continue to strengthen those relationships and we want to instill a sense of accomplishment within our children and about to turn it over here but our next step is obviously creating a foundation for our unified track program thank you so um you know Brett talked about um the foundation for the unified track program and so um you can see here um this is a picture uh that was taken this past spring at the unified track meet um between east and north um unified track is a ihsa sanctioned

010Sport and the students and a or the athletes who participate in that um participate in long jump shot put 100 meter dash 400 meter dash and then there's a 400 meter relay for both the boys and the girls um in addition to the Dual track meets the athletes compete in a sectional meet and then from there qualif for regional and um State meets so if you haven't had a chance to attend one of these um unified track meets I really encourage you to take the time to do so the sportsmanship among the teammates and um the competitors is definitely inspirational so looking at our numbers from previous years and 2014 Columbus North had 13 students and Columbus East had 20 students in 2024 our past season Columbus North had 33 students and Columbus East had

01127 our pre-co numbers are significantly higher than what they were this past season um but we still have some great students that come out for the team and they put forth all of their effort in into the team and make sure all the students have a great time I've been with the team since 2015 which was my sophomore year and um it was one of the reasons that I went into education specifically special education so all of my Fondest Memories of high school were with UniFi track and then now I've been the head coach for now four years in the spring so I I absolutely love the program and it's just done amazing things for not only myself but also a lot of other students that are within Columbus North and I know Columbus East

012too okay all right so earlier I mentioned the sportsmanship that um I observed when I was at at several of the track meets this year and you can see from jerrick's quote that not only a sports manip something that he values in unified track but he's also learning how to be a leader um through his experience and Peggy Meers asked students um and athletes this past um earlier this past week to share their thoughts on unified track and here's what one of them had to say finger my name is meley my f f track is Lum I listen to my coach do my best and I can tell you from uh being at the track meets that meley is definitely one of the students who's out there cheering on um both her teammates and the

013the teammate or the the competitors from the other teams it's it's really great to see um let me see here there we go okay so the other Unified sports activities there are a variety of activities and ways for students to get involved many of these activities um were actually started because of or are continuing now um because of students um senior projects so the unified basketball game if you've been to um a girl's uh East North basketball game you've probably had a chance to see at halftime the unified basketball game that's played and then this year the unified bot ball um and unified EG those are new and uni or the United sound is in its second year it was new last year so students participating in United sound they learn um to read music

014through visuals and then they're also learning how to play instruments as well and they participate in the concerts um throughout the school year with the bands um the unified a is a program that's through the Future Farmers of America and students participate in quarterly activities as well as a unified uh horiculture con contest and then finally best buddies um it really does pair nicely with the other unified activities um as it promotes inclusion and um and friendships among um students with disabilities and their non-disabled peers and so um what we're really hoping is that we see an increase in the number of students participating in this just because we have a variety of different activities that are available to students and then also because we have the younger students coming up through Elementary School Our

015Hope in um the next year or two is to get a program started at the middle school so that um kids can come from elementary through middle school and then on to high school and participate in those activities any questions from Team y What U would you suspect are the relationships between participation in programs like this and academics academic progress uh progress and life skills is there a tie is there a tie between the the academic outcomes of the students who are in life skills and and their participation in this yes yeah would you like to answer that sure while I haven't taken any data I um would suspect highly um in our own classroom we see increase in Social social skills um and increase in determination and self- advocacy all of these uh clubs

016and sports are with me not for me so the unified track kids are also all of them are competitors whether they are typically developing peer or a student with a disability so we see a increase in their self-concept their uh and their self-determination uh because they see their friends doing the same thing thank you in looking at the numbers that you presented what barriers do you may have for this board and trying to get back to the preco participation is there any barriers that we can help with barriers barriers to to getting increased participation that they can help uh increased partici participation amongst the uh the unified athletes so athletes who have disability is transportation that's the biggest one um and as far as the athletes without or the Buddies the peer buddies it's that

017they tend to be involved in so many things um but I think we've done done a really good job especially with best buddies this year of recruiting students who aren't involved in everything and uh our best buddies president has done a really great job with reaching out to everyone across the board uh at the school thank you so my question you already answered it was can be what about middle school but I just want to say I'm glad that you have that in your radar looking forward that that we would expand this to their opportunity for them so thank you absolutely awesome program Elizabeth you have some fans in the audience good job thank you thank you okay Schoolboard member reports can I start with Mr Bryant if you have any committee Mees no you're

018good Mr major no Mr Stenner uh we have a districting and Facilities committee will participate with [Music] uh um planning committee for the new Westside School uh meeting is this Friday I think so nothing to report tonight but we we'll have something soon good thank you I don't have anything to report Mr Grimes uh two quick items from the school Foundation just another reminder that in just a couple months Sunday November 10 uh mark your calendars for the Wizards at Columbus East the school foundation's uh biggest fundraiser of the Year information to be scattered about soon regarding that and then lastly um the Mrs Cunningham the school foundation's former executive director um left to take another position in the middle of August and the foundation is now at a point um where a new executive

019director has been found I will not name names at this point but uh they will be starting in the near future that's it so we've had no meetings lately but ccic meets I believe on Wednesday um and then also Hall of Fame nominations have been opened they are due Sher November 1st I believe is the deadline so um for being able to get those nominations and they are due November 1st for consideration and my committees are starting up again this week but I don't have anything tonight okay thank you cabinet reports Dr Phillips all right thank you Mrs Welden so um I am actually going to do the budget workshop for you this evening um Jamie Briner our new Corporation Treasurer um I talked him into letting me go ahead and just walk through this

020first one and I'll explain why in a little bit um so I get to go back into my CFO role for a little bit tonight so I'm going to probably go for a good hour and a half so I apologize ahead of time I have the gavl Dr that's right and somebody over there can turn off my mic I'm sure so this is the beginning of a process um that really lasts between now and the end of the calendar year and so tonight is just a work session as we go through the budget in its current form that will be then posted 10 days online in advance 10 days before the public hearing on the 23rd so we'll go through a little bit more refined version of this same presentation on the evening of the

02123rd and then members of the public can also chime in at that time the vote is October 28th and the B budget has to be adopted by November 1st um and then we will submit to the Department of local government Finance after which they then issue our um our debt rate our uh property tax rate I apologize not Deb Rate Property Tax Rate sometime around the first of the year and so um some of the highlights of the 2025 budget um the as we've spoken about for for the last few years there continues to be a significant investment in our staff both through salary and benefit in increases um on the right side there this is new we haven't put this in there in the past um probably because we haven't been able to be

022this proud of how much we've been able to invest in salaries for our um teachers and classified staff both um and you can see going back to 2021 you know classified staff the average increase was 9% for classified staff in 2022 we did a large comprehensive study and adjusted many different employee groups in the classified staff group the average raise there was 11.1% but that was also the point when we raised the the minimum salary hourly salary for any um classified staff employee to $14 and it's gone up since then 6% 8% and then 3% uh next July 1 teaching staff average raises in there sometimes those are flat dollar amounts across the board but the percentage average was 6% 6.1 8.3 last year and then 3 % to begin this school year that we're

023in now we'll bargain next year administrative staff there you can see the percentages uh average again average sometimes those were also flat dollar amounts but the average increase was 2 six 2.7 and 3% so um that is the biggest part of the school district's budget it always is um we're a very labor intensive organization and we're people driven and so it's always where you're going to see the the biggest um the biggest investment from our tax dollars so that's the increases in salary we also saw this year I'm trying to think of a year that we added more positions to the education fund than we have this year there's a lot of different reasons for that but we added um total of 12 full-time positions to the education fund this year those aren't all new

024positions but they're new to the education fund so it was a total of two at at grades K through six we also added four literacy coaches as part of the I 3 um strategy to really dramatically increase those fundamental reading skills at the primary level um and we only pay a third of those salaries in year one twoth thirds in year two and then 100% in year three so that was an equivalent of a 1.33 FTE increase we added two and a half positions at the secondary level those are at the core positions uh math science English and social studies about one and 2/3 positions to C4 and that's um just pointing out that the dramatic increase in demand for the CTE courses in C4 we have added eight FTE to C4 in the last

025two years and so there just continues to be more and more kids who want to take those courses and um so we do everything we can to try to fill those positions we did add uh position at each High School in the cohorts the team uh the teams at the high school level one was an admin ministrator at East so that each cohort had a um assistant principal and then one was academic coach at North and now at North because of the size of their cohort cohorts each of them has two academic coaches added two special education teachers and one elel teacher to the education fund so um really large investment in people for this year some of those positions uh it's it's seven or eight were actually a result of the end of Esser

026funding and so they were all being funded by Esser which was our federal covid relief program that's been in place for the last three years that concludes actually this month we will spend every dime of that through the end of this month um and so some of those positions we looked at and said those are truly needed they're not additional and moved them over the education fund you'll also see in this budget uh in the educ OR sorry in the operations fund side some really significant investments in um capital number one is Safety and Security infrastructure there is a $2 million line on the Appropriations for um Safety and Security equipment um our plan initially was to put a $500,000 um line item for the next four years but after talking um And discussing here

027for a while we made the decision to go ahead and put the full 2 million there because if in the middle of a calendar year the technology advances such that there is some really strong U we'll just say metal detectors for example that aren't intrusive and kids can just walk in and it doesn't really result in a long line of people outside the door um we could choose to invest in that in the middle of the year and and purchase those get ready for the next school year without having to wait to do an additional appropriation so it may take us four years to spend that money or it may be done into but each of those Appropriations will be brought before the board uh in your board packet each time uh we do have

028uh ongoing facility maintenance um as is always the case in our operations fund budget and then um some in investments in co-curricular programs particularly baned I'll get to some details on that um and all of this we because of assessed value increasing by uh almost 11% we anticipate that the tax rate will not increase and fact May decrease just a tad as it has the last few years so one of the things that's really important um to understand about the way that we have to budget at the school level is that we are required to make a whole lot of assumptions going into the year we are budgeting for calendar year 2025 when we don't know how many students we're going to have in the spring we don't know how many students we're going to

029have in the fall and we don't know how much the state is going to appropriate per student starting on July by one so there are a lot of assumptions we have to build in to um to the budget to to build it so our assumptions are that we will have about just under 97 million in education fund revenues that's up just over 3% over the previous year and we know what the per pupil support is for 2425 but that only goes through June of 25 and so um we have made an assumption that the state will increase State funding in 25 fiscal year 26 by 3% we're hearing um lots of chatter that it'll be a tight budget season but that's the assumption that we plugged in so our ADM estimates we also have to

030make estimates of where we're going to be from a student count standpoint we would normally be uh right at the ADM date but they moved it back to October this year so um right now we are estimating that our October count will be flat uh as of today it's closer to about 50 up which is really a surprise because we have a a small kindergarten class which everybody in the state I'm hearing has a small kindergarten CL class coming in um and we had a large outgoing senior class so you can see there we had 91 kids graduate last year and only uh right around 800 coming in but so many of our students have stayed compared to previous years and we have a lot of students coming in at the high school level for

031example from from the private schools in town that are our partners um so anyway um I think we'll be up probably somewhere between 20 and 40 by the time ADM day comes around but from a budgeting standpoint as you know we always do we budget low and conservative when it comes to revenues uh we also think we'll have about 230 students in CVP this year that's only significant from a budget standpoint because we only receive 85% of State support for students that are in CVP for this spring we are estimating that we'll have about be down about 50 students um some of you will remember that for the last few years I've budgeted that at 100 or 150 but um our cohorts are doing such a good job of keeping kids connected at the high

032school level and keeping them from dropping out that um that number was really low last year and and so I have good reason to believe it'll be low again this year and then for the fall of next year we're also estimating that ADM will be flat from this fall I should say so line by line on the education fund Flip Flip my notes on behind on just going line by line the um overall revenues we expect to be up 3.2% um and let me go back actually there to 2024 I want to remind you so this is why um I told Mr Briner that I would do this presentation tonight because I stood in front of you with Amy London last year when we settled the the contract in October and we said we believe

033this contract is a good contract and it's contract we can afford and it and it got us to a really competitive starting salary um but we anticipated will take an additional appropriation in 2024 the current year but that additional appropriation will actually be um supported by revenues and so you can see that um in 2024 there we started the year with just under 6.4 million and even with our anticipated additional appropriation that we'll bring to you next um we'll bring to you next board meeting um we think we will still end the year right at about that 6 point 6.4 or a little more but I also told you when we stood there that in 2025 we anticipate that we will eat into our cash balance a little bit it's called deficit financing um but

034our cash balance being somewhere between 62 and $7 million allows us to U spend about $2 million of that cash balance in 2025 again the vast majority of that going towards uh teacher salary increases and classified staff salary increases so the 2025 column there shows total revenues of just under 97% and total um expenditures of just under $99 million sorry not percent so 99 97 coming in 99 going out about a net of $2 million decline in our cash balance that does allow us to still meet our goal of being able to meet two education fund payrolls um just in case something happens from a revenue standpoint we can still handle two two payrolls plus we have the uh rainy day balance to lean upon so I want to go down the the lines here

035really quickly and just explain any of the increases um over the prior year um first two there are obvious salaries and benefits those are both due to the increase in the number of people particularly teachers um but mainly the salary increases that we passed last fall um going down to the professional service line that decline there is because often times we are Contracting for a position in one year and then we are able to find a person to fill that position in the next year year and so it moves to salary and benefits and then the next year it'll move back this just happens to be a year we were able to fill most of our positions so those are almost always um speech therapists occupational therapists school syes um visually impaired we have one

036uh visually impaired I think that we're um Contracting with a service for this year just really difficult positions and so the only reason for the decline in that line is due to the fact that we move some people over to salary and benefits on the comm's line that increase is um due to the increase in the in the cost of software for students so that one's all student used software in the classroom on their uh on their Chromebooks on the supply line that one is also due um to computers but mainly because we needed to increase uh I'm sorry replace the the laptop or desktops in the labs that are mainly used by C4 and so we had some really old computers that run some pretty high-end programs that you can't use a Chromebook for

037so even though every student has a Chromebook there's a there's a desktop in some of those labs that really needs to be a stronger machine and those labs are really old and Mr hack has been begging us Dr hack excuse me has been begging us for a while to upgrade those and so Mr Williams included that in the budget for this year and that's on the supply line um going down to dues and fees is is obviously just a very slight increase there um so the down on the transfer line um the State Board of accounts had us start putting the the transfer to the special special ed Co-op for our portion of that down in transfers but the transfers to operations as you remember we transfer costs that used to be part of the

038general fund from the education fund to the operations fund that amount is actually declining um by about $600,000 for this coming year and I'll get into that detail on a slide here in just a little bit so this is just one that we' like to to put up there just to remind folks that our education fund budget which is the largest portion of our budget um 95.2% of that in 2025 will be for salaries and benefits are there any questions from the board on the education fund budget before I move to operations yes Mr Stenner um if we had another column uh titled 2026 and start the year with that uh New Balance uh from operations in 2025 are are we good to go for 2026 that's going to um rely on three different things

039that are coming up that are unknown the legislative session which they'll do the budget for two years so when they when they pass a budget this coming late April we will know what that's going to be for the 25 26 school year and the 26 27 school year our ADM student count will obviously Drive um drive that Revenue stream and it'll also depend on collective bargaining this coming uh fall a year from now and so those are all three things that are to be determined and as long as we are continue to um be concer conservative in you know underestimating our revenues and overestimating our expenditures and making sure that we bargain a contract that's both um fair and keeps us um keeps us well positioned from a financial standpoint then we should be in

040good shape for 26 and Beyond Mr um the CVP numbers that you showed us are those full-time online students as opposed to I know we have some students that do some courses online and not others those are students that are 50% or more of their time is spent online that's what the the criteria the state uses to determine whether or not they're a virtual student or not and so some of those students you know may be exactly half they may be taking half of their classes in C4 or a band course or a calculus course but they're taking their other ones online the number of students taking one class or more online is probably more in the 450 range for the transfer to operations um I know the numbers going down you mentioned specific items

041are you going to cover that and operations okay I'm going to the detail of it yeah question okay okay so operations fund we also have to um make some Revenue assumptions but they're they're not quite as uh as flexible as the ones for the education fund we anticipate revenues in the operations F to be about just under 35 million in 2025 and that's about a 10% increase and it does include about 2.4 million in tax cap losses in 2025 which is actually down we show you a table here in a moment a graph um and so the maximum Levy that the dgf in the state of Indiana imposes upon school districts is usually a moving Target based on the average non-farm income for the previous six years I know you guys are just riveted by

042this conversation six-year rolling average of the non-farm income the last 3 years the legislature has capped that um and said it it doesn't matter what that goes up we're going to say you can't increase your Levy by more than 4% and so with a levy increase of 4 point uh 4% and the assessed value going up more than 10% that means that the operations fund portion of the tax rate will will Decline and so you'll see that on your tax but when you look at the operations line that part of the tax rate will decline if it were the opposite and assessed value had only gone up 2% you would see an increase in that here's a just a graph showing um the history of tax cap losses to the operations fund over time you

043see that 2025 estimates are actually down from a previous the previous couple of years and that's entirely due to assessed value increases so here is that line by line detail for the operations side of the budget and let me get my notes and go through this one so again you'll see revenues um of just under $35 million and estimated expenditures down on the bottom of just under $39 million and so this is our fourth year at attempting to spend down some of the cash in the operations fund but revenues continue to out pay expenditures um and so we're not going at 2 million this year we're going at 4 million to attempt to spend that down a little bit so we also anticipate that in 2024 we'll end this year somewhere near the same cash

044balance that we started the year with somewhere around that $14 million Mark but on the expenditure side some of those Investments that you'll see um again salaries and benefits on the operations fund side there are much smaller propor of the operations fund budget um and those increases are mainly uh almost all classified staff and so those are all of our custodians technology staff uh bus drivers and so on um on the Professional Services line um that line increase there is actually mostly an increase in the cost of um school resource officers so some of you know that the city and county both had to increase pay dramatically to just to keep Pace with the state state troopers to make sure we didn't lose all of our our local police officers and so we're we're happy

045to to do that to keep our outstanding SRO that we have assigned to our schools on the repair and maintenance line um that increase is really mostly due to the the cost of external services like prevented maintenance on HVAC systems and other labor driven work that we pay other entities to do for us um there is also u a new line in there it's about $100,000 for um the lease on the CVP property we were using eser funds for the CVP lease but um we'll be using operations fund for the next year and a half that is set to end in June of 26 uh at the end of that period of time we hope to find another home for CVP um it is down that 230 number is down from 400 where we were

046three years ago as we came out of Co and so we expect demand for those in uh virtual programs for full-time students to continue to to decline on the communications line um that's a increase in property and liability insurance which I think everybody is seeing um and then also some increases in software and network costs on the on the technology side uh the supply line You'll see that's a that's an increase of $1.3 million right there that's actually a large increase in uh our expected utilities for electricity and um also custodial and maintenance supplies so 1 million of that is actually an estimated increase in our uh electric utility bill part of that is because we under budgeted last year we don't expect to see a million dollar increase in our electric bill but we

047um under budgeted last year and used some leftover unexpended Appropriations from prior years during last year um the property and Equipment line as I mentioned before um that's that's where we're making our largest investment in Safety and Security um there's some trade-off there we actually see a decrease in the number of buses that we need in order to keep all of our buses at the um you know under that 12 year old range and um so you'll see a decrease in that but then a $2 million appropriation for that Safety and Security uh equipment line and then um there's also a onetime appropriation in there I mentioned co-curricular programs earlier one time appropriation for some band equipment um we have a unified band now as you know between both of our schools the sound and

048spirit of Columbus had a large Invitational on Saturday night anyone lives around the North Area heard it until 9 or 10:00 that evening um but um they're in some they're in need of of upgrading some of their equipment they have some of the trailers and we'd love to see those trailers decorated with the sound and spirit of Columbus um as as opposed to what they what they were before and so the total um in the Ops budget increase is about um 12% um but this one you know the operations fund budget is a little bit different than the education fund budget Mr Stenner to your point a lot of these are onetime expenditures and they're not ongoing and so to see that draw down of a $4 million amount on the cash balance that's not

049an ongoing thing that we would see year after year any questions on operation fund budget before I move on which line items is the transfer from education covering for operations that is on the education fund side because it comes from education fund toer operations and so that's in the um other line on revenues there the 13.1 million yeah but if I recall you mentioned that this was to cover stuff that priorly was covered like what's like can you give an example of what that would be so all custodial costs used to be in the general fund um actually all a superintendent's office and all the assistant superintendent some of the technology so if it's not classroom technology then it went over to the operation side so um any software or Hardware that's related to District

050programs like board docs for example comes out of the operation side but a student who's using um learning software on their Chromebook that's coming out of the education fund side thank you yeah a real quick question uh you mentioned the buses are not buses but trailers for band um are we paying somebody to do the design work on that all that is still to be determined the band directors are probably sitting at home right now watching this online saying what you're you appropriate money for us well they haven't had those discussions with them at this point the reason why I ask is is it would be a good opportunity to use C4 graphic arts department to give them an opportunity to kind of put themselves into that so it's not about solely saving money I'm

051assuming the design cost is probably a minuscule compared to the cost of actually doing the artwork and everything on the trailers but it would be something cool for a possible senior project or something like that so thanks for that I was going to ask um so at the end of 24 the projected ending balances you know 14 million here I think 6 and a half million on the other um when does the dlgf start to say you've got too much inbalances at the end of the year and you need to make some adjustments I mean obviously we're we're moving to shave that a little bit in both of these funds but have we gotten feedback from them um they only do that formally on The Debt Service funds the the amount of cash you can

052carry on The Debt Service fund is limited by law and if you even if the board um approved a budget that had a larger cash balance when we got our budget order from them they will just reduce it um because what the board approves is a maximum um I know that Folks at the state have looked at Cash balances they're publicly available anyone can run a report online and find out what all the district's cash balances are there um but I think there's an understanding so we were this is is the only time in history at least modern history that I've seen this at bcse when you look back at our books but we also we came out of covid where we didn't drive buses you know for the better part of a school year

053we didn't use as much electricity and so some cash balance built up on that time obviously but then it was followed by Esser funds coming in to help us with HVAC improvements Personnel all those other things those two things combined to see basically almost every District in the state see their cash balances increase um and knowing that is not going to last forever um I would expect to see Statewide the trend of what we're showing you here let's make sure we put some of that that cash balance towards responsibly drawing it down and investing in place that we places that we believe in our people and Safety and Security and Equipment that's that are valuable one-time Investments thank you you're welcome yeah I was going to ask a similar question and I know that was

054mentioned about putting 2026 up here but if you're going from 2024 to 2025 and you're reducing your cash balance by about 4 million you're looking about 30 to 40% reduction so it would be nice to see where does that go zero or negative because I I never expect a budget to decrease but I didn't expect it to increase 11% so um just thinking about that it would be nice to see where that projects out to zero because at some point then there is going to have to be discussion around tax rate I uh I understand completely um and and that's a natural instinct I I will point out that on really the only increases that are ongoing you know they only total up to that you know somewhere under a million dollar total the other

055things are all one time um you know you spend the money on the equipment and then it's and it's purchased not to say you won't have to replace it in 10 or 15 years depending on technology um but my predecessor used to say um we can do all the projections that we want with school budgets and then the next legislative session all of that is changed um and so we will do um a projection U but it's it's likely to change three times between now and the end yeah and and I'm fine with it Chang in because we'll be able to tell a story but if we don't look at it and we don't take into account that inflation could rise we don't know what's going to happen at the end of this year right

056there's an election coming up we know that businesses change their minds on how they want to do things depending on who's going to win and so that will end up having an impact and we if we look at it today we can plan for it tomorrow if we wait till tomorrow it might be too late that's all I'm getting at thank you hey Dr bosan I'm sure we've seen this at some point and I've forgotten but with all of our facilities projects we are doing a lot of electrical work we are improving HVAC we're doing a lot of things to become more efficient um I wouldn't expect to see it in the budget here but in 2030 do you think all of your design from Power could explain to us what we should be able

057to see in a decrease in electricity usage water usage those types of things from an environmental impact perspective uh yes so we work towards those things now um similarly I'll mention um Dr Phillips mentioned the the increase in utilities here because of a little bit of catchup but we've um as you recall over the past six or seven years put substantial amount of funding into those items that you're citing already in solar and LED lights across the board um so interestingly our our expenditures have only increased slightly during that time although um the utility companies and water costs and everything have uh those rates have increased dramatically so we've been able to tread water um so to speak and manage uh Duke for example having um two rate cases during my time of you know

05815 and 20% um increases that our expenditures have been have been the same so um so yeah we've been able to maintain expenditures now because of those improvements but um to your question with our long range facility planning um all those are definitely being considered and and we can provide a review to you as well thank you all right thank you so here is the slide that goes into the detail on the transfer transfers between operations and education um the expenditures that moved to operations from education total just under $14 million so those are all the expenditures that would have been in the old general fund before this law changed the expend that move the other direction that moved from operations those are almost all technology um that total 4.8 million so the net between

059the two would have been 9.1 million when Dr Boseman and Mr berer and I sat down and looked at the the um education fund fund versus the operations fund our recommendation to you this evening is to reduce that 9.1 million to just about $8 million um because of the cash balance in the operations fund and the only other Factor taking into account which was a a large amount of conversation last year you'll remember was the $250,000 transfer um for curricular materials we had budgeted for it in the operation ref operating referendum um but there was a lot of discussion about what the best place for that was and we said let's just pass the budget and then we'll look at it at the end of this year before we make that before we make that

060transfer and so this accounts for that $250,000 for the next four years basically um and would result in it coming from operations instead of the education fund and so when you look back at the uh I keep using my keyboard and that's not working because it's not attached when you look at the education fund budget our recommendation down there in the right hand corner for the transfers to operations is just under 8 million instead of the 9.1 that would be if you if you uh transferred all of those expenditures and so um the recommendation is for 20 25 transfer from education. operations is right at 8 million which is about 88.4% of the budget which um the state puts a cap on that amount at 15% and so we're we remain well below that cap

061I know this part can be one of the most confusing part of the budgets the parts of the budget any questions on that transfer between those two funds I've beat it to death in previous budget hearing so I understand so The Debt Service fund is where you're going to see the biggest change um and that is actually part partially as a result of the um the decrease in the tax rate on the operations side that I mentioned earlier as well as the operating referendum side that I'll show you here in a minute um and so the we eliminated um paid off some debt in 2024 by the end of this year we make our final payments um of somewhere about $6 million in payments that we're making in 2024 that we won't make in 2025

062because we pay off those old bonds and then um we anticipate we will have the capacity to make a nearly $10 million payment on the first phase of the Envision 2030 projects um with still keeping the tax rate flat um and again that's because of the fact that the operations fund and operating referendum fund rate will go down to the extent that this uh saves us some money in the long run the larger payments you make on the front end of them mortgage for example the less interest you pay in the long run and so that should be helpful so those are that's the only significant change the lines that have a dollar amount in 2024 um and Don in 2025 those are bonds that we're paying off and then the um 20124 lease rental

063um Envision 2030 phase one a payment of just under 10 million is the net total difference between those two those two lines what questions can I answer for you on The Debt Service fund so my assumption is the reason of going 10 million on The Envision 2030 versus trying to pay off the others is the interest rates were less favorable to the most recent correct and and we uh making additional payments on the old bonds um don't benefit us because the payment schedule the ammortization schedule is already defined the rate is set you know we pay it as it's determined they do have different periods when those old bonds can be refunded at a lower rate and we almost always take advantage of that but we don't have one of those coming up for a

064few years fair enough all right the next one is uh almost exactly like the previous year this is the high school uh two 2010 High School renovation project Debt Service fund it's separate because it was passed on a referendum back in 2008 I believe and so that payment will continue through 2029 when it is paid off and then the last part of the um tax supported budgets that we're asking the board to approve the board has to approve um before November 1st is the operating referendum fund um and the operating referendum fund is also capped at that 4% increase in the levy regardless of what happens with the assessed value um you can see the salary and benefit increases for uh teachers going up by about $1.1 million and that's just a continued result of

065more and more teachers qualifying for those payments because they're staying it's a it's a evidence that that is actually working because we have more teachers that staying till their fifth year and their 10th year and their 15th year uh when they get those uh larger increases the rest of the budget is essentially the same with the exception of of the bottom line which is an elimination of that $250,000 transfer for curricular materials so the the question I had on this we talked about sro's earlier the the numbers here for safety security mental health look like they in total are either flat or lower and it doesn't follow the trend with the teacher salary at at the top for the Safety and Security are are the costs captured for SRO in what we talked about earlier

066or here because this this number I wouldn't expect it to go down it's both and so we pay for some of the um SRO from the operating referendum fund and the rest from the operations fund um but we put out a budget for the eight years of the operating referendum that's on the website and so I have not varied with the exception of the teacher salary line because it reflects actuals I have not varied from that budget in the operating referendum side just for transparency sake so we said I'm going to make up a number and say that was a $200,000 that we said we would spend in 2025 on sro's and so I kept it at that level um and then I think it increases 5% each year um there is um the ability

067to do that and revenues would support increasing that line but again I just keep continue to keep that line the same because that's what we put out there when we pass the referendum okay so the 345 to the 311 what that's in particular what I just don't understand why that decreased especially when earlier it was talk about the cost for an Sr increase so does that 345 to 311 does that mean we have fewer people no or we're just taking the money from some other account it's actually the Professional Services line for SRO since they're not employed by us we pay we pay the city and the county that number also went down though by $53,000 yeah um but it's not the SRO portion of that it would be other salaries um for um therapists

068um we part we uh contract with family services to provide some therapists in some of our buildings that's the portion that actually went down from the prior year yeah and it's not I'm not trying to make a big deal out of it because it's not M much money at all it just didn't it didn't seem seems counterintuitive that it does others go up and that goes down both of them and so maybe we can talk about it a little bit deeper when we get the the full budget to understand it okay yeah I'll send the so as we usually do we get through tonight and the end of this week or so the budget we'll send the full budget book to the whole board and put it online so everyone in public can can pour

069through about 120 pages of line items in the in the budget so the the operating F referendum and the high school referendum those are funded by obviously referendums there's streams that are associated ass with that The Debt Service fund is that just from Surplus property tax revenue so everything but the education fund up here the revenues come from property taxes and then the associated taxes with those it's exi tax and financial institution tax um the operations fund has some other revenue streams um like if we uh the ffy pays us to use our buses to transport kids every day there's some more in there but the two Debt Service funds the operating referendum and the operations fund those are all primary those are the ones that property taxes pay for and drive that tax rate

070okay um summarizing then this is the slide with the the total budget um last year12 $2.2 million and then proposed for 2025 is $1 168.5 million total increase of um about 10.7% um but I do want to point out that the about 6.1 million of that is drawing down from existing cash and so if you take that out you would say that we're going to increase revenues from other sources about 6.7% and then the last slide I usually like to show you to is just a a reminder of where we are from a cash balance history um and so in the education fund you saw at the beginning of the year we were just under 6.4 rainy day fund hasn't changed um in a in a few years uh operations been right around that 14

071million for the last couple of years the operating referendum fund was just over 3 million and then the debt funds are the ones that we have seen an in a decline every year and I remind you each time that that will continue as new debt replaces old debt because that's the one that's the one fund that the dgf says you can only carry a certain amount of cash based on the next year's payment and it's 15% of the next year's payment and so reminder the next step is two weeks from tonight when there'll be a public hearing um and then a month later we'll have the vote on the the final advertised rate Levy and budget go back to this slide and ask if there are any other questions before we move on I've just

072got a quick one Dr Phillips that I think it's the following slide after this one that's got the uh yeah is there kind of a rule of thumb or a recommendation for for % of total budget that should be kept in the rainy day account um so everyone uses the Randy Day Count a little bit differently we don't touch the Randy day fund in our district some districts budget it each year and then carry over the balance from year to year but so we generally look at the the dollars that are available for us to spend are education fund rainy day fund operations fund and operating referendum the debt funds we can't touch for anything else they make payments on existing debt um so when you add those four columns up that's generally the cash

073balance that we have in place um and the the general recommendation for public entities is between 8 and 12% of expenditures is what you would want to have on on hand and so on a $160 million budget you can do that 12 and half 26 uh just about 30 million on a $160 million budget you can do the math there we're a little higher than what you would recommend or what the general recommendation is which is why we're moving to draw them down responsibly and if I recall correctly we I think it was a couple meetings ago we had the cash balances up there and operations fund was set to have a fairly high jump is this I'm seeing this is January 1 so this doesn't account for that jump that was planned for this

074year correct okay yeah it's just going back it doesn't have estimates for this coming year end okay we will send out the the larger budget book um within the next week and look forward to the hearing on the 23rd thank you okay next on the agenda is public comments so I'll remind everybody of our process here um if you ever want to speak at a board meeting when you come in the door here at the admin building there's a blue sheet on the table uh you just put your name on here we ask for your address make sure you're a resident um and then you can put the topic that you'd like to speak on you will get 3 minutes it will be on the clock over there so you can see that as you

075speak I ask that you stick to the 3 minutes and and I'll have you wrap up um you can defer to a spokesperson if somebody before you has spoken on a topic and they said exactly or very similarly to what you would have said you could say I just agree with so and so and and decide not to add to that uh please don't use names as specific individuals staff members specific positions it's the same thing um we want to make sure we keep this professional and talk on topics not people and um no cheers and geers from the audience it can be intimidating for people to come up and speak in front of this group group on YouTube and so I want to make sure that everyone feels comfortable doing that and we maintain

076a professional environment here so with that I have Brenda Clark first my name is Brenda Clark and I wanted to speak tonight on bcsc's policy 5516 we have members of my family that have been traumatized humiliated embarrassed I have put in 18 phone calls since February to schools and to this building to speak to people I have had one phone call returned my grandson which I have guard ship of received death threats and in today's world and what just happened in Georgia I have read your policy 5516 none of these children are getting even a slap on the wrist for what they are doing to other children and I think it is something that needs to be addressed even though it is Bartholomew County it can happen here we pulled our son out of our

077grandson out of bcsc and put him in a private school because we feared for his life shouldn't be that way schools should be a safe place for every child every teacher every employee and it just saddens me it breaks my heart when my grandchild come running to me they're afraid to go to school they're embarrassed it's not right and something should be done all I'm asking enforce your own policy I I don't think that's asking too much and I'm sorry this is off what you're talking about tonight you're talking about money I'm talking about safety for our children and and workers our children are our future please do everything you can to keep them safe I I don't like it that I have two grand two other grandchildren in the school system and they do

078not want to get up and go to school at all because of what they have to endure thank you it's okay thank you Miss Clark uh Mark NE Muller Mark niller of South Gladstone Avenue about my book complaint against uh push the Review Committee and principal Parson's denial of my complaint are based on Indiana codes codes that are in bcsc's book complaint policy the committee's letter goes into great detail arguing how the book complies with state law but since my complaint does not allege that the book violates the law that argument is moot Indiana Law does not apply here let alone require that the book remain in the school library therefore the basis of my complaint has not been addressed let alone ref uted my complaint is only that pushes large amount of extremely profane

079and vulgar descriptions of sex acts organs and situations is not changed by a good overall message push has far more OBS sinity than any other book in East Library a reality that is not changed by a good message or state law pushes degree of obscene content makes it unsuitable for the School library excuse me this position is based on the most fundamental standards of our community while the book does not violate the law it clearly violates our community standards while it's true that push has push has some good messages no amount of good context whether literary artistic or scientific can magically make the obscene Parts suitable for the school library or comply with community standards for example our local paper never publishes obscene language in its educational articles if anything represents Community standards it is

080the local newspaper also the student handbook of East High School apparently follows the same Community standards in multiple Parts it strictly forbids students or teachers from using profanity or vulgarity in school also the movie version of push is rated R and cannot be shown to minors without a parent even though the movie Precious is a toned down version of push a school library cannot legally have it in none of these examples does a good message justify obscenity in fact if a teacher at East were to use profanity or vulgarity to teach in class he would be subject to disciplinary consequences and if a teacher were to read parts of push allowed in class he could be fired there are countless other examples showing that good messages do not make the degree of obscene language in

081push suitable for minors All In All State law is an invalid basis for denying this complaint and in no way prevents this board from choosing a higher standard of reading for its students and voting to screen this book Thank you thank you Mr NE M uh Samantha is hello um today I want to address the issue of teacher safety being at the top of the Department of Education staff attacks by students report should be embarrassing to this Administration and board teachers are the backbone of our educational system they are individuals who edicate their dedicate their lives to educating guiding and inspiring our youth they take on the profession with a passion of commitment going above and beyond to nurture the minds of our Future Leaders any threat to their safety can create an atmosphere of

082fear and distraction which can affect the ability to teach effectively and connect with their students over the past week I have had teachers who have fled the Beast CSC School District reach out to me explaining the chaos they have been told to work through testimonies of teachers being smacked punched kicked tackled and strangled expected to come to work the next day and work with the same students I have also had concerned community members reach out with the similar events while I have watched these School Board me meetings over the past few years there has been no stress on safety if anything our schools are becoming less safe due to the attacks on these teachers but also the lack of the security and structure this board has created we must stop with the it never happens

083to us mentality and recognize that it is happening to us we must be proactive instead of reactive and stop with this and I quote if someone wants to hurt you they will mindset we have a massive issue that needs to be addressed immediately not only at school but at home our teachers deserve better our students deserve better and our community deserves better and our core belief should also say learning is most effective when our children and teachers are safe thank you thank you Cole Bennett good evening bcsc School Board my name is Cole Bennett I live on the North side of Columbus and I'm also here to speak about student safety but from a different angle looking through your agenda I'm pretty disappointed that there has been no mention of the mass shooting that occurred

084in Georgia this past week um were four innocent people two children and two teachers lost their lives and honestly I'm not surprised because we become so desensitized to mass shootings in the United States um but as someone who grew up learning how to hide under a table before I knew all the names of all States I think this issue Bears um some recognition and I I remember when I was in sixth grade over at Parkside asking my teacher after Sandy Hook in 2011 asking her are we safe here and I think about this grandmother whose grandchild asked the same question I know kids are asking the same question they're scared to go to school and while I'm thrilled to hear that there's been a $2 million investment in according to the operations budget for Safety

085and Security I think there needs to be more you can't tell me in a $38 million budget there's not some room for cutting back I mean we need metal detectors in all schools one exit one entrance policies we need more SRO I was at the citizens UK Academy through the Columbus Police Department learning about sro's there can't there isn't one at every school all the time they have to transport to different schools there needs to be one present at all times this is the ity that we live in and have been living in ever since I was in elementary school I feel like little to nothing has changed and we just don't even recognize it anymore we just gloss over it like it's not important I think children's lives are important because children deserve to

086feel safe at school and I read the Republic this past Saturday talking about how DCS is enthralled especially here in Bartholomew County they've already had 117 substantiated cases of child AB abuse and neglect kids deserve to come to a safe school and I think this is the future of America and what are we teaching children when they're not even feeling safe in their own schools where they should be I hate that we're here I hate that this is happening across the country but this is an excellent opportunity at the local level and I'm not talking guns because I know you guys can't legislate that at all I'm talking about common sense solutions that you can support and I'm not talking four-year plan 5year plan I want to know something that's being done today this month

087this year to protect our kids and I applaud the SRO that already work they do excellent work and you know liberals will say that we're milit militarizing schools conservatives will say that it's too expensive number one I had a great relationship with Officer Stevens and number two like I said $38 million in an operations budget there's some room for cutting for safety thank you thank you Mr Bennett okay that's all we had for public comments today next on the agenda all right thank you we have old business the minutes of the regular school board meeting from August 19th the work session prior to that on the same date and the minutes from the executive session on September 6th of 2024 I move that we approve uh item 7 a through C is presented a second

088thank you we have a motion and a second to approve items 7 a through C all those in favor please say I I all those opposed please say nay motion carries thank you on uh request for approval under new business we have the supplemental contracts regular supplemental contracts uh field trips and professional leaves as well as school fundraisers and claims and payroll the claims for September 9th 2024 and through today's date and also the uh August 11th 2024 payroll I will uh we'll come back to other new items and I'll request approval for items 8 a through 8D I move that we approve items under new business uh under number eight a through D is presented by Dr Phillips second thank you Mr Grimes and Mr Schultz a motion and second are there any questions

089or comments on items 8 a through D before we go to vote none from the team okay all those in favor of approving items 8 a through D please say I all those opposed please say nay motion carries thank you and then I'm not sure how you all want to approach um items the other items on the agenda if you want to take them one at a time or I think um Dr Phillips why don't you just go through the entire list and then we'll let the board make motions as they see fit sounds good uh the remaining uh new business item M items e through I included a determination regarding the contested library book push from Columbus East High School approval of the reorganization of board policies the first package that went through its

090first reading at the last board meeting um permission to uh donate uh excess equipment from Columbus East High School uh from Dr boseman's materials sent to the board before and then also um closing out the field lighting at Columbus East and Columbus North uh high schools a reduction in the final um change order for that project as well as the same for the north side Chiller replacement both of those are final closing out of the contract and both result in a net reduction of the contract so I do request approval of items 8e through AI I'll ask that e be pulled out okay okay do I have a motion from the board I have a motion to amend uh line item e to where it changes it from providing General access of the book push

091to access requiring parental consent prior to second okay so I believe and I'm looking at my good friend Mr Mr mcgyver over there we have a motion in a second to amend item e which would require a parental consent to um check out the book push do we vote on the amendment or we have vote on amended e because those are two slightly different things I just want to make sure we're doing this correctly you are obl ated by your policy to make a determination on the book challenge so I want to be clear what Mr Schultz your amendment is so the last line says that the book shall remain on shelf I believe if I recall that is being recommended to be amended to requiring the parental consent prior taxes something to that effect

092I'm pulling up the document real quick you're good so I think the first step so Mr Schultz included in your packet was a proposed document proposed findings for the board to be considered under item e the request requested proposed amendment um in front of the board is that those findings would be amended so that the conclusion that the board is making as part of those findings as it is prepared today it says the decision of the evaluation committee is upheld and the book May remain on the shelves of Columbus D high school media center the proposed amendment is that that finding would be that conclusion would be modified to say with a parental consent to access it so Mrs wield into your question I think the first step for the board would be to vote

093on that amendment is the board willing to make that agreement make that Amendment okay okay and what is needed in order for that amendment to be made as a majority correct that is as in the past when we have looked at like amending the words of a policy that is that is in front of the board a draft policy effectively that's where we're at at this point is is amending that proposed finding that's in there okay okay so the motion and the second that we all need to decide on is whether we want to amend e to include a step for there to be parental consent in order to check out the book push all those in yes discussion discussion discussion thank you than you Mr Stenner Mr want to say something I appreciate it

094Mr Stenner and again right is I I know it was kind of misunderstood in the last one um whenever we're voting on one of these things there's like nine or 10 items and if you don't agree with all of them you have to vote no and the last item is essentially General access right and so that's what I just motioned to amend I want to make sure it's clear like no one is act no one is recommending the term Banning books or removing books from the library the the argument and the discussion here which has been a gap I think on the political rhetoric is whether or not the parent has the ability to consent prior to the general access I think it's really important that we lower the temperature of this concern just given

095the act the issues that we've had locally um but also the issues that we have nationally across this and uh although the book has a great message I mean I read it and reviewed it um it's 136 Pages it's got nearly 400 obscenities and vulgarity it's got hundreds of usal uses of racial slurs and derogatory terms that I would never want my children um to use or consider used in everyday language um and it also has several accounts of detailed sexual abuse and child rape which I don't find appropriate as I'm sure this camera is staring in my general direction to detail those accounts especially as we hope the children are uh you know getting involved in the Civic minded process and watching this um I just know that if this book was given as

096classroom literature as I've talked with teachers across the district when they hand out stuff for literature it would require parental consent um as I believe Mr ner said it's an R-rated movie on a toned down version of the book can't really get it into the classroom without parental consent and it's really the same content same children and I'm just not understanding the different outcomes but again right that's what I want the board to see is a clean motion um around parental consent not around removing Banning or restriction sections or anything like that of the book and really the question here is are the parents going to be afforded the ability for consent prior to this adult content reaching their children as the father of daughters that have taken and had that same abuse done to

097them I would like that ability and I don't know why we're not affording the parents that ability and I know the options are going to be you can review everything in the library catalog and go line by line and request it I just don't think that's a a what we call you know accessible options to people that are barely making it by and are working in a lot of cases two jobs to scroll the of our library and especially now that I mean as the father of uh elementary school children finding out that now there's a self checkout option in the libraries which is a new thing to me I don't know how it would even be policed in the first place so I'm just saying as a father of daughters that took on that

098abuse I would like to be able to give afford the ability to have the consent before that would make it to my teenage daughter's hands and so that's why I'm making this motion okay any other comments or questions from the team yeah this is this is never easy um you know I I've done this once before um again read the whole book I I probably had a slightly different count of bad words I went through and highlighted Every curse word derogatory word in the book I counted 363 of them and 36 Pages for 2.7 per page I mean just me trying to go through this right now makes me almost want to throw up right I mean this is just it's from a standpoint of having these books challenged the parental approval takes the challenge

099away right so in the words of the author in the afterward too often controversial texts are not taught regularly in the classroom because teachers themselves are not confident enough to engage engage their students in discussion of the recognizably challenging and sensitive subject matter I the the words I mean there's there I'm not going to even say them there's so many of them um but this I'm going to just read this because this is what I found to be the most abhorent portion of the book and I get you have to tell a story but this isn't even an autobiography or a biography it's all fiction so the author can use whatever words or stories that they feel to be appropriate so this is this portion has the mother the father and a baby in part

100of this Carl got my titty in his mouth nothing wrong with that it's natural but I think that that's the day it started I don't ever remember nothing before that I hot he sucking my titty my eyes closed I know he getting hard I can see without my eyes I love him so much mhm I was raised by a psycho Maniac fool he climbed on me you know you understand no tell us some more you stupid so he on me then he reached over to Precious now precious is a baby start with his finger between her legs I say Carl what are you doing he say shut your big ass up this is good for her then he get off me take her Pampers off and try and stick his thing in Precious you know

101what tripped me out it almost can go in Precious I think she's some kind of freak baby then I say to Carl stop I want him on me I never wanted him to hurt her I'm shaken reading that and you know as far as I'm concerned I'm sure you understand how I'm going to vote this this should be something that a parent can give approval to their child to read Because I bet most everybody in this room right now can't even look up probably without shaking their head and thinking what the hell did he just say and so you know we all want to sit here and talk about all of us being adults I'm 49 years old I don't understand this right I don't understand why it's necessary to tell a story I think

102there's so many other ways to tell a story and I would challenge any real doctor to come in here and say that we fight trauma with reintroduction to trauma so I this is beyond the pale any other comments or questions from the board before we go to a vote on the motion to amend sure I I'm wondered if uh Dr Phillips or somebody from the administration could remind me I think we've talked about this in the past if a parent is concerned about a book and their child having access to it or even a a style of book or a book that addresses certain topics what under the current system what what do they do to make sure that their children don't see a book or a book that deals with certain subjects with any

103concern including one like this the one that you described the step we always request parents to take is reach out to your child's teacher first and then um the building Administration or person closest to the issue if it was a library book it would be the the librarian or Media Center Specialists so contacting the school and saying making a request that their student not have access to the book and are you aware of teachers or Librarians not being willing to do that no I'll go ahead I this may be I I was going to speak a little later but now seems like an appropriate time so as a high school educator for the past 34 years and and currently having four grandsons all attending bcsc schools I I do feel compelled to provide just a

104brief statement on uh that explains my stance on the book push and I can say that I did read push in its entirety twice in an honest sincere effort to understand both sides of the issue of which I think both sides have very valid very valid points and I can also say each time that I read the book it it was a very emotional experience for me and so I'm not sure that anybody could argue that parts of the book's contents aren't extremely graphic horrifying and raw a as they describe the the sexual physical emotional abuse that the book's main character precious had to endure I can tell you after 34 years in education most of those spent working with kids that would be considered at risk I have heard remarkably similar or and believe

105it or not even worse stories than that depicted in push and so I as Mr Bennett alluded to earlier um you know we don't have to look far to find cases of devastating C circumstances that today's youth are exposed to um as he stated you know the main headline in Saturday's Republic was child well welfare cases soore in the county and the article went on to describe several heartbreaking cases of what children in barthol County have been put through in the recent past and so all things considered to me push isn't just a book that describes often in very Vivid detail the atrocities that precious had to endure it's most importantly at least in my opinion a book about hope it's a book about a girl coming to realize what happened to her was not

106her fault it's a book about a girl realizing she's not alone in the world as she met others that had also endured unspe unspeakable abuse which helped her to feel alive inside it's a book about the power of education and the positive impact a teacher or any other caring adult can have in a child's life and as precious gradually learned how to read and write her confidence and self-worth also took a positive trajectory it's a book about resil y connection and the incredible power of positive relationships and lastly I'll just say again I believe it's a book about Hope and it's my hope for those that have endured terrible distresses similar to that as precious in the book that if they might happen to read the book that they can realize that they're not alone

107and it's not their fault as for others that might happen to read the book I hope they may develop a heightened sense of compassion for others and a willingness to do what they are able to do in order to help so many of our youth that are that are currently hurting and struggling that's it so I was going to save my comments for later too but I guess I'll throw them out here now um so I read it last summer because I decided to proactively read some of these books and it was one of the most uncomfortable books I've ever read um I looked up about the author and and it's it is fiction but the author was a remedial reading teacher in New York City and it's actually a compilation of many stories that

108she heard from many students um and that made a difference to me but I think whether we remove it from the shelf or whether we somehow label it as controversial I would like to think of it from the perspective of two different groups of students and one is students that have experienced one or more of these traumas if we remove it or we label it somehow a a controversial book that sends the message to them that their stories and their experience es there's something wrong with them and it's it's not what people did to them but there's something wrong with what they experienced in their life and I that's not a message I want to send to kids the other students that I think it's important for is students who have never experienced that um

109as as difficult as it is to read I hope that one thing our um students get out of their bcsc experience is um is empathy for others that have experienced things that they have not experienced and and that's one of the things I got out of this book and the and the other big thing out I got of this book to go along with what Mr Grimes said um I'm a retire teacher but I'm always a teacher and and to see the impact that a positive relationship between a teacher and a student can have on that student when I got done I wanted every teacher I know to read the book because um it's an inspiration in terms of the impact a teacher can have when a teacher sees potential and value and something to

110respect in a student that didn't see that in herself thank you anything I get to speak now yes if you'd like to I understand Logan I understand what you're saying with my past experience in law enforcement I seen all of this happened to people and everybody wants to push it under the carpet they don't want it to be brought out some way we have to bring it out and let people know that this is happening to our kids period not just this book but people need to speak up and speak out about how things are happening here in beamia county in the state of Indiana and in this nation that book is not going to it's not going to poison a person's mind but it's also going to help some kids speak up for themselves

111and that's what I feel the book does done thank you Mr Bryant I do have one question in response to Chad or Dr Phillips to Mr Center when you mentioned that there's ways to you know obviously work with Librarians and teachers how does that work with the new self-checkout process across a lot of the schools cuz like so for example my daughter explained her process of going through and she was in when there when there was no librarian so how would that work if there isn't a person present in the library I would have to look into it but between the child's teacher um and the librarian knowing if a class was coming with that student in it um just to put those safeguards in place I'm making assumptions there that that's how they would

112approach it particularly yeah school from a fourth grader's view there could have been someone in the room for all I know but that was her description of the process and and Mr Brian I know you would use Pat but I really appreciate what you said and although I I I I brought this more from a heart right because I do experience this for my own two daughters and I've had more DCS therapists in my home that I have fingers and toes like no therapist has ever said you solve trauma with more trauma that just creates PTSD and triggers what they they always give is how do you get to the proactive ways like how you mentioned to break this out and that's proper education of sexual abuse and that needs to be the Forefront of

113any mitigation plan for those with sexual Abus is and that like I actually just consulted with three therapists before I came here and they're like the number of people that will start you know expressing their risks in that second to third grade window when they start saying you know the Good Touch Bad Touch conversations that's the most critical element of a proactive mitigation plan and so I appreciate that bcsc does it a book that I believe has been checked out less than a half dozen times over how many years I don't I don't see it it was it was checked out 15 times since 2009 the other book that they had because they had two copies was purchased in 2010 checked out 14 times it was marked lost in 2015 so since 2015 it's a

114handful of times once a year it's never been required reading by Any teacher um and that kind of ties to the media resource you know it's to sport School curriculum student learning student interests so and the movie Precious has never been shown which is rated R okay and would require a parental permission thank you Mr major um so I'm going to take us back to the task at hand for the group to remind everybody there is a process to um request a book be removed Mr Nea went through that process once a request is made there's a committee form to review that request that committee makes a recommendation their recommendation was to keep the book in the library Mr ner then has 30 days from receiving that in order to petition that it be escalated

115to the board for a decision once we receive that request which we did formally in our July 15th meeting we have 60 days by which we need to make a decision and then and then go back to Mr ner with our final decision which is what is happening tonight in this meeting so we do need to make a decision tonight I think the motion in the second that we need to decide on first is whether we would like to amend item 8e to include a requirement that a permission FP in effect parental consent yeah parental consent would um be required for anybody to check this book out so in this vote if you vote yay you would like for that to be a requirement added to 8e if you vote nay then you do not

116is that is everybody clear with that it's a little different than normal okay so we are voting on I'm I'm sorry the I don't know what the audience is doing okay we're asking if we can do aoll call something so um I think it will be notice we can raise hands but yay and will raise hands would that be okay it would decision any someone from have to request I I was just distracted by the Motions in the audience sorry we'll write down your Nam okay that's fine that's fine no problem um so so real quick yay is we do want parental sign off nay is we don't yes okay so the motion that has been made is to amend the proposed findings as they were written it just said remain on the shelves this

117first question is do you want to add to that available with parental consent right that's what that's why I said and are we raising our hands or are we what's the plan here make sure ra my hand okay we'll raise our hand okay I I if the members of the audience if we have a time for public comment this is not it y go ahead and call the vote the way you think Y and we can see mouth's move you can you can see us I okay yay or nay from the team if that's okay if th vote yay if you would like item 8 e to add parental consent required okay yeah okay two yays all those opposed say nay nay it was a 25 vote that motion is denied I now need a

118motion from the board regarding item 8e I would move that we approve item 8e as originally presented to us in our board packet I second Mr Gres thank you Mr n all those in favor of approving item 8 e as presented tonight in the packet please say yay y all those opposed say nay motion carries okay we have items 8 F through I still on the table for the team I move to propose l in items 8 f do I as presented second thank you Mr Schultz and Mr Bryant we have a motion to approve items 8 F through I all those in favor please say I I all those oppose please say nay motion carries 70 thank you thank you president won Dr Philip and members of the board of school trustees the five

119Human Resources recommendations for this evening consist of two appointments two resignations 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 the HR recommendations as presented by Dr stal Bal second thank you Mr Grimes and Mr Bryant any comments or questions okay all those in favor of approving HR recommendations as presented please say I I all those opposed please say nay motion carries Dr stom there are two additional Personnel recommendations for this evening and I request that you please approve the additional Personnel recommendations as presented in the board packet I move to approve the additional human resource recommendations as presented second thank you Mr Schultz and Mr Maj all those in favor of approving additional Human Resources recommendations please say

120I I all those opposed please say nay thank you motion carries Dr stom okay board input and review Miss Jan Allen would you like to start please I don't think I have anything okay I'll render myself speechless today okay Mr Schultz hey a a thank you to Mrs vogle Mr Finley Miss dwire Mrs Meyers for uh your presentation on Unified sports and activities in bcsc that's much appreciated um also thank you to do Phillips for taking on his old role tonight and providing yet another thorough well explained um taking us through the budget and then lastly a a sincere thank you for the four community members that spoke here this evening and for all others that were in attendance thank you for taking the time to be here thank you Mr Gs um it was

121mentioned earlier I just want to point out in two days it is September 11th so I just ask that everybody find a police officer a fireman Emergency Services somebody that takes really great care of us and appreciate them this week that's all thank you Dr Phillips Mr Stenner do you have anything um great comments made already I'll just ditto thank you Mr major anything yeah from uh you know I'll Echo the Unified sports comments uh I think one of the things that I've been able to observe as my daughter went through high school was just the leadership that several of the high school students were able to uh show just with the the excitement enthusiasm and engagement that they had within Unified sports the leadership they were able to to develop along with giving many

122young children young students and teenagers uh opportunities to go out and do something that is a little bit harder for them to do than the average kid and uh be successful see success and understand that uh that there's opportunities for them to you know do a lot of different things in their life that they might not have thought they could so great job to everybody that supports that uh hopefully we see those numbers Rise um you know postco obviously there's a dip but hopefully we can see that number continue to rise so thanks to everybody that works on that uh committee and initiative Mr Bryant if you haven't been to a sports event like the UniFi you need to go that's all I have to say you need to go thank you Mr Brant oh

123thank you so officer Sam I'm sitting back here Mrs won can I just add a couple of notes yes of course I I'll start with one sad one and then move on to to happy ones I want to thank Mr V Bennett for bringing in front of us um a reminder of the events that happened down in Georgia from last week it is a sad commentary that they very quickly Fade Into the background of Our Lives um when we have another school shooting and so thanks for reminding us um that those things cannot become common place and then on a more positive note I promise to not always just recount my weekend in front of you but this this weekend was tremendous so Friday night the Indiana Department Department of Education honored uh a number

124of schools and Educators from across the state but um Veronica buckler who was our top 10 teacher from last year top 10 teacher in the state last year was honored as well as um uh twanette Miller at Schmidt who was the state's rise Award winner for classified staff so it was a great event downtown everybody gets to dress up and have a fancy dinner um and then on Saturday morning speaking of athletic events if you haven't been to an El cross country event to watch to watch those kids uh it was 550 or so kids plus a couple parents so apologies to everybody in the Richards area who couldn't get out of their driveway this weekend at the beginning of Saturday morning but it is a terrifically fun event to watch um all of the

125kids Sprint right off the bat and then they're all walking within 200 yards with the exception of those that have learned how to Pace themselves but um those those poor third and fourth grade girls I think about a third of them by the time they finished they were crying including the winner she was crying and she was dominant she she won by a lot um but then on Sunday Columbus North had their first play I don't know how they memorized and performed and produced a play in the first month of school but it was really really well done um and so congratulations to them and then the last thing I will mention is that I attended my first ever Ganesh Festival on Sunday evening um and so I want to thank Dr Cole hutar who

126invited me to that event and then and let me uh smash the coconut on the ground to start the procession to the river um it was it was a tremendous experience next year is the 21st year of that in Columbus and it's one of the biggest uh in the state of Indiana one of the biggest U Ganesha festivals in the state of Indiana was a terrific um learning experience on my part for you know a culture that's really important to our community so thank everybody for a great weekend and just point out all of the amazing things that our kids participate in every given weekend of the year thanks for Ling thank you Dr Phillips okay our next meeting um is on September 23rd at 6:30 that will be the public hearing for the budget

127um and I'd also like to address another comment that was made tonight regarding the Department of Education report that came out last week regarding um injuries of staff there have been a lot of conversations um since that report came out and we're providing the administrative team some time to to kind of present that data to us and help us answer some of the questions that we have regarding that information so just be on the lookout for that agenda if it can make it into the 23rd I think we'd all like it to um or it may be a different session altoe but um I think we all agree we need to respond and understand that information better so that we can have a good plan going forward we're just not sure exactly where it fits

128so um so next meeting in here September 23rd at 6:30 p.m. with that we will be adjourned thank you