001hello welcome everyone to our school board meeting this is a lovely large crowd we're happy to have you all here uh it is 6:30 so we're going to go ahead and get started with the Pledge of Allegiance if you are able to stand with us please do flag the United States of America to it stands Nation indivisible and justice for all thank you very much our uh cooworker Mr Grimes is not able to join us today but we have six remaining members so we do have a quorum I'll call the meeting to order Dr Roberts all right thank you Mrs won we do like to start off each of our meetings by revisiting and affirming our vision mission and core values as a corporation we look to be the choice to learn work and play
002our mission is to develop expert Learners by partnering with our community to invest in people and our six core beliefs include we all can rise to 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 thank you Dr Roberts all right we'll move into some really fun stuff we have a big crowd here this evening and these first four or five topics I think is probably why most people are in the room tonight so we're going to start off with recognition with our
003state finalist gymnastics team from Columbus North I would like to welcome principal Mr Clark up to the podium first of all thank you very much for taking the time to recognize looks like a full house lots of recognitions and a fun night I think this is one of my funnest nights school board meetings of the of the year we get to see all these things happening I would like to W uh invite coach Arthur and Coach fresh hour if you want come up to the stand and yeah go ahead and bring the gymnast up I'm not going to be here long I'm glad the gymnastics season is over there are just now they've just now quit doing flips in the hallway so I'm glad that's over just kidding um remarkable young ladies remarkable team to
004continue the excellent tradition that we have here with Columbus North High School gymnastics with that said I'm going to turn the microphone over um I would excuse U Mr Lewis our athletic director he tonight is at the Northeast softball game which is taking place right now so he couldn't be here this evening but I'll turn the mic over to coach Arthur and Coach fresh and let him talk to you a little about the success they've had this year thank you Mr Clark thank you everybody for being here um Dr Roberts congratulations on your pending retirement you when you uh finish up you need to find a good hobby like gardening or gymnastics coaching something like that so maybe I can help out um just a few shoutouts I've Got U uh the school board and
005and uh uh David Clark Dr Roberts for re allowing us to be here to recognize uh our accomplishment uh the Columbus North Athletic Department Brian Lewis Bev Addis was wonderful Jason Perry uh the chers chance Newkirk and Kate Cockerham all kept us put together and and kept us informed this is kind of my first time on the administrative level of things so it was kind of new and then uh of course coach fresh hour was also uh tried to keep me in line she didn't always do it but she got tried um special shout out to the parents they were fantastic incredible and their families and then uh uh we got some good media coverage from the Republic Ted Schultz and James Pence and Sam and Fran Sim maker Sam's kind of my surrogate mom
006I'd go over there after a meet she'd have a sandwich waiting for me and maybe a little snack but uh then the uh uh last but not least the two coaches um that were by my side the entire time Sandy fresh hour who Sandy i' I think we've logged up about 85 years together coaching uh uh gymnastics and I'm not I'm not embellishing actually and then we are fortunate enough to get uh Claire Thompson to join us this year Claire was a former Columbus North gymnast and all-around state champion so U uh and as far as the core values he met uh had we all can rise to the challenge of high expectations I think our girls really did that this year um you know we started off um really with a fairly low score
007but what a little over 101 almost 102 um and brought that up to almost a 108 and that's um uh that's a significant improvement over the season we went uh 9- one in our win loss dual meet season we were first in the Connorsville Invitational 15 schools represented eight teams uh we were runner up at conference Indiana and um sectional runner up and both of those were behind Bloomington North who also has a very good program and um we we appreciate the fact that they are a strong team because that helps us um you know I was thinking about the old Avis ad we're number two um uh but we try harder and that probably unless you're uh a child of the 60s 7s and 80s you probably don't even know what I'm talking about
008on that the uh fortunately we uh really Rose the occasion at the regional gymnastics meet and we were on top at the regional and uh walked away with a championship there and then uh uh we were kind of under dogs at the state but we ended up with a fourth place Podium finish at the state meet um and my hats go off to the girls we started kind of slow on our first event and those girls they could have just uh packed it up and decided to go home but they dug down dug deep and finished very very strong on the last three events we were U eighth place after the first rotation and ended up in fourth place at the finals so that was uh a very wonderful thing and I just my hats
009go off to the girls the compe that competed for us uh the team real quick um uh we got two seniors Lany Acton and and neetle Warz and uh Laney can you Laney was a uh event specialist at the state meet she did both beam and floor for us uh neply joined us as a senior she's a little nut but she was our little floor darling um and did a great job and she kept the uh she's got a heck of an attitude and kept us very kept things positive for us so we appreciate her joining us Junior uh Reese uler Reese can't be here today she's got a cheerleading competition coming up down in Orlando and I think she's really um uh would like to be a uh Collegiate cherleader so she's uh had
010to get ready go to that she actually had a practice tonight so and then Arwin other Junior Arwin tin who is also an event specialist at the state meet Arwin raise your hand say hello and uh and Arn's done a great job for us the past three years and looking forward to seen more from her I'm going to really push her harder and all around again this year so um she is a very um very clean gymnast we got sophomores Jaden Greenley uh Jaden raise your hand there we go Jaden was a JV all-arounder for us Ellie mcer was all around through most of the years Ellie raise your hand let them know who you are she was an event specialist for us at the state meet on on vault and bars and she so
011she uh was one of those kids that dug deep and helped us get into that fourth place finish all around Hannah Perry Hannah was a great uh fantastic gymnast for us did all around um we had to basically get her in a headlock to even come out for our program last year and she got bit by the bug and uh has just gone on and done some great things I think she was ninth all around if I'm not mistaken is that right yeah she did great for us then we also have um um eeve Richards eie Richards was a JB all-arounder and also a vault specialist for us um throughout the season the one thing about unfortunate thing about our season is we compete up to six kids in Varsity at the beginning of the
012Season we have to pair that down to four at the end of the season so uh it makes it tough for the coaches but we like it when it's tough because that means everybody's digging hard and working hard if it's too easy of a decision then that's uh not so good then we also have a a little rockar em Emerson Chambers uh she uh uh did all around for us during the season and she is a three event State specialist at the state meet um Vault bars and floor correct yep um and she's also killing it on in track we had one other um freshman with this Hannah grow who's our manager she could not be here she's at a softball game probably the one that Brian's at but uh so anyway that's our team
013thank you for being here fresh do you have anything to add all right boy that was easy all right I think I I hopefully I haven't left anybody out but congratulations girls you guys did a fantastic job congratulations [Applause] [Laughter] I know I just notic that good evening at this time I would ask for Mr John Stettler with sio and Mrs Mindy Summers Central English teacher to please come [Music] forward stay up here good evening I'm John Satler president CEO of of siho and I am privileged this evening to recognize Mindy Summers as the 2024 Edna V folder outstanding teacher the folder award is designed to recognize the impact teachers have both inside and outside the classroom this award is named for local teaching icon Edna fuler who invested more than 46 years of her
014life educating students in Bartholomew County the folder award celebrates dedication to the teaching profession ability to motivate students Andor staff to reach their full potential Innovation and teaching style and curriculum the ability to form strong bonds and relationships with students parents and peers and contributions to the community outside of the classroom the folder award is sponsored by sio the IU Columbus Center for teaching and learning the Community Education Coalition and the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce like all previous folder winners Mindy is a dedicated and talented educator who goes above and beyond her nominator cite that she possessed is the true essence of a teacher passionately dedicated to the profession making a difference in the lives of her students and squarely committed to committing to making all those around her a better version of themselves
015Mindy meets her students where they are designing a safe rigorous learning environment with attainable expectations helping students become expert Learners by encouraging them to track evidence of their academic growth over time ladies and Gentlemen please join me in congratulating the 2024 Ed fold your outstanding teacher Mindy Summers [Applause] we just add a note uh quickly as we get ready to do our teachers of the year just a couple of years ago manyy was our teacher of the year for our entire Corporation and recognized at the state level and recently she's been on a little bit of a celebration tour she was recognized in front of her staff at Central Middle School as well as at a chamber luncheon where we also uh recognized her for her Great accomplishments so congratulations again Mindy sumers so I
016would like to say that I'm going to Echo what Mr Clark said this time of year in our board meetings are my favorite ones to date because these next few we are celebrating amazing students and Educators that do so much for us um so we are going to we're going to recognize the 20232 24 Teacher of the Year winners in a bit we're getting ready to show a video in a minute but I want to say all winners before you leave or as you leave if you'll go outside we have the bcsc banner Mr Bernett would like to take pictures of everyone I'm including the students um before they leave today what I can say that um this year we the community doesn't surprise me yet it's amazing the support that we have in our
017community we had 570 nominations for Teacher of the Year in our school corporation and that is every year I say this is the record today so at this point this is the record today 570 nominations before I call them up and announce them Mr Bernett create a video so we can help celebrate [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you Mr Bernett for the video and just to let you know these teachers that have been selected exemplify the great teaching that goes in on each and every day for our students they come to work dedicated and there is no greater impact on student learning than the quality of the teacher and they all embrace the love the care
018the support and the knowledge to help prepare our students for the next steps in their education so is an honor and I can tell you I do get excited when I finally see the winners I love seeing all the nominations but when the winners I'm like oh they oh they're great they're great they're great so this whole list it's exceptional teachers that helped make bcsc the choice so at this time I'm going to call them up individually their teachers we going to line up teachers we're going to line up and around here until we acknowledge everyone I'm going to name this the school the teacher and this uh the subject that they teach so let's get this started Clifty Creek Elementary Suzanne Dean fifth grade we CSA foda DEA kapor fifth grade instruction that's very
019good okay CSA Lincoln Steven Shipley sixth grade [Applause] Mount Healthy Elementary Emily Harris fourth grade Parkside Elementary Scott Rayburn fifth [Applause] grade Richards Elementary Aaron Lucas life skills Rock Creek Elementary Casey Ellsbury kindergarten Schmidt Elementary Kathy Denniston fifth [Applause] grade Smith Elementary Cindy lson fifth grade Southside Elementary Caroline arbu [Applause] kindergarten Taylorville Elementary Jenny me second grade Central Middle School Sarah WRA science Northside Middle School Crystal Stewart English language arts Columbus East High School Derek Chastain science Columbus North High School Brett White math CSA new Tech High School JY moral pupil services C4 Derek grz welding prek Early Childhood ebony OK Ash early [Applause] childhood and the administration building Gail Kors Elementary curriculum specialist [Applause] so looking at these individuals the the examples again the ones who come before our students each and every day
020to serve there's probably some familiar faces and probably not any surprises here because they do a remarkable job so on behalf of bcsc teachers thank you for the amazing work you do and continue to show up each day and provide our students with an excellent education thank you one round of applause let's go shake hands [Applause] look congratulations conratulations good [Music] job congratulations [Applause] congratulations to work congratulations [Laughter] okay we are going to move to our top 10 recognition we have a couple of videos to play for our top 10 um we will start with Columbus East and then students what we're going to do is after we run the video for East we will bring up the 10 East students and just come through and and shake hands and then the same thing with
021our North students after we do the north video we'll bring our North students up as well so we'll start with Columbus [Music] East my name is Kiren Scott and my parents are Nicole and Michael I plan to go to Indiana University and get a degree in either computer science or law my favorite bcsc teacher is probably Mrs hling but I have to say something about Mr Ward and Mrs Thompson because they've been great with C4 and I think my favorite bcsc memory is probably memories I made at marching band especially performing in the bands of America finals hi my name is Malia hubard daughter of Heather hubard After High School I plan to attend Indiana University Columbus to study business and minor in Finance and Accounting my favorite bcsc teacher is Mr Shipley because he
022really like cared to help students find their true passion and my favorite BCS memory is all of the knowledge that I've Acquired and all of the people that I've got to meet along the way hello my name is Jamie Porter my parents are James and Karen Porter I plan on attending Indiana University Bloomington to study business management my favorite teacher is Mr walls and my favorite High School memory was running cross country with my friends my name is Carly Ai and my parents are Paul and Joe Ai and I plan to attend Ball State University in the fall to study Elementary educ ation and my favorite bcsc teacher is Miss vanderberg and my favorite bcsc memory is helping run the C4 preschool at J hi my name is Caitlyn stter my parents are John and
023Julia stter in the fall I'll be attending Purdue University to study nursing um my favorite bcsc teacher is Mrs Stein wle the C4 biomed teacher and my favorite bcsc memory is cheering at the East North football games I'm Ben Bland my parents are Mike and Christy um I'm attending try University and playing college hockey and my favorite bcsc teacher is Mrs hamling and my favorite bcsc memory is the physics projects in that class hi my name is janelli bobos and I'm the daughter of Mara bobos my plans after graduation is to attend produce College of Agriculture for their animal Sciences major with a concentration in preet to begin my journey towards veterinary school my favorite bcsc teacher is Miss buckler due to her work ethic and love for education and my favorite C CSC memory
024is the day of my senior project alaloa I enjoyed interacting with people's pets and seeing everyone United for a great cause I'm Riley posie daughter of Mike and Jerry posy after graduation I'll be attending the University of South Florida to major in biomedical Sciences on a pre- anesthesiologist assistant track my favorite teacher is Mr lenot and my favorite bcsc memory was cheering at the Rivalry East North games my name is Aaron Walters my parents are Brian and Kim Walters After High School I plan to go to Indiana State University to pursue a career in criminology and psychology my favorite bcsc teacher is probably got to be Mr Chastain and my favorite bcsc memory is definitely playing and attending the Northeast soccer games they were just such a blast and the r was really fun my
025name is Greta hammerlin um I'm the daughter of Rodney and April hemline in the fall I plan to attend Purdue University to study chemical engineering and hopefully ride on their Western Equestrian Team um my favorite bcsc teacher is Mrs hling along with all the science department um my favorite bcsc memory is going to all the sporting events with my [Music] [Applause] [Music] friends congratulations Columbus e top 10 we can have you now congratulations congratulations congratulations good job good job kid [Music] conat okay we'll now move on to our Columbus North top [Music] 10 hi my name is a singeri my parents are asuk and mikica singeri After High School I plan on going to Y University to major in ethics politics and economics and my favorite bcsc teacher is Mr Spock and my favorite bcsu
026memory is going to debate competitions my name is Caitlyn white my parents are BR and Allison white next year I plan to attend either the University of Indianapolis or Ball State to study nursing um my favorite bcsc teacher is Mrs Stein wle and my favorite memory is going to and participating in northw St schs hi my name is Kean Harris my parents are taught in Christen Harris I plan on studying computer science at Purdue University my favorite teacher is Dr hackner my favorite BCS memory is robots competition at East my name is kingan burrick my parents are Joel and Rebecca bank I plan on going to Purdue University Indianapolis for engineering um my favorite bcsc teacher is Mr Burton and my favorite bcsc memory is performing at American Pie hi my name is Kenzie Pendleton
027my parents are Tyler and alici Pendleton this fall I plan to attend bham Young University to study exercise science and athletic training one of my favorite bcsu teachers is Mr Spencer and one of my favorite bcsc memories is winning state for cross country I'm alexer cognata my parents are Angela cognata and Jimmy cognata I plan on attending a 4-year University at an undecided location to study either business or chemical engineering my favorite bcsc teacher would probably be Mr hagner here at North he's the physics teacher here and he taught me AP Physics one last year and I'm learning AP Physics C mechanics with him right now he's one of the smartest guys I've ever met he's really nice and he's really good at what he does and you can tell he really loves teaching and
028and physics my favorite memory at or my favorite bcsc memory here would probably have to be just uh 10th grade English as a whole I met a lot of my friends in that class who I'm really close with today and there were a lot of people in there like I remember at least like six of my really close friends now are in that class and we had her name was Miss RH at the time it's now Mrs princess cuz she got married but it was just fun we always wore up to some fun Shenanigans in there and just had a whole blast my name is Frankie poak my parents are Frank and Nicole poak and I next year I will be attending either Duke University or the University of Chicago to study history my favorite
029teacher is Mr Russell my favorite bcsc memory was when Mr Russell took us into an underground basement area in the school to simulate a cold war bunker and kind of show us different pieces of propaganda from the cold war and during the Communist scare as well hi my name is Austin Clark my parents are Allison Clark and Brian Clark I plan on attending Butler University to study accounting and my favorite bcsc teacher is Mrs Patt from Southside and my favorite bcsc memory is um participating in my sophomore year musical nice work of you can get it hi my name is McKenzie Meyer my parents are Aaron and Chris Meyer and After High School I plan on attending Indiana University to study biochemistry one of my favorite bcsc teachers is Mrs Stein wle and my favorite
030bcsc memory is winning cross country State hi my name is Alex osor my parents are Cathy and Andy oser next year I'll be going to Purdue a major in plant science my favorite bcsc teacher is Mrs McCarver and my favorite bcsc memory is going to San Francisco for journalism [Music] congratulations to our top 10 from Columbus North if I could have you come forward please conratulations con for [Laughter] congrat conat juniori students as you leave I believe Mr Bernett is looking to get pictures right outside so if you could just gather out out in the hallway area thank you clear them all on crating we did hey while people are while people are funneling out I just want to point out a couple of statistics that I keep track of every year when we do
031this Purdue one by the way Purdue one a lot of science people there six six to four Purdue versus IU first year we haven't done that and the boys were representing yes the boys are representing this year last year we only had two out of 20 we had eight out of eight out of 20 so yeah y nice work School Schoolboard member reports that was my Schoolboard member report okay Mr Nan better um the council for Youth Development met on April 10th and I'd like to highlight one thing um the the Youth Empowerment Summit which will be this Friday at columus Learning Center um Chad Russell who we was mentioned by at least one of the students there uh Columbus North social studies teacher will be the keynote speaker and the students will rotate through
032a series of Workshops the topics and presenters were planned by the student leaders and the summit it has slots for 100 participants 160 students applied so I think that's a sign of success they are currently taking applications for student student leaders called youth ambassadors for next year and um it's a really I think a powerful process the school counselors and others work with Cyd to identify students with leadership potential who don't see thems as functioning in leadership roles so they build leadership potential for our community's future nothing out of my committees I believe cicc's next meeting is in May yeah okay thank you um I'll just give a quick update on our superintendent search process uh we did hold our public hearing uh just prior to this meeting at 5:00 regarding the contract there were
033actually no um members of the public in in attendance um so it was it was fairly short and then uh our um next meeting on April 29th is where we will vote on that topic Mr Stenner uh Mr Grimes uh couldn't be here this evening but asked me to uh mention a couple of things on his behalf uh the foundation one of the biggest fundraisers they do every year is called the good better best 5K it'll be Saturday April 27th it'll be held at Southside Elementary uh people are signing up already and if you're interested in that 5K Mr Grimes tells me that the website is Indiana timing.com so you can search it by location or date April 27th um fund rais funds raised at that event go to support the uh Grimes Wallace out
034of the boox recognition for teachers uh awarded every year at 8:15 that morning this year's winners of the Grimes wall wall out of the box award will be recognized at the walk uh this year's winners Mr Grimes tells me so I'm pretty sure this is not a secret um Kaa Hill from Rock Creek and Christa Bartos from Smith uh it's the first time in the history of out of the-box awards that two have been awarded uh I also have two uh committees reports districting and Facilities committee has done a ton of work um much thanks to Dr Bosman for coordinating that work in the last month um both uh architect selection and then construction management U selection activities have occurred over the last four weeks five weeks and Mr Boseman will be covering those later
035in the meeting uh I will leave my portion of it to uh be a time to thank all of the U board members teachers School staff parents even students that were involved in the processes uh I'm sure that their attention and um efforts at making good decisions will lead us to a good direction moving forward so we thank all those who contributed to the success of the selection processes the business Advisory Group met on a Friday morning uh Mr Edwards and Mr hack gave us a presentation uh the C4 career fair career week had recently wrapped up there were videos on the YouTube page uh some amazing things went on that week Monday's Focus was on careers in public safety Tuesday there was a focus on careers in health care Wednesday all day was a
036focus on manufacturing Thursday on transportation and Friday Building Trades uh participating this year were more than 50 employers and Community Partners generously sharing their time to support students there were engaging activities uh fun and a lot of learning about potential careers uh so every time uh the business Advisory Group thought the presentation was coming to a close either Mr Edwards or Mr hack would remember another aspect of the work that they had forgotten to highlight uh I think they could have gone on all day uh so i' I'd recommend uh going to the YouTube site checking out those videos C4 is doing some amazing work and we appreciate Mr hack and all the members of the business Advisory Group who help direct that thank you nothing new from the Health Trust and uh Redevelopment uh
037committee met earlier today uh they were talking a little bit about a new uh process to design build operate transfer that the state has has um for public buildings um and then they also talked a little bit I had to leave early uh but they were going to talk about the downtown entrance Plaza they're going to renovate that area and make it more welcoming more U I guess modern um for the times so that uh will be a project that they're going to have ongoing in the future um but there's limited to talk about with that right now so thank you thank you okay we're on to Cabinet reports uh Dr Phillips and Dr bosan good evening I do my best thinking in the morning and the first thought I had this morning was that
038the board meeting is here tonight and we never took care of those blinds that were needed up there and about this time I was thinking what time do that sun usually come through and it is apparently at 7:13 p.m. so we can't really see your face it's okay that's okay yeah if you just look down or elsewhere uh I will not be offended by that so uh good evening thank you uh for the opportunity um the Invision 230 update is a staple item that we have uh for each of our meetings uh sometimes we have more content to share sometimes we have less uh tonight is a night that we have quite a bit um in your packets to approve and uh just a few slides to go over uh in synopsis so um what
039you have for um action this evening are uh items listed on your screen permission to bid phase one of the uh Johnson work as a reminder that is in effort to move Bright Beginnings from McDow over to the Early Learning Center at Johnson um just four classrooms of work in that first phase a an approval for GMP guaranteed maximum uh price for the Schmidt renovation we open bids on that they were a little bit higher than expected um so we are just awarding nine of the 11 bid categories for now uh basically um the two bid categories that we will reconsider at another time would be site and concrete work U outside of the outside of the the building and the parking lot selection for construction managers as Constructors for the majority of the Envision
040one phase one projects those are summarized in three packages uh and I'll speak to that here in just a bit and then finally and and um excitedly uh our recommendation for the selection of a design architect for the new Elementary School uh this remains unchanged but just as a reminder of where we are uh with the with the projects and the timeline of those phase one projects within evision 2030 Schmid and Parkside being the exception um outside of uh the projects but their uh timeline is listed there for a reference the construction manager as Constructor recommendation that we're bringing to you this evening uh we were fortunate to have 10 construction firms submit proposals uh for each of our packages um within this first phase of the Invision 2030 work the five listed are the
041five firms that our team interviewed uh Mr Stenner uh mentioned that process a little bit we had six members of that selection committee Mr Senor being one um and we we he is accurate we spent quite a bit of time vetting these folks um interviewing really reviewing um piles of material that they have submitted all 10 firms were very reputable we were very pleased with the 10 um but the ones High highlighted excuse me are the ones that we're bringing to you for recommendation for approval this evening so project one Northside north um we recommend to award my AUM Myer AUM is a firm that we have not yet worked with but they have done uh many similar scale and size projects across the state uh most recently in Brownsburg Lebanon zionville and a few
042other districts and their um recommendations from those from those districts and others were exemplary project two Smith and East package just as's a reminder that's uh full renovation to north side and just a little bit of work at North High School relative to C4 same for Smith our recommendation is to war that to Maxwell construction Maxwell construction is a firm that you're familiar with they're currently our construction manager on the parks side and Schmid projects we we've had a very good experience with them and then on the new Elementary which is a a project by itself um we're recommending Taylor brothers and pepper Taylor brothers and Pepper have joined together um as the construction manager as Constructor for that there are a lot of benefits to bcsc and to the community um with that partnership
043so um our recommendation is to award that cm contract for the new Elementary on pro project three for Taylor brothers and pepper construction and also just as a reminder um there there's a lot to consider in that in that decision and that recommendation as I mentioned um we are not subject to just low biders which is good for for us and other other districts um it is an important factor but is not the uh we are not tied to just selecting low the low bid on those you're familiar with our process and our time that we've spent recently in um searching for interviewing vetting and selecting a design architect for the new Elementary School we're fortunate to have the partnership of the cumin architectural Foundation that provided us four um very qualified firms we invited
044those four firms to submit rfps you can see the timeline listed there Jim Funk from CSO and I met with them on site and toward Parkside the week of February 26 spent about a half day with each of them they uh submitted their proposals in written format and they were about 40 or so pages long um each of our 16 committee members um were provided those written responses had the ability to provide some feedback and scoring you're also familiar that those two firm those four firms rather presented over the course of two nights at the Westside Community Church the week of March 25th and our team met on April 4th and went through a structured protocol to help come up with um a recommendation for the board to approve uh it's a photo of of
045some uh very qualified folks sitting around the table and having some some interesting conversations and uh from that we had a few follow-up questions that um a handful of us six folks or so had um had some follow-up zooms with two firms and asked them some additional questions that's the list of the um committee members that had served um Mr Stenner said we we have a commination of teachers um a represent representation from CSO there we have parents we have community members there's a student listed there um and some bcse administrators and then Mr Stenner and Mr Allen from the board as Representatives our recommendation is to award the design architect for the new Elementary School to Hower and Yun from Boston Mass Metts um in order of presentation they were the third that presented
046on those those nights uh that seemed to resonate with folks um when we when our committee had gone through our our structured protocol to make this selection the criteria um that they had used and come up with and has and as they um as they scored these these different firms um terms such as collaborator synthesizer the firm's ability to be flexible Innovative and um I mentioned this to Eric when I called and offered him this position to where he was very excited and was quite speechless for a moment but um I said Eric I said when you had given your presentation at the church and and you opened with speaking about designing a school through the Through The Eyes of a child it really resonated with folks it really got people excited so um so
047I'm I'm I'm happy with the committee's recommendation um feel confident in the process feel confident that me Jim uh y on the left here and Eric Hower on the right and their firm out of Boston will do a fantastic job working well with b bcsc and CSO to to uh design an elementary school on the west side of town that serves this community for 50 years plus happy to answer any questions you may have I have any questions from the team no questions okay thank you Dr board members that with the information that Dr Boseman just shared those items are to be voted on here in just a little bit Dr Phillips good evening I have for you tonight the quarter One financial report um and overall uh generally as uh is as we expect
048at this point in time from a both a revenues and expenditures perspective this slide will be one that is not usually in our quarterly update the dgf released their spreadsheet that has all the school district's tax rate uh tax levy and all that information and uh for the last several years I have put that into a chart just to bring everyone up to date with where we stand compared to other school districts across the state and comparison groups and so last time I showed you this it just had 23 and now it has 2024 added on there for all the other comparison districts so um this is our fourth year in a row of having very slight decline in our own tax rate um but it's interesting to look at the other comparison groups that
049we use both um the Indiana average as well as districts around us and districts with like assessed values and like budgets they seem to be concentrating if you look at at them at the wide variation in the decade you know leading up to 2020 they're pretty wide variation and they just seem to be getting closer and closer to one another as um there's probably a good reason for that um but it does seem like it's it's a much more predictable process over the last five years or so to I could almost tell you what our tax rate is going to be the day we put the um the budget up for our first hearing and so it's a much more predictable process than it used to be uh from a revenues perspective um on the
050education fund side uh revenues are up about 8% over last year um and most of this increase uh is because of that in continued uh higher interest rates and so we continue to collect um more interest earned than what we usually budget for um but I consider those to be artificial inflations because there's no guarantee that that rate will stay where it is in the future um we also had a just a timing issue with some C4 uh member districts um contributing their money in January instead of December so there's a little increase there that would have come in last year and there are no significant uh revenues for tax property tax supported funds until after uh we start collecting the the spring payments in May and June this is the education fund expenditures chart
051that I always show and um salaries and benefits from the education fund are up 10% over 2023 excuse me that made it worse inste it better um and this is a result of the collective bargaining agreement that that was passed excuse me last fall um in addition to the addition of uh administrators at the high school for the cohort model and honestly continued success in filling positions we just continue to have fewer and fewer unfilled openings as we go uh as we go forward which is obviously a victory as I shared back in the fall and you continue to remind you that we will need an additional appropriation in calendar year 2024 just to pay for the raises that were approved in 2023 as a result of the um collective bargaining agreement and raises for
052all groups thank you Dr ple so we'll probably wait till the fall for that additional appropriation request on the uh all the other expenditures in the education fund which is are very small percentage of the education fund budget are as expected and consistent with previous years uh on the operations fund side uh expenditures are as would be expected little um increase over there on the other category and that is almost entirely due to uh the property and liability insurance uh contribution that we pay from the operations fund um that came in the second quarter of last year and came in the first quarter last year but I will mention that that continues to increase as we see more and more catastrophic events happen not only across the country but across the world unfortunately just like
053when I watch uh a football game and I see prescription drug commercials all I can think of is how much how much that costs on the news when I see catastrophes I think about how much our property and liability insurance is going to go up uh and people I think about people in both those cases too um on the operations operating referendum fund side all expenditures are consistent with pre previous years and with budget as would be expected I'll just point out each quarter we'd like to to point out the impact of that operating referendum um in the first quarter of 2020 for that resulted in about $1.8 million in additional employee salaries for all uh qualifying teachers and all uh classified staff members it's about 540 teachers out of our 760 or so and
054uh about 1,00 um classified staff members benefited from that operating referendum and then last on the fund cash balances um the all balances with the accepted exception of uh Debt Service are up from the prior year those are as would be expected um of course higher revenues are driving that up um but I also expect um as we go through the course of this year that to be drawn down just a little bit as the uh salaries and benefits continue to draw forward um the health and dental balances are continuing a positive trend of increasing but I will note that our medical claims through the first quarter of this year are actually down from prior years um but uh prescription claims are way up from prior years I think that's consistent with probably what most
055employers are seeing um with the Advent of some new very expensive medications and then uh just remind you that The Debt Service fund will continue to decline um slightly as we retire old debt and and add new debt to replace the uh with the change in the state law regarding how much we can carry in cash balances in that fund happy answer any questions you have about the budget through the first quarter questions no thank you thank you Dr Phillips okay we will move on to the public comments section of our agenda however there is no one signed up currently for public comments so we will we will move past that on to request for approval Dr Roberts okay I have two items for uh approval under old business although one of the items has
056quite a few meetings you all had over the last month or so so asking for approval for the minutes of the executive session of March 3rd the regular school board meeting on March 4th the executive session on March 18th the executive session on March 19th the executive session of March 23rd and the executive session of March 28th additionally as asking for approval of policy 5380 a revision we talked about at our last meeting which was some time ago um but it was bringing in this case policy in line with practice because Indiana statute had changed we had not U made a revision to our particular fundraising um policy in this particular case uh the change was to make sure that students even those under 18 years of age may sell tickets or chances for a
057raffle uh state law changed a few years AG go to allow that to be the case we did have a comment about making sure that any fundraiser involving games of chance must comply with Indiana Law including obtaining the appropriate license or permits after we've added this under 18 piece of students we added that sentence again on your recommendation at the last meeting so that was the change from the last meeting and asking for that approval as well thank you Dr Roberts do you have a motion from the board I move that we approve uh motions three A and B as presented second thank you Mr nelan I have a motion to approve items A and B items three A and B all those in favor say I I I I all those opposed say n
058no okay motion approved thank you uh the next is uh approval for new business and we have 10 items under new business this evening including all the ones from Dr Bosman from before for so we have a list of supplemental contracts in your packet field trips and professional leaves school fundraisers uh claims and payroll the claims for April 15th total about $1.8 million the pre- runs from February 24th through March 31st equal about $4.8 million in payroll going from March 8th all the way through the April 5th payroll a little over $1 million there's an extra note about just the differences sometimes in those payrolls in terms of of what is included in those additionally asking for per mission to approve the disposal of laptops and desktops when we move equipment or property away from
059our building we have to have a proper permission from you all to do that we are also asking for a memorandum of understanding to be agreed upon with Indiana University Columbus regarding admission of our bcsc students that particular memorandum would allow um our students to be accepted into I based upon very specific criteria so without them having to go through the process of applying uh our sharing of information I would accept them and then of course it's up to the student and the family as whether they actually enroll pay do all those kinds of things but just takes away maybe one step in the process uh we have permission to receive bids on Johnson's Early Education Renovations phase one important part of us moving in the phase one uh of our project permission to award
060a design architect for new Elementary School uh permission to award construction manager as Constructor for phase one of the Envision 2030 projects there were three different ones there for you for you and permission to establish a guaranteed maximum price for the Schmidt renovation so those are the additional 10 new business items I'm asking for approval okay thank you Dr Roberts I move that we approve item four C through L under new business as presented thank you Mr Nan do I have a second second thank you Mr Bryant would it be would it be possible for us to separate out J and K please J and K so I would make a motion to amend the the prior motion to remove J and K and vote separately on those okay okay so we see through I
061yep so C3 I and L did you say J and K or I sorry I couldn't hear J and K okay can you say that as one motion so someone can second it I don't think it needs to be seconded to poll doesn't it technically you got to close out the current motion do you have to close out the current motion because you got a motion in a second doesn't hurt to vote on it right it doesn't matter to me I mean we've done this every other way that we can ever think of so just strike strike what I said and just move forward with this okay okay thank you Mr mcgyver so for those who may not have been able to hear because we've had a motion in a second we need to actually
062conclude that with a vote and now is the time for us to have discussion as a team on the motion which was to approve C through l so is there any discussion on any of those items so yeah this isn't on jnk but but two comments that I wanted to include here um one is recognition and thank you to Mr Edwards for his work on the memorandum of understanding I think that's really a huge benefit for our students down the road and and the second I don't usually call out field trips but I thought it's really cool that East is applying to take kids to Washington DC next year that didn't get to do their eighth grade trip because of covid that was awesome that make national news very good there any other questions or
063comments on C through l no just so everybody understands to be consistent with what I've stated in the past based on the data that was shared with us back in November shown reduction in students between 2021 and 2031 anytime we have a discussion about approvals for anything for a new elementary school I will say I will vote no um because I don't believe when we're projecting a reduction in students over the next 10 years that we need to be building capacity it's uh not useful expenditure of tax money okay thank you Mr major okay so I have a motion in a second to approve um 4 C through L all those in favor please say I I all those opposed please say nay nay okay motion passes 61 Dr P I request approval of the
06438 recommendations as presented in your packet this evening which consist of six retirements 15 resign 13 appointments and Four Leaves you have been busy Dr ple is this the season for retirements anything to be concerned with here this is the time for all us to start so okay okay thank you do I have a motion from the board I move that we approve item five Human Resources recommendations as presented thank you thank you Mr n do I have a second second thank you Mr Bryant all those in favor of approving human resource recommendations item five please say I I I all those opposed say nay motion carries seven thank you we have nothing from the additional right no no additional okay board input and review I will start with Mr Bryant please I really don't
065have a whole lot but I would like to thank uh Dr Boseman and uh also Central Middle School letting the library use their facility and their uh field uh it was great unfortunately I had to call Dr bosem uh that morning but we worked everything out and it was really great uh we have any anywhere between 8 to a thousand uh people out there wow so thank you Dr yeah I'd like to congratulate all the teacher of the year award winners in the top 10 for both Columbus East and Columbus North to the teachers I want to thank them all for the support they provided to our students and to the students congratulations to all the hard work paying off best of luck in your future endeavors uh there's funny enough Jamie Riley Caitlyn and
066Malia all are friends of my daughter she's a Sen senior as well which is kind of cool I saw my daughter actually in Mr Chastain's video so that's awesome uh especially considering that uh she talks about him quite a bit as being her favorite teacher I did get to spend a few minutes with him earlier and just express my thanks to him for her saying that so um when your kid comes home and talks about a teacher being a good teacher and it just so happens they wining teacher the year it kind of really resonates and hits home so special thank you to Mr Chastain as well um I'll do a shout out for Miss Summers as the Edna fer Award winner when I worked at the chamber that was one of the highlights of
067the year uh because it would always be a secret uh the teacher would be invited to sit at the table with some other bcsc teachers they had no idea then their family members would show up by the exit door just as the speeches were starting it was a wonderful event so congratulations to Mrs Summers um and then I'd Echo uh my colleagues comments about what an amazing evening this is to recognize folks uh for their Excellence their hard work uh Mr Grimes uh wanted me to let everybody know that he hates missing any board meeting any board meeting at all but he was especially upset to be missing this one uh because there's so many well-deserving and dedicated students and teachers being recognized uh he did want to congratulate them all and he wanted me
068to explain briefly that he is on uh probably right now an evening tour of memorials in Washington DC with students from his school so that's the report from Mr Stenner and Mr Grimes can I add something just real quick of course because otherwise they will forget I want to just highlight something Mr major said uh in terms of saying something to a teacher that means something CU I I'm not sure really any of us any of us here too often maybe the impact we've had on other people so making sure that they know that so his going to Mr Chastain and verbalizing that because I wonder for each of us if our favorite teacher knows that they were our favorite teacher and and if not let's take an opportunity maybe here at the end of
069the year to to do that no matter how old we are is is to look that person up and see if we can let them know that they that was actually the case for us as we were maturing and developing as well so I appreciate that a comment thank you on that same vein um maybe some people don't know April 23rd is National bus driver appreciation day so that is between now and our next um schooling I wanted to to highlight that we have 100 approximately 110 amazing bus drivers that get our kids to school and home safely every day it is a not an easy job I can't imagine um and so if you could please take a moment on that day parents to appreciate bus drivers um a few options for you you
070can write a nice thank you note um if you're good at social media I am not but if you are # than you buus drivers is apparently what will be used on that day um you can give them a special treat or snack or I would also venture to guess just walking up to the bus when you put your kid on in the morning and saying thank you would probably go a really long way so April 23rd that's all thanks for the reminder uh Miss Pat who puts up with the Schultz children every day we'll get that reminder now I appreciate it uh some recognitions I want to recognize uh the Food Service team facilities team Miss day at Schmidt and Cherry for helping us put together uh the superintendent search there was a lot
071of uh last minute uh drills just trying to get everything together and I appreciate the efforts it was I think it was great and it showed what we can do in a short amount of time um I want to Echo the congratulations to the teachers and students uh miss me was teacher at Taylorville when I was there and so nice to see old faces as well um Dr Boseman and Dr Phillips for hosting the architecture uh meetings and their presentations and my students or my my children getting to see pictures of the students at the new elementary school they had a lot of questions all wanted to know what it was going to look like and I was like time will sell and we'll see um and then the last thing was just kind of
072a call and I know I've talked with Dr Roberts and U Miss London on cea about how are we're going to address s sp1 and I think that's something that hopefully we'll be able to look through the cicc uh committee to see what what do we need to do differently to make sure our children are ready to uh move on and not be retained under this new law so that's the only other call out that I had appreciate it so I think like everyone else this is my favorite meeting of the year um when I think about what schools do it's really getting teachers and students to interact with each other in ways that that help students move forward and and we get to celebrate both tonight so I appreciate that um and actually to
073Echo what Dr Robert said so when I retired from teaching I didn't take a whole lot of stuff home but I did take home um notes that I got from kids over the years um so I I would Echo what he said let let let a teacher know what they meant to um and we had a lot of recognitions tonight but I have one more to add um I'd like to offer commendations to the Columbus North Indiana Math League team who finished in second place in the Statewide contest six of the top 20 finishers in the state were from Columbus North Michael Crossman was second grace Hong was sixth Nevin Justin was ninth isan jasuja sorry isan was 14th and Adrien Perez and Janine Wong tied for 17th um there were four other students that
074missed the top 20 just by one or two points so they had an outstanding finish there and also just thank you to the to Columbus North and the custodial staff here because I know that it's not easy to set up for all of this and then tear down when we go home they still have to turn it back into a cafeteria so our next board meeting uh is here on April 29th um at 6:30 6:30 p.m. like that I would just add before you gble out is that we are working to schedule a reception for that evening too since we are looking to uh approve or at least vote on the uh superintendent um selection recommendation so we are trying to set that up we will communicate that publicly okay thank you Dr Roberts with
075that meeting adjourned thank you all