001e e good evening hi for those who are able would you mind standing and um doing the pledge of allegiance with us please I Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with li and justice for all okay we have a quorum so I will call this meeting to order Dr Phillips thank you Mrs Welden so as we always start our meetings uh reading our mission vision and reiterating our core beliefs our vision is that bcse is the choice to learn work and play our mission is to develop expert Learners by partnering with our community to invest in people and our core beliefs are that we can rise to the challenge we all can rise to the challenge of high
002expectations 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 thank you Dr Phillips thank you I think we get to start tonight with a few recognitions if you'd like to te those up that's right absolutely would love to speaking of thriving and flourishing we have um two students that we are going to recognize one whom uh one of whom was able to be here this evening and the other was not but thank you for Mr Lewis from North uh for coming and helping us recognize these students
003thanks uh Dr Phillips and congratulations on your new position uh we just always want to appreciate the fact that you guys allow us to come here and get recognized for our accomplishments as we do the right thing at Columbus North High School I think it's important for our community to to support us and I think you guys do a great job at that I'm going get out the way and I'll let Coach Sloter speak about our athlete yeah I want to Echo what Mr Lewis said it's really fun to get to come here um he kind of makes you feel important for a few minutes and uh and get to tell you guys thank you for your support um and uh Caris uh Glenn Jones um ran two events at the state meet she ran
004the 1600 and then came back later in the afternoon uh evening and placed a sixth in the 800 meter run and she uh Ran 2 minutes and 11 seconds which is now our school record she broke her school record over 3 seconds um so she had a fantastic um event and just to give you guys an idea um of how good her time was she was sixth in this race but it would have won over half the the girl state finals in in ihsa history so she had a phenomenal race and uh we got her back for a whole another year and um so we're very excited and we want to thank you guys for having us out tonight thank you Mr sler do you want to well first let's recognize Caris and you want
005to say a few words about Catherine even though she's not here just her accomplishment was pretty pretty outstanding for sure um so kathyn um Katherine won single state two years in a row which hasn't it's never been done in the history of Columbus North Athletics um she's now at Purdue her oldest sister gos to Purdue so like she's actually traveling right now playing with Purdue University basically to get better and it's it's just a great accomplishment for me to see her play and how well she does when she's out there competing against the other kids in the state so thank you thank [Laughter] you thank you you guys come on this way in the picture so the key is they got to keep got be this side of that tape oh is that the visibility
006good conat see how that turns out okay next on the agenda we have a School Board member report um we do have an appeal so we have appeal review committee's decision regarding a CS library book push have a copy of that book here with us it's been provided to the board so the way of this process works is anyone who would like to contest a book in the library submits a a form there's a Review Committee um in the event that committee uh decides to uphold the book being in the library the requestor can escalate that to the board and then we formally acknowledge that escalation at the next public board meeting which would be tonight okay we have 60 days with which to make a decision it gives us time to collect information make
007an informed decision and then that decision will take place in our board meeting on September 9th okay here we go thank you cabinet reports thank you Miss Welden our first cabinet report is coming from um Mr Williams and his team um and your new platform for both uh the board to access materials and agendas for these meetings as well as the public so for the first time this last week anyone on the public in the public could get on the board dos platform and see the agenda and also some of the materials related thank you Mr Williams good evening uh thank you for your time tonight so I am going to just briefly let everyone know about a new system that we have and it's not really a new system because board docs has housed
008their policy for a long time we're just expanding that use to include all board activities so uh and again it's open for everyone so all bcse board activities will be in this website now but that includes the agendas documents Schoolboard member information our policies as they've always been and meeting minutes so if you picked up an agenda tonight it may look a little different because Sherry and um a team is working diligently to have agendas now in board dos so there will be some changes that you will notice um and some other nice features about using board docks more fully I guess is that you get to customize security for Access so board members will have privileges to see documents that won't be available to the public public and the same as cabinet we're able
009to add the YouTube stream to the agendas pretty quickly we feel that we're able to post things in the library for public um just kind of viewing before it may become official and then they will always be there and it's accessible anywhere on any device we will keep the website open right now that still has all of the agendas and minutes from past meetings uh but moving forward this is where you can find everything so I did just a quick video there's no words in here but um or at least no sound but you can go from the main website um and get to board docs under uh the school board information and again there's lots of information still on the website but the link at the top which I'm scrolling to uh in the
010video takes you directly to board docs and it will go to the feature page so you can see events there you can go to board member Pages which are identical to the website right now um and I'd imagine that this will evolve as we get more use but the meeting minutes are in there as well you can get there under uh meetings or from that featured page and click through the agenda and you'll notice there's icons in there with the documents that are attached to each agenda item um and again this would be the public view so you're able to see exactly what is coming up at a board meeting policies will be in the same location as well and then that library is where the board member information is okay so um moving forward
011we will have the agendas posted there um the statues 48 hours before a board meeting not including Saturday Sunday so we hope to have those up at least by Thursday before the board meetings on Monday and with that we'll take any questions team have any questions is the intent of the the platform to be able to allow the public to have access prior to the meeting so when they're doing public comment they would already have the kind of similar visibility that we have except for stuff that's restricted to the executive access yes and again there's I think there's lots of features that will uncover y uh as we get more used to it but yeah I just want to then that case just say thank you for your team and generally speaking Nick when is
012material posted ahead of a board meeting so uh to the public it has to be 48 hours before the board meeting not including Saturday and Sunday so it has to be posted by Thursday night but the goal is to have it up there at least by the morning if not earlier and that's just the notification of the meeting the only thing legally required is notification of the meeting we've always published an agenda on that Thursday to the public but this actual last week on Wednesday um any of the non-confidential materials in the board meeting were also accessible to the public on Wednesday midday Wednesday before the end of the day we're going to work on a cycle and land we won't be any later than we were before on Thursday afternoons with the information going
013to the public but we're going to work on making that as early as possible and getting in a in a good flow of uh when people can expect to have those materials publicly available and eventually we will get all of the not all but at least the most recent past minutes and agendas in the links to those in the board docs too so that you don't have to go to two different places to find it but that'll take us a while yes um so will this I guess how will this be shared with with parents and families and the public so that they know it's out there and where to find it I think it's great that it's there um but sometimes locations that are obvious to us are not always obvious to actually sometimes
014things things that are obvious to other people aren't even obvious to be where they're located well our generous communication coordinators volunteered to come up here it's a great question Dale uh I know that we've already spoken with the Republic about it and so that's one Avenue uh Dr Phillips recently did a great job as first interview superintendent on wcsi so we'll have a communication cycle uh for the public in that way but also internally uh on parents Square as well as on our social media and then looks like Nick created a great how-to video that I can put on the website for people as well thank you okay all right Mr Williams you stay up there for the next one as you introduce the folks who going to talk about our uh Enrollment Center changes
015coming up yes so we have some exciting news to share um we've come across this opportunity uh last year toward the ends of last year and been working diligently on it for quite a while now uh but one of the things that we're hopefully able to offer families a more streamlined experience with is enrolling in bcsc so uh I have an amazing team here breny cumer the assistant director of educational technology TJ Skinner the student services coordinator are going to walk you through what they've been working on thank you Nick and thank you everyone for giving us time to share tonight we're very excited about these changes and I want to give you a little bit of context for why we're enacting some of these changes for enrollment in bcse so our current state is
016that we want to make our families feel as welcome as possible but it can be a little tricky especially if you have students who are in multiple grade levels in multiple buildings currently some of those families are having to go all across town and if they don't have all of the paperwork at that initial meeting with the school oftentimes they find themselves at our ISC or Information Services Center where sometimes we have to say oh you also need these forms to bring as well so not not the greatest first impression for our families we want to make sure we give them as much information and support on the front end um in addition we want to make sure that can provide language support more consistently to our families for translation and any of those needs
017so we've been working with our ml office and our new director Nicole Leech Dr Nicole Leech and making sure that this is something we can improve on and have interpreters on staff and on hand so our idea is that we'll have a centralized one location for our families to enroll so that there's resources there it's well staffed and we can meet some of those needs of our families from day one um before they even started their school so our plan is what TJ is going to talk about in our location all right so I am TJ Skinner I'm the student service coordinator with bcse um so this kind of got put under my umbrella because I have a team member retiring so we trying to change things up so student records and the enrollment center
018will be at CVP in the building um on beam road we've got everything moved in over there we've got it set up and ready to go the um we've got some signage being developed and stuff for the building so they'll be able to see um the three County schools that we have because you know if you get just enrolling someone at Mount Healthy if you only have one student you don't want to come all the way into town so Rock Creek Mount Healthy and Taylorville will still be able to do in walk-in enrollments or the parent can also do it online if they like um we're going to leave that up to them um but if they're it's rolling someone at North Taylorville and maybe um north side then they just come in do all
019three of them at once with the enrollment center so that'll get us all um again like Nicole Lynch been working with her she's got it all set up to have some support there um with the language and so forth and that's what we've been trying to work through and get it all ready to go so on the screen we have just some pictures there's a really nice space at CVP that's large and open it's wheelchair accessible handicap accessible for our families and we can really do a good job in advertising that location which our amazing Communications coordinator there he is is going to help us with that as well and putting it on our website as well as social media and some of those channels so the public and the community are aware of that
020location change so among some of those benefits there are several others and reasons why we're doing this as well um by having TJ's team be the ones who are enrolling the students into our student information system it's going to make it a little bit easier to have that consistent data entry versus all of our schools doing that on their own um we're also going to give back some of the time to the front office staff and the admin assistants who would be doing a lot of this data entry so that on that student's first day they can spend time making those positive relationships with those families welcoming to the school meeting with counselors setting up schedules for our high school and our middle school students and spending time on that because we've already entered in
021some of their basic information into our student information system uh in addition to that as TJ had referenced we're able to have our interpreters there we've already developed a schedule with our ml office to have them available so that families can have the support in the information that they need it's one location for Families versus multiple places across town um we're also trying to make sure that we have as much communication on our website and social media about the required paperwork that families have to bring so that it's less trips back and forth for them and it's a great way for us to share information with families about iare and some of the other support and services activities clubs Athletics that we have in this district and to really promote the opportunities and Pathways and
022we're open year round which is nice um TJ's team is here summer during all the breaks so if a family wants to enroll we're there and we're able to do that so that is a little bit of a summary of our Enrollment Center we're very excited to get this up and running and if you have questions we're here to address those as many of them as we can thank you I will add to that the families we're not scheduling students by any means it's just getting through a lot of the state required paperwork so they would still go to their schools to figure out what classes they would be be taking okay any questions y depending on the age of the student I know the answer might might change a little bit but once a
023family walks out of the the enrollment process at beam Road building has been completed what would their next interaction with us be would it be a child getting on a bus or do they still need to go to the school the child's first day how will that work so on the child's first day so let's say it's Elementary they're going to be given a welcome letter it's going to explain the first day their address at you know phone number who they're going to be in contact with if that parent can take that student to school then they'll um we'll give them the option of where to park where to go in for the first day and so forth um if they can't and they're bus rider then the school know that they're a bus rider
024they're going to be coming in but the school will know um on that first day what to expect and who's coming we send a email out to the schools and let them brief description of that student little notes I might pick up or my team picks up from that parent so they kind of know you know Johnny's really nervous about the first day or you know or so forth like that so secondaries they have schedules they have to meet with so they get a call from the count the cohorts um and get scheduled to go meet with them to do their scheduling meet their counselors meet the team and so forth like that so that they will get that followup from the secondaries got thank you so I I'm going to make an assumption here
025but you can tell me if it's correct that that if there's summer enrollments there would also be information about the different schools openhouse times and that kind of thing yeah and the majority of these are still being done online um so it's also following up with families who've missed paperwork and pieces like that to get them fully enrolled awesome I appreciate the thoughtfulness on some of the remote schools and leaving that in person option out there that's very helpful thank you okay any any other questions from the team awesome thank you thank you guys Dr Boseman going to join us and U share more updates on the Invision 2030 projects as they have been uh moving quickly throughout the summer yes good evening thank you for uh a few minutes of time here uh the
026purpose of what I'll share with you will be an update on our phase one of our Invision 2030 projects uh this will actually lead into some action that you will have as a board for resolutions for the uh 2024 lease rental Bond coming up here in a bit um and I have uh Mr Burton and Mr spra with me um behind me way way back over there uh who will speak here in a couple minutes about their their experiences relative to their to their building these first two slides you've seen before but these are our project priorities um for the uh 306 in total of all of our facility projects that we've advertised um the highlighted items here are those that we are addressing um some are in portion but um that we're addressing within
027the first phase here um of our Invision 2030 projects I need to orient my eyes here on where to look so I'll try I'll try this way it's a little bit closer over there this is our project schedule so I won't speak to this in great detail but I I will provide a little more detail here on on a a slide that's coming up Parkside and Schmidt um are what we've called pre- Invision 2030 at the top you're aware that Parkside Elementary is finishing here very soon we have an open house and ribbon cutting I'm not using the term open house sorry we're going to use I don't want people to get confused between the school's open house so we're going to do a ribbon cutting and building tours on August 5th um hope to
028see you there for that Schmid element country is underway and on schedule so far um Northside and Columbus North are paired together and Smith and East are paired together they are in design right now that we'll speak to that here in just a bit as well as the 12th Elementary phase one of the Johnson work um Maxwell construction is the GC on that and if you've driven by Johnson you'll notice that construction fencing is up and and demo is underway there um and mcdal Central and Mount Healthy are uh to come here yet the scope of the work um I've I've mentioned this a bit but just as a reminder that uh the highlighted the bolded items here are those that we're addressing currently within the phase one and and why we're addressing those sites
029and um Central McDow and Mount Healthy are those that are in phase one that we'll start working on here very soon uh I'm going to have uh Mr Burton come up here and and and speak to his experience a little bit let me explain what slide I'll have on the screen uh while these two gentlemen give their updates uh first of all before before they uh Casey Vol is uh also uh she's the principal of Smith Elementary as you know and she's on a short little vacation now so she would be here with us um otherwise but uh the three of them and their design teams and many others have had very short Summers so far U spending a lot of time um helping us U move things along keep on schedule so uh very
030much appreciative of their time and effort and um and these these guys especially have have done a lot of work uh which I'm very appreciative of so U so let me let me these colors at the top here coordinate with the schedule you saw a moment ago the programming and Discovery phase and schematic design that's where we are now we're in schematic design um to where um our Architects are working with the design teams to really identify what the spaces need to look like how they they need to function I'll let them speak to that a bit design development is when um CSO puts together those items that um custodial closets and mechanical systems and these types of things to make sure the building functions well and the construction documents that's when things get buttoned
031up um and construction documents go out for bid and things are pretty well set at that point so um like to have Evan come up and speak to his experience here a little bit at North Side Middle School as they are uh currently in schematic design uh thank you Dr bosan it's always nice to be in front of you all so appreciate the the time this evening uh again I'm their principal at Northside Evan Burton so we are um I would say both feet in uh currently with where things stand I've got a a really good group of Staff members at North Side there's counting me 14 of us um on our building design team which is a large group uh for something like that but North side's a big building it's it's been around
032for a while and so I try to do U my best at getting a good representation of each area and each subject and each team and all the different facets of of the Northside staff um on that team uh and um luckily for me uh the Northside staff is is vocal uh in what they wish uh to see uh North Side uh at the end of all of this and so uh we've had a couple of meetings uh uh with CSO with our entire staff uh which have been nice to get those feedback and then my my design team like Dr bosan said has spent a good portion of the summer we've seen lots of different buildings uh both virtually and in person um it was uh good from CSO we were able to uh
033visit a couple of buildings that were Renovations um not new builds and so th that's been important for us to see with you know trying to uh keep north side as as unique and as school feeling as it as I say as it as it is uh plus make it function for what uh what we need it to um in in this current in this current day uh we have standing every other week meetings with CSO uh right now uh as we are working through um what are good ideas what are maybe medium ideas and what are ideas that we don't think uh will function as a design team and and that process uh will take care the the better part of of this year and maybe into January so uh that's where things uh
034stand currently I'll turn it over to Mr is that yep turn it over to Mr spr at this point hi I'm Darren sprong principal at Richard's Elementary I will get my glasses out to look at my notes uh Evan set me up well um been around for a while I've been around for a while and uh the first picture in your slides Dr Boseman did you take that picture or was that someone without my knowledge that was a uh picture that we didn't know was being taken but uh it shows I've been around for a while but I will say that only to say it is my honor to be part of this process um as we we as we've started and are working through it um I don't know that my batteries were my
035charge was low but I feel totally uh reinvigorated um through this process um for a number of reasons so U I would like to thank uh Dr Boseman first for his um leadership in this as well we seem to talk almost on a daily basis about things um just as Evan said we have uh meetings every other week with Hower and Yun and CSO Taylor brothers and pepper construction are all involved but um the team is meeting every week and having discussions um all the time so uh We've toured uh many schools in Caramel Hamilton southeaster in planfield some virtual and inperson tours as well um our team has been meeting uh in zoom and in person with Hower and Yun and the whole team I think when we get together there's upwards of 30
036people probably uh in the meetings uh and I can assure you the process has been extremely collaborative heler and Y and CSO have continued to ask for feedback throughout the process I think wouldn't say it was surprised but one of the biggest points that I would like to emphasiz is just the teacher voice in this process um the we are sent lengthy um documents continually and asking for be feedback uh throughout it so I can tell you the process has been great and our new building is going to be safe it's going to be efficient it's going to be unique and it's going to be collaborative um and and the team is working hard um to make that happen um I want to shout out to the teachers the teacher voice in this process has
037been incredible um every every group is asking teachers what they think that the picture uh in the beginning was not a setup it was Eric Hower from Hower and Yun working us through a neighborhood a small section of of the floor plan and then working out from that so um our the team uh design team teacher members have put in countless hours already um volunteering hours to this process so I wanted to recognize those folks as well Suzanne Dean Kate edren Cassidy Hall and Jennifer R shavy for their work thank you and I mentioned also Casey's out of town similarly with with Smith Elementary and that's a full renovation uh Casey's design team I think she has about nine or 10 folks on her team well represented um that they're very much involved in the
038process there now as well our our priorities are to renovate build and renovate safe learning environments that are that are done so that are fiscally responsible that keeps coming up in all of our conversations just so you're aware um it's very important to us and it's a priority of ours and we will have uh on your agenda and I know you're aware that there are two sessions coming up August 19th Public Work session to where uh we will meet with you we'll have Architects here and start looking very specifically at the the building options that we have in terms of renovation and uh designed for the 12th Elementary to get um feedback and input from the board and from the public essentially August 19th for Smith and C4 um with with Dr hack and his
039team and then November 11th would be for the new elementary and Northside Middle School uh these bond issue estimates uh you've seen this before but of the phase one projects um our estimates um are are nearly half of the entire project you can see in the bottom right hand corner but those are um total cost estimates and then the bond issue estimates that we that we've projected um over the next three years happy to answer any questions you may have when when when you say total cost I was going to ask if we have all the financing cost estimates added into total costs I know we continue to show the $36 million Bond number but we never show the financing cost that's not on that slide Mr major but it will be in the documents
040at the next board meeting um it's included in the public documents for the second approval group okay thank you and I'll just add Dr Boseman can you go back to that last slide real quick please thank you it just seems counter two we have the for phase one projects the the cost of those projects is $147 m439 th000 but we're only issuing bonds for the 441 $44,100 th000 this round basically because interest rates are so high right now we're trying to finance the lowest amount possible we'll look at it again next year and decide when we issue the next group of bonds may or may not um adopt that next dollar amount in the second column of the the 50.6 million or do more or less depending on the financial situation in that at that
041time so how how do these numbers compare to the prior estimates or they in line or has there been adjustments they are they've remained in line we are holding true to the budgets we're holding ourselves um true to those budgets it's painful isn't it Mr spra and Mr Burton back there they they and their team get weekly reminders of budget restri the larger the design team is the more wishes there are on the wish list yeah it's a really good question we um I joke about the budget but um we talk about often uh it's important because we don't we don't want to waste time and we don't want to design especially with the 12th Elementary design something that's just not attainable um not fiscally wise and responsible and and so we we do I
042joke about that but we do have conversations often about making sure that we're maintaining budget other questions or or of these these two that can answer at this time thank you thank you okay I um I'm actually going to apologize some people may have noticed I stepped away and there's inclement weather and I had a stranded child that popped up and so anyway stranded child is now not Stranded by someone else um I wanted to also back up when we did board member reports I selfishly gave my school board member report and left the rest of my team out which was pointed out to me by Mr Grimes so I'm going to back up in the agenda and just go through the row as I normally do and see if anybody else has uh School
043Board member reports to share I do not have any this okay thank you neither do I okay um just a couple quick things from the school Foundation uh via the executive director Nicole Cunningham uh so far this year in the 24 campaign um approaching $10,000 has been raised for uh unrestricted funds um mark your calendar date uh the school Foundation just received a grant for the Wizards game which is a change this school year it will be Sunday November 10th at East and tickets probably on sale in the next month and a half two months Sunday November 10th at East the Wizards uh event space has been booked at Hotel Indigo uh for another fundraising event in 80s 90s bash uh in March of 2025 and then lastly uh welcome back to dale dale on
044the trail who's uh marching through parts of the at um has raised nearly $5,000 for success in sight for BCC students so thank you Dale [Laughter] Mr Sten nothing Mr major no updates from the Health Trust uh updates for um downtown for the Redevelopment commission they had a meeting tonight and there's uh some new downtown Improvement Grants that they're going to be offering to businesses looking at improving their outdoor facades or some structural internal needs uh there are I think eight uh EV charging stations that they're going to be working to install over the next several months um there's downtown 230 uh project is working through uh urban planning RFP that should go out in the coming weeks uh it'll take about uh 8 to 10 weeks after that so they've got several places that
045they're looking at that might be able to support that the riverfront project they're still hoping to get through in to next summer and get a start date uh you'll notice downtown that around Second Street there's been some cones and some work being done that work will probably go on for about two years um and then there's some other stuff that they're just not moving very far with right now but they've got numerous projects that are underway or in progress so thank you Mr Bryant no okay I think we're caught up to the agenda now uh next on the list I believe is public comments so um just going to remind everybody of our process for public comments um if you wish to speak at any board meeting there's always a blue sheet on the table
046when you walk in I'm holding it now um and you just sign up on that um I will call your name to the podium everyone gets three minutes there is a clock right there that you'll be able to see from the podium um and then and then I'll ask you to to end your comments when that time is up um please do not refer to any specific people during your comments um keep things General um it's not a back and forth conversation so we will take your input there won't be a conversation um or anything offered from the board to the to the presenters today um you can pass if your intendant Point has been made and you can just let me know that when I call your name um I think that's it okay
047so first on the list I have Mr Mark ner Mark NE South Gladstone Avenue and uh I'd like to add had some support for the complaint against the book push there's been a couple of recent newspaper articles in support of keeping push in Columbus th High School library but I'd like to point out that both articles were devoid of any of the book's many obscene texts even though those texts make up the central issue of course the reason for these omissions is obvious the Republic newspaper does not consider that kind of language appropriate for this community and will not publish it yet some school officials want to retain push in the school library for miners to read freely so it looks like we have a bizarre situation where a particular content is deemed too obscene
048for adults in public but okay for minors in public school somehow bcsc is reasoning that Community standards for adults as represented by the local newspaper don't apply to our community's children that somehow what's not okay for adults is okay for children school officials get away with this backward logic by way of the part of the Miller test in the Indiana code that gives an exemption to schools for educational value according to the law any amount and degree of obscenity is okay for children as long as the book has an educational context well obviously the Republic newspaper ignores Indiana's educational contest context exemption even though their even though their newspaper articles are for the purpose of Education they would rather maintain Community standards but bcsc so far is so far clinging to the Le legal excuse
049so they can have a much lower standard despite that this book clearly violates local community standards for adults and for Education this book not only violates Community standards it violates the traditional discretionary method for educating children to do it without exposing them to harsh adult related adult rated realities it's the same reason parents don't traditionally give their children The Facts of Life talk using profane and vulgar street slang to refer to human reproduction or genitals or sex acts in my opinion this isn't about adhering to the minimum legal standard this is about adhering to local community standards aren't Public Schools supposed to do that thank you thank you Mr anola uh next I have Mr Richard sta Stafford hello um Richard Safford uh I have grandchildren in bcsc and um through them and others I'm
050known as papa for a whole lot of your students that's the advantage of age uh I have been a case worker for a children's home a psych psychiatric social worker and I'm retired as a presbyterian Minister I have had many occasions to know children who have suffered from incest and other uh violent attacks I encourage this board to pay attention to uh the committee that you have established to those who have actually read these books this one in particular an award-winning book uh from beginning to end and I encourage in the time that yall have going forward uh to read this book as well the children that I've cold did not need a sanitized um description a sanitized um reality to understand what had happened to them this book is difficult it's intentionally difficult because
051children need to know that they're not the only ones this has happened to I applaud the work that you do and the system that you have set into place for reviewing these books not just this one but all the other books that will speak to our children about about the realities that many of them are facing today and many of others will face in the future thank you thank you Mr Safford Mr Bob Schumacher is it on are we on hi I'm Bob shimer uh new to your community within the past year very happy to be here and I'm enjoying the nice open meeting that you guys are having thank you very much I am a retired pediatrician a retired professor of Pediatrics uh father uh and I want to say a few things and
052no I have not read the book I only heard about this issue a few hours ago that it was going to be on the agenda tonight in general books are tough good books are tougher really great books are extremely tough all right books can have War slavery abuse misogyny racism they can be full of very very tough subjects if they teach a good lesson they're em eminently worthwhile even if they just make you think they are more than worthwhile the book that that has all of the things I mentioned it's one of the greatest teaching books ever that of course would be the Holy Bible all right that stuff needs to be there our teachers need to be ready to discuss it if the children have questions and our parents need to know that it's
053there and maybe we can give them some advice about why this subject is important and why it is in our library so that they can have those discussions I think that's great There is almost nothing that would ever be in a school library that would not be worthy of a good discussion between a parent and a child but to not have it be there is the ultimate ultimate censorship and we need to think long and hard about that especially when we have an award-winning book that has been praised by so many but is in fact extremely tough to read I get it there's lots of things that are tough to read thank you thank you Miss Grace patchet hi there my name is Grace patchet um first of all I just want to State while
054I did not go to bartholomy County School corporations I do hope to you know live here long enough to have kids to go to this school corporation um and when I was growing up in school there were many things that I was not taught by my parents that I had to turn to a very trusted librarian who did help me learn the things that my ultra conservative parents would not allow me to learn um and it was through those resources that I was able to have tough conversations with my own parents and to help expand their own knowledge as it is a two-way street between a parent and a child and child and a teacher to figure out what it is that our world looks like um I personally have read push and it was
055a book that was really eye openening to me and later on in my life I would realize was a lot more common of a problem then when I was reading the book that it was uh that it was led to be um I I don't have too much more to say other than just I think it's incredibly important to remember the words of Our Own hoer native author Kurt vonette that he hates to see that Americans are taught to fear some books and some ideas as though they are diseases thank you thank you Miss Patchett Mr kerm hello once again thank you all for your time I'm going to try to keep this as brief as possible that's why I write this stuff down need me to get closer or speak louder okay I'll go
056ahead and begin everyone is sick and tired of talking about book bands yet here we are again talking about book bands it's like in 2022 when we had two Schoolboard candidates telling us they didn't want a book band but once they were on the board they both file complaints to have two Books banned it's deja vu all over again as Yogi bar once said this complaint isn't from a candidate but like the last one that reached the board it was filed by someone that repeatedly stated online that they have never read the book like the previous complaint their knowledge of its contents seems to come from review sites like book looks which counts potty words and offensive paragraphs without any context other than page number that's really weird since the state test for obscenity requires
057the work to be taken as a whole in fact it states that the average person applying contemporary Community standards must find that the dominant theme of the matter or performance taken as a whole appeals to the prent interest in sex there alone I would take pause considering the story of an illiterate 16-year-old raped by her father beaten by her mother and ignored by the authorities as appealing to prent interest in six is either ludicrous or itself obscene it's the exact opposite of grooming in fact the dominant theme is Liberation through education we follow her journey of education and Enlightenment as she learns to write about her life and how to make it her own she is a victim while she remains ignorant but through education she gains autonomy and freedom and once again that is
058what we really need to be discussing here today willful ignorance in law willful ignorance is when a person seeks to avoid civil or Criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally keeping themselves unaware of facts that would uh render them liable or implicated the person that filed this complaint chose to maintain their own uninformed opinion rather than educate themselves they chose to listen to the misinformation and rhetoric that upheld their preconceived ideas then they chose to force their illiterate views on the rest of the community making us the responsible adults in the room the state law took Effect one year ago and the new policy was adopted last December but less than 6 months later we have new Schoolboard candidates asking for further compromises while ignoring questions about book bands like the person that file
059filed this complaint they seem deliberately naive of what has transpired over the last two years as they Dodge simple questions about book bands their persistent lack of awareness almost guarantees that we will be discussing more book bands for the foreseeable future while they talk about the reading ability of our students perhaps they could display some of the their own before putting the rest of us through another exhibition of stubborn stupidity we are all quite sick of that thank you Mr key okay that is the end of our public comments for tonight next on the agenda Dr Phillips thank you Mrs won at this time we request request approve approval of the minutes of the regular school board meeting from June 10th of 2024 I move that we approve the minutes of the regular school board
060meeting as presented by Dr Phillips second thank you Mr GMS and Mr Schultz all those in favor of approve oh any discussion or questions from the team okay okay all those in favor of approving minutes from school board meeting on June 10th please say I I all those oppos say nay motion passes thank you under new business this evening we have the uh normal consent agenda of supplemental contracts field trips and professional leaves as well as school fundraisers and the claims and payroll for the time period uh are reflected on the screen in front of you the um I did note that the pre-run report includes the uh semiannual de debt payments and so the larger amount for that pre-run is because we pay those debt payments before June 30th and then we have some
061additional um not uh recurring items for you two resolutions related to the 2024 lease rental bonds those are a resolution determining the need for the projects and a resolution improving the form of the lease if these seem repetitive to you it's because You' also approved these as part of the larger project but again each year as we issue the these bonds we will have to go back and and um and request approval for those again we also have a permission to terminate the agreement uh with Neola to manage our board policy uh platform as well as update us annually that's letter e letter F is a replacement for that by engaging with an Indiana based Law Firm church church H and antrum to do a comprehensive policy review of all of our policies over the
062next approximately year and a half uh resulting in a new policy simplified policy structure that's easy for the public and for others to uh process and read the cost for that total review is about $116,000 over that two-year period and um and then church would also as new legislation is passed by the state and at the federal level would bring us our um Regular updates for any policy revisions that will result in somewhere between 10 and 20 new policies being not new policies I apologize policies being reviewed and approved each meeting for the next year and a half or so we'll go over that process at the next board meeting in some detail letter e is uh just the receipt of the CR Foundation giving us funding to as a pass through organization to fund
063family access to online Mental Health Resources uh at the website parent [Music] guu.vn grant for two years $45,000 for each year of access and that covers 100% of the cost for that period so I have a question I I've got three E I think uh resolution for lease Bond I have as e and you should permission to terminate as e and the approval of CR as e on our agenda they're correct our agenda thank you that's my mistake on the slide deck do we want to just go off the agenda please use the agenda D is claims and payroll e is the lease rental Bond resolutions f is is terminating Neola G is the church Church Hill and ANM engagement and then that makes H H the CR Grant approval perfect copy and paste sometimes
064comes back to BU good new it's like we got a new superintendent or something so we request approval of the new business items 8A through 8h it it doesn't matter to me how you do this you can pull it out or not but to be consistent with what I've done in the past because I don't agree we need a new elementary school you can either pull e out or I'll vote no for everything doesn't matter to me which way you do it I just break you out okay okay so can you make a motion for uh make a motion for that if you wouldn't mind or just approval a motion to approve a through D and F through I'd like to move to approve uh items a through D and FG and H y thank
065you Mr major do have a second second thank you Mr Schultz all those uh any discussion on a through D or F through H I've got a couple quick questions uh in regards to policy Dr Phillips so so again kind of the rough goal to get transitioned over to the new is the end of calendar year 25 correct correct okay and and so the the swap from Neola over to church church HD and antrum I I know there's you know a decent amount up front but once that transition is complete how does that yearly update how does that compare to what nea's cost was on a year yearly basis it's a little bit lower of a cost and they also they they because they're Indiana based the timing of those will follow when Indiana passes
066legislation as opposed to a broader National pattern so they'll wait until the legislative session is over wait until all of the Regulatory Agencies have done their review and then come to us with an update so the timing is better and the cost is a little lower and again it's my understanding I think you know this will streamline things and eliminate a lot of redundancies as well correct correct the the example that they provide when we talked to them the first time was the anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policy which is currently in somewhere between 12 and 14 Neola policies and it'll be replaced by one policy called the anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policy so simplification as opposed to duplication and complexity thank you so I think it's fair to say we're going to see a lot more policies
067because we're we're spring cleaning or restructuring as as it were if if this gets approved but after in the end there'll be fewer number of policies but we will spend a significant amount of time on them in the next year and a half or so okay thank you okay I have a motion and a second for items 8 a through D and F through H all those in favor please say I I I all those opposed please say nay motion passes 70 and I would like to make a motion that we approve item 8 thank you Mr nelan second thank you Mr Bryant any discussion on item AE Dr Phillips well the terms of Agreements are they already made public online through the board docs as well for this lease all of the documents for
068this evening are online and accessible and then the ones for the it'll be the uh August 19th meeting is the next steps and those will also be on there early for review thank you Dr Phillips okay all those in favor of approving item 8 e resolution for the 2024 lease Bond rental please say I I I all those opposed please say nay nay thank you vote passes 61 thank you and if you haven't had a chance to hear her speak well no she came to the board meeting if everyone was here so for the first time tonight the HR recommendations will come from Dr stal Bal yes thank you thank you president Welden Dr Phillips and members of the board of school trustees the 24 Human Resources recommendations for this retirement 10 resignations 12 appointments
069and 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 human resource recommendations as presented second thank you Mr Schultz and Mr major all those in favor please say I I I all those oppos say n motion CES passes can't talk do we have any additional additional at this time okay thank you okay board input and review I'll start with the other side Mr Bryant would you say anything to close this out tonight I like this new setup I do uh I get to see everybody D other than that I am nothing thank you okay yeah I want to congratulate uh the track and field and tennis stars that we have both Carris and Katherine and their state participation in
070Championship runs I wanted to congratulate Dr Phillips and Dr stabal in supporting their first board meeting tonight I wanted to offer some hope that uh every everybody is enjoying their summer so far and uh just remind them that school will be back in session before we know it and uh make sure everybody keeps having fun out there and in light of the events recently I wanted to just pray for the safety of all political candidates in the coming election cycle may they be washed over in their travels and in speaking events and may people find a way to use uh to not use violence and to use their voice Mr shenon um like uh Mr major Mr Brian I'd like to congratulate our student athletes that we recognized tonight the achievements are really pretty amazing
071um appreciate all the work that went into making the board Do's platform transition occur for this meeting and going forward I think it'll be a big Improvement um appreciate the work that went into improving the student enrollment process uh that that seems like a large uh change for the better and then uh last but not least I'd like to uh congratulate thank applaud all those folks that are involved in the work uh in Vision 2030 uh the new school buildings the new classrooms uh the new spaces for Education uh the design work that they're a part of I think will really make a big difference for us in the years to come so thank them all thank you Mr sen um um similarly I I say this at work all the time continuous Improvement beats
072delayed Perfection any day like to move things a little by little and there are lots of little improvements that we saw here tonight which I appreciate it's a sign of a healthy organization and we're constantly pushing ourselves so anyway thanks to the team that makes this happen I know Dr Phillips has a good team behind him for all of those things um thank you to the stakeholders that were here and offered took the time to be here tonight and offer public comment much appreciated um also um much appreciation for the CR Foundation grant that was approved um to help bcsc families um in terms of addressing mental health concerns and perhaps arguably now or even more than ever is such a thing needed and then lastly thank you to Dr Phillips for a very smooth
073and efficient first meeting lots of uh new exciting things I think you know the shift of board docks the the shift the transition in board policy uh the the new enrollment procedure that was presented and then uh yeah to Echo this uh the new configuration here very very good thank you yeah similar sentiment on congratul to the athletes I also want to thank Dr Boseman and all the teams involved on getting Envision 2030 it's a Monumental task to get all these things coordinated and I know it's running like an orchestra right now so doing great um I also want to Echo I like the setup I like the change to board dos I know I've been uh kind of one calling for sharing stuff before we talk so that the folks can give you know
074educated advice to us and their feedback and I I like the board dos platform and being able to deliver on that and thank the speakers for being respectful and providing input and so that we can make an educated decision I I do have two call outs that I think if we can consider in the future is if we're going to run through policies I I know a lot of our other boards as we were at the isba all of them have policy subcommittees as a member of the board to at least get ahead of some of that so that may be something that we want to consider to run in tandem if we're going to do a mass uh review and then the other one that's it's highly concerning to me is uh the graduation
075requirements change I'd like to understand how that's going to impact I I'm I'm not got the warm and fuzzies about the changes um honestly so uh if we could figure out what we can do to mitigate the risk that I I'm seeing other school systems call out I think that's good and then also getting ahead of what our risks are for our iearn for third graders and what's the mitigation plan ahead of the Fall enrollment so I think those are the kind of three call outs that I have thank you so I want to Echo the appreciation of the new board setup it is nice to see the people that are that I'm having conversation with um and the board docks I think that's going to be good for us but also good for the
076public I really appreciate that part to Echo what Logan said um also I think that we can say this publicly congratulations to our board president for being named by the Chamber of Commerce I don't know if I'll get this correct but as as one of the outstanding women in leadership in our community and is welld deserved and finally I have to do a few thank yous so my hike was a mixture of failures and successes I will not dwell on the failures if you want to hear about them you can talk to me but but I do want to thank Nicole Cunningham with the school foundation for for helping a lot to get the word out um I want to thank two North graduates and former students Brian Pierce and Richard Lou Who went with
077me for the first 5 days and I literally don't think I could have done it without them um I want to thank Dr Brad Kors who is also a former student an optometrist in Town and an East graduate um who not only donated but he's going to donate his time and resources to help Supply eyeglasses to kids that need it I think there are other optometrists that are helping that will help also but I know he's he stepped up to volunteer I want to thank the 90 people who donated and we're actually at $4,900 so I haven't given up yet cuz I if anyone is still interested I have the information here it would be nice to hit 5,000 um to most of the money is going to go towards supplying eyeglasses to kids that
078need it and also um some will go to help students who um dual credit tuition that that can't afford it um and the the I guess the biggest thank you is to my wife because um I was ready to quit the trail and she said no you can't do that so I couldn't have done it without her so thank you thank you D okay Mr wion could I add a couple of notes in there as well of course so I want to Echo the congratulations to you for being named one of the women in leadership um and also recognize it's been a few weeks ago now but our own Angie Kirkham and Dr Laura hack were named as the women to watch in leadership by the Republic a few weeks ago and we're recognized at
079a ceremony and then um also I'm waiting for them to tell me stop with the changes already so um you know team thank you for all your support and they just came in a week ago Friday and and I had I actually sent them pictures and said hey I moved the whole room around said let me know what you think and so then they all that to scramble and react to my changes so thanks to them for being patient with us and I'm glad that you um appreciate the setup because they worked hard on it um also want to point out um a new representative in the room with us tonight that you may not have met miss Karen sanduski is sitting over there next to Sher you're very familiar with but you've seen Karen's
080name on a lot of emails lately but she's backing up Sherry and helping with a lot of these projects including the policy work so you'll see a lot more of her so thank you Karen for coming this evening and then the last thing I just want to note that the um when you drive around in the summer here you know we had lots of summer school activities happen when you drive around our community in the summer there are students and staff members everywhere in this community with the exception of the one week when the whole place disappears on moratorium week everywhere in this community working hard um you know Mr Sloter you see his kids everywhere running out there in the in in town um but I'll I'll point out a new program that was
081in place only for its second year this Summer that had a hundred students up at I and several of our staff members worked volunteering and working for them in this I Civics camp that just had kids learning how to engage in your community you know our last uh of the core values up there around being civic-minded citizens hundred of our kids were up there with with a lot of adults helping them learn that so um just want to call that one out it's a special thing that happened just the second year this year and um that's at no cost to students as well so there was it was a great Camp to see next year I'll send out the note because they do a showcase at the end where they show off the work that
082they did and I'll send it to the board next year so you can make sure and get that on your calendars thank you Dr Phillips oh and August 7th is the first day of school kids so everyone watching it home August 7th is the first day for students we can't have this meeting and not point that out right that is true that is true okay upcoming meetings in addition to the first day of school we have our regular board meeting um in this room on August 5th at 6:30 p.m. the parksite elementary ribbon cutting is at 3:30 p.m. on the same day um so that's open to the public anybody come in and see um our first big Renovations uh executive sessions that's for board members only um in between those two items so at
0835:15 um board board members will we need need to be back here um for an executive session and then we have a public work session on August 19th to go through some of the more more details Dr Boseman mentioned on Invision 2030 projects busy August okay nothing else meeting adjourn thank you