001ni here 630 yeah I said I just have to want me to say something ready okay hello hello hello I'll start singing soon if we don't get quiet hello can we get started we have someone to celebrate tonight I'd like to make sure everybody can take part in that um so I know we're very anxious to get to the festivities but we will um will we do this first yep we will go ahead and and start our evening with the Pledge of Allegiance for those that can stand please Al to FL United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all we do have a quorum here so I will call the meeting to order Dr Roberts thank you Mrs wildon before
002we get into the heart of the agenda uh we do like to make sure and review our mission vision and core values each board meeting uh the vision for our school corporation is to be the choice to learn work and play and our mission is we develop expert Learners by partnering with our community to invest in people our six core beliefs 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 Comm Comm and our democracy and Democratic institutions are strengthened by civic-minded citizens with that I can keep on going
003Mrs Wilden uh we have a great crowd of people here tonight so thank you for being here on a Monday February the 5th the first thing that we're going to jump into is our 2024 education Hall of Fame award and before getting into um our recognition of Mrs wats I do want to call our attention to um the select ction committee who participates in this annual um event to to make sure we find the the greatest that is has been a part of our school corporation and we get a chance to celebrate them so Mr Schultz Logan Schultz a school board member appointment to that committee and was our chair for the committee anybody else in the audience who was on that committee I know Mr Perkins Perkinson I saw you earlier please stand if
004you're on the committee for for that Larry's standing but it's kind of behind behind some people back there so perk thanks as always and anybody else who is participating in that group uh we appreciate the effort to again choose uh this this recipient so we are here tonight to celebrate Mrs Sandy Watts the education Hall of Fame award is given to teachers former teachers or administrators who have made a noteworthy and extraordinary employment contribution to the Bartholomew Consolidated School corporation which merits recognition for excellence and we certainly believe that Mrs Watts has done that I do want to thank Brad Brad Davis is in the front here with the Republic very good article Brad that you did on Mrs Watts great picture Sandy on the front page and Mike Wen always does a nice job
005of getting the photos and things so thanks to the Republic for for their coverage uh at this point I'm going to bring Mrs Watts up to the podium so Sandy I hope you have a a presentation or a speech or whatever you're going to give to us here may maybe a lesson plan you start reading start cry okay before we have uh Sandy speak to us um I do want to read the plaque from our 2024 education Hall of Fame award and just a remind or maybe new information if you've not heard this before but anytime we give an education Hall of Fame award away or to the proper recipient we have two plaques and one will be will go wherever that person wants to to put it and one will come to our our
006place and so we we uh make sure that we recognize the individual uh here in this building as well so uh the 2024 education Hall of Fame award is presented to Mrs Sandy watts and what we always do is make sure to to take quotes from the uh letters of recommendation that we receive and so on this particular one we have tireless leader for Education can do Spirit the community is her extended classroom I think in that article Brad it said something about they're my kids right uh approachable and engaging Master teacher keen understanding of individual student needs Community Advocate and activist builds teams to make the community a better place the ownership she demonstrates for each student is unmatched committed to helping her students reach their full potential so it's great pride that as
007a representative for our school corporation I present this Hall of Fame award uh to Sandy Watts [Laughter] I'm not shaking you're shaking thank you I am so humbled to receive this award I know of all the amazing people that preceded me they set the bar high and it's an honor to be in their company first I want to thank my husband Dave he's back there in the cheap seat well he's actually standing um we've been married for 51 and a half years wow I know I was young uh we were young dumb broke but we were in love evidently at work because we're still together he's a reason we here we've always been a team I know you all recognize him he's the guy that be wrote a tillering the garden at the school for
008the school garden he's the guy that went to hundreds of activities not just for our own kids but for all your kids he love the dance recital especially when they were three hours by the way he really liked the sports events I've got to say Aiden you're out there you know that um there's a song it's called he's one of the good ones well I have one of the best ones when I retired he thought oh the honeydew list is going to end for for school at least well Kathy Dell called me and said would you choreograph Annie we need you to do that I bet you didn't know I'm a tap dancer neither did anybody in the halls of the school but he ended up building all the beds for the orphans and doing
009the backdrops a he also so for years as you know because a lot of you do this we collect plastic caps for recycling to get furniture around the community and I came up with a bright idea that we ought to collect them and coordinate it with Parkside Elementary and First United Methodist Church this community in less than 6 months had 1,500 lbs of caps they overtook our garage we couldn't get our cars in so Elwood Staffing came to the rescue and they gave us a place to store them unfortunately it was upstairs you know what it's like carrying 1500 lbs upstairs yeah I may be calling on you guys the next time so then we took them back to Parkside and around 130 kids helped us sort them the teachers helped sort Laden and Sheila
010Turner who I can always depend on Linda Young and Janice Montgomery all came to sort and we weighed them all as well and loaded them up in a truck that Driftwood Builders donated for us that's what this community is so thank you honey I love you and the honeydew list is going to continue sorry so and then I want to thank our kids Jennifer and Michael Jennifer flew in from Washington DC she owns very creative she has a great husband Sean we have two perfect grandchildren um Connor is eight Becca just turned five they aren't here because they're busy attending public school and they know I don't want them to miss school so they are not here um I also want to recognize our son Michael uh he's a civil engineer for Pure development in
011Indianapolis he's here with our soon Tobe daughter Lindsay his fiance so we're thrilled that we can be here um they can be here I tell you what about them they always knew they were first but they always knew that my students were my kids too they knew that and they were never jealous they donated did so many hours to me in my classroom and the schools I taught at they were amazing we were at Taylorville school one time late at night like on a Saturday night and we kept the lights dim so da is working in my classroom surprise and we go down to the library when we're at the library I'm reaching up to get books I'm going down to get books and there you know the songs Stuck Like Glue they were stuck
012to me like glue it was really dark in there have you ever been in a big building where it's it's all dark it's kind of creepy it's kind of they were scared fortunately I didn't traumatize them too much they kept volunteering we love you so much not only your achievements but the way you love and care about others that's a special gift so thank you it's really special them being here next I need to say my dad and I hope I get through this he passed away 36 and a half years ago from ALS he was the youngest of six children as soon as he graduated from high school he was drafted into the military he was in the Infantry in the Philippines where he acquired malaria he came back fortunately the GI Bill he
013went to school on that GI Bill while being in and out of hospital because of the severe malaria that he was suffering from when he graduated he became a basketball coach and a high school teacher at Aurora High School then he went on to Emerson Elementary in Seymour for 30 years and also he owned a small business I'll never forget when he got ready to retire his eyes teared up and he said Sandy I'm going to miss the kids I'm going to miss the staff I'm going to miss the parents well he taught me two great lessons to love education and to love people what a blessing that is next I must thank staff you see that has my name on it but it belongs to all of you it wouldn't be possible without all
014of us working together so the part with my name on it and maybe a few of the adjectives that that's my part you get all the rest well I graduated in January of 1980 when you graduate you take and substitute teach I substitute taught at Smith Elementary School Larry Brock was the principal he came in and he said I'll never forget this Mrs Watts I need to see you immediately in my office after school oh my gosh I just started and I'm called to the principal's office what did I do already so I go in there and he goes I've got a first grade opening I'd like you to take it for the rest of the semester it was Mrs Watts for Mrs Watts but we weren't related so I was in first grade that
015was really special so I wanted to meet the children ahead of time so I came in early so they didj just before their teacher had to leave and this little guy on never forget he jumps out of his seat he's a toddler size and he's running at me as fast as he can his arms are outstretch and tears are streaming down his face he said Mrs Watts I knew you'd find me I just knew you'd find me well I dropped to my knees and we're hugging and both crying you see I student taught with Janice cell at Taylorville in first grade all of you that knew Janice she's one of the world's classiest ladies But Not only was she one of the classiest she was one of the best mentors in the world she taught
016me to believe in myself I'd never believed in myself before what a gift and that little guy was in her classroom and he told us about the severe abuse he was suffering from and he had the scars and he didn't even realize what was happening so that was a godwink moment God just told me you're supposed to be a teacher and you're supposed to be with Eddie the rest of the year what a blessing that was so now I'm out of a job again oh my goodness after all that I'm out of a job I get a call from Pete orid and he the interview went great I thought then he said uh Sandy you have anything else to share and I go I'm four months pregnant he said excuse me I go well I
017told Dave I want a baby for graduation and I actually had a miscarriage while I was student teaching and are Jennifer who's been our photographer um that's that baby well amazingly Pete H me anyway that was amazing back then in the old days so I had the blessing to get hard and teach with Betty Everett I bet a lot of you know her she she had taught for years and then she got stuck with three rookies myself Becky Williams and Glenn Brown oh my gosh Becky's over there and we spent a lot of nights together didn't we Becky we kind of lived at school you might say well it was amazing there those parents at F threw me a surprise baby shower and they I just come you know and they do this for me
018the kids would beg to stay after school and I'd let them if their parents approved and I drive them home in the old days you could do that how special so I was there for four years and it was great there but my heart kind of belonged to Taylorville because that's where I student taught the song We Are Family that's Taylorville elementary school because it was a family atmosphere oh my gosh we we had hay rides we had where we'd roast hot dogs on pitchforks they told me they were sanitized I'm not so sure when I got there I was with Mary Helen Espen lob and I was with Jee mclen she had grown up with my dad as they retired I was with Kathy Calvin Brenda christofel and Janice waltmire and later on I
019was with Amber Elwood she'd been my student teacher how about that's pretty cool isn't it so also Mary Jane Perry was there she was a music teacher everybody knows Mary Jane Perry I had I was now teaching with her she had taught for my dad and she had taught me so what a great experience be brown was there and she would help with all our crazy ideas that we decide to do often I had whole families if they had two kids I had all two kids uh my three sons are here I think tonight the Richardson family Carol and Steve I had all three of their boys the last one was Matt and I said I'm going to miss them so much they they volunteered they were so supportive what am I going to do
020without you guys well on down the road at an open house here they come in with a little bundle and Carol looks at me right Carol and she said we did this just for you okay I I was kind of dumb struck which comes easy for me at times uh and then she just burst out laughing and she goes actually we borrowed the neighbor's little boy we wanted to pull a trick on you that's what family's about well one of the things that created the family was John quick John quick was our principal and he came to our room almost every day not to check on us but to support us he would if you'd whisper wow this child did great he was over there going way to go if you were having issues he
021was over there discreetly redirecting what a gift that was that was special Peggy Lawson was my ta there she took work home Pat knew her we tell her not to take work home I mean she made the big bucks you know that and we just thought it wasn't fair for her to be working all this overtime but unfortunately John decided he wanted to go to greener pastures now you know he's a Horseman but you think horsing around anyway no he became a superintendent and we became a revolving door a bunch of the Taylorville teachers were just at our home and we couldn't keep track of all the principles that we had they divided our teams up they made us move to different rooms and teachers started retiring so I decided to go right out that
022revolving door too and I went to Parkside what a special place that was I see a lot of my students here and that tear me up um I taught with Jolan Bodkins I taught with Debbie brow and Sabrina Rawlings while I was there teaching with them I had as and I lost my notes I had with them um Michelle Payne Sylvia Smith Lesley Jones and Colleen rowski rotated around his teas now Colleen rowski she got desperate to get away from me she moved to China that's pretty desperate no seriously she did move to China but fortunately she came back and we e together about every week so that was pretty special while I was there we adopted adaberry my classroom did we would put on shows we collected toiletry items remember that uh we coordinate
023throughout the building we collected thousands and thousands of toiletry items we did a service project called putting you in the Uso I'd arrive at school at 7 the parents and now I want to thank the parents they were there for us they would come in we'd have the Uso Canteen at school and we would feed the students then we would have them put on their antlers and their candy cane hats and all the elf hats in the years the whole bit and their Parkside shirts of course they were all decked out we even had Elvis was in the room one year he had on the white you know one piece jumpsuit I know you're all looking at Dr Roberts um it wasn't him it was Ryan clulow he stood about this tall but it was
024a lot of fun so we'd load those buses or the cars up 26 of them can you imagine all these parents with their kids in the car and we're trying to get through security at Camp adury thank you Teresa heiny she started giving us a bus so things went a lot smoother so we're up at camp adury and we didn't just sing about Christmas we sang about Quanza and Hanukkah we heard one of the soldiers and she's dancing and singing the drle song and another Soldier says how do you know that well I'm Jewish that's why an elderly man walked up to Dave now he doesn't seem so elderly does he honey he walked up to Dave and he goes do you know this teacher and he admitted yeah I know her she's my wife
025and he said well give her this and he had a whole lot of bills he tried to stick them in Dave's pocket and Dave said no and he goes this is for those kids this is for her classroom and Dave goes I can't take that I just can't take it Sandy will be so mad at me because she wants the children to learn to give and to respect the soldiers NOP nope you don't understand you see I lost my wife quite a while back I'm here at adury to help me to be with these soldiers I haven't smiled for a really really long time tonight I smiled and it was all because of those kids when I was at Parkside I had parents from all over the world what a what how special is that
026and I would hear them talking to their students my kids well their kids too and they would say oh my gosh look at all these soldiers this is what freedom is about this is why we have freedom here and this is why we want to live in America what a great lesson we also one time it was really rough I was there on December 14th with my kids think about that date December 14th if you're a teacher you'll never forget that date that was Sandy Hook so I'm with the kids from I get to school at 700 they don't depart till around 8:30 because we put on three shows they were exhausted by the time we hit it out three shows we're at we're at Applebee's eating because I was too nervous to eat all
027day and I see it on the TV screens and I go to Dave Dave what's going on I you know I didn't know I I was with my kids and he told me 20 first and second graders were gone were murdered in their classroom and six staff members we had had great joy that day and I lost it I totally lost it and I couldn't stop crying I just couldn't and I bet a lot of you lost it on that day and I find I'm still losing it unfortunately because it's still happening so Dave and I are part of the B smart initiative which is just about safe gun storage it's a small thing but maybe it'll help so thank you parents thank you thank you staff for trusting me now I want to say
028thank you parents again because I didn't realize how trusting you were you gave me your most precious what you value the most and you trusted me you respected me you gave of yourself I'd have volunteers and a lot of them are here every single day in my classroom Beth hegley wouldn't give it up she volunteered for years in my classroom and she still brings me food I mean wow so at when they finish I they come up and say can we still volunteer in your classroom grandparents and parents and I go well yeah that'd be great but I also with Dave's help had thousands of books in my classroom they range from pre-primer through High School believe it or not I had students in Pre Premier and High School in the same year in my
029in my classroom and I need to meet every child's needs I needed all those books I read to them they read them the students checked them out parents would say oh our kids love this book can we check it out well sure they' check out books thank you you trusted me you believe belied in me you respected me in my choices you let me teach I didn't realize how special that was until the last two years that respect and that trust let me teach how special is that well next I need to thank my students my kids they'll always be my kids they taught me so much and they gave so much one time I had a student Max and he walked up and he goes do you know the song He's Got The Whole
030World in His Hands and just like that and I said I sure do Max and he goes well can we sing it and I go well and before I could say anymore he goes but we've got the whole world in our class we had 15 students from other countries their parents in my classroom I want to sing We've Got the Whole World in our class and we did we'd sing We Got the Whole World in our class we got China and Mexico in our class we've got India and South Korea in our class well you got it we sang it all over town we sang it at Parkside Court and you know those are kind of elderly people older than me and they they not only sang it with us they would stand up and
031cheer for the countries they were from as the children stood up for the countries that their family was from we were learning social emotional learning we were learning diversity equity and inclusion before it was called that that's just what you do that's what makes us all better and these children were a perfect example the other thing we did was called the holiday train thank you Kathy Dale she would help us and we combine shell Silverstein silly poems we did plays now these kids I found an article from the newspaper and it said not your usual Christmas program nothing is out of bounds well those children dress messed up in the clothing from their cultures and they taught us about their holidays I found where Kevin Zang said I got to teach everyone about Chinese New
032Year another of my students said you know it was Autumn cavan just came back she said you know we learned about all kinds of holidays and you know what's special about holidays no matter where they are they're about family love and fun what a special gift that they gave all of us I had been to both theier and Charlie Ricks they were terrified to get in front of people in this newspaper article they said for the first time they like getting in front of people they couldn't wait for the play Venta was the butterfly we had a diverse group in this Christmas show she was a butterfly how appropriate was that because she had a metamorphosis she was no longer afraid to stand up and speak in front of people I just hope for those
033kids I taught them to love learning and to love people if they have those two skills they're going to be successful in their lives so thank you thank you so much for the students they were eight and nine and they got it they really got it sometimes I think they got it better than no offense all of us they really understand it so finally I want to thank Columbus and bcsc you made my children successful with the education they got here it was because of you you're simply the best we all know that song Simply the Best bcsc and Columbus are simply the best they were amazing I would go into store and they got to know me if you're a teacher you spend thousands of dollars out of your pocket over the years I
034would walk in in this one manager he'd he'd come and approach me before I got to him he might as well well I was going to hunt him down and he'd say what do you need this time Sandy and I'd tell him maybe it was something for the troops and he goes I can give you this manage in dollars go pick out whatever you want how special is that we would go up to camp ataberry and do a program up there and we also when I was at Taylorville had pin Pals in Desert Storm when they came back we had a welcome home party I bet you remember that the whole school we had had it decorated it was outstanding people stepped up for us and donated our school it was Brenda christofel Janice waltmire
035and Kathy Calvin we were teaching together in Sharon fields we we were the ones writing the letters well they went and asked around the community for sheet cakes because we were going to keep them all day we wanted to celebrate them all day everybody gave us sheet cakes they were unbelievable Uncle Sam red white and blue flags they donated the yellow ribbons a lot of you probably remember that we tied them around the trees Gail and Dave Burnside I think Jeanie's here that's her brother big flags that we got to present I'm told not to do that big flags that we got to present to every single soldier how special is that also Gordon Ellsbury opened up his Greenhouse I know Amy and David are here opened up his greenhouse and said just bring your
036vehicle take anything you want and I did we did the program twice and our whole school was decorated with red white and blue flowers and because of the art teacher we had the walls were covered welcoming them to our school those kids will never forget that and neither will the soldiers how special was that we did all kinds of things at Taylorville we had Alice and Wonderland day we built a wigwam we planned a garden oh on aliceon Wonderland day all of you know Shelley lwhy yeah she was Queen of Hearts boy she pulled that off well I think they really thought she was we even got a voting machine brought in now you older people no offense you know what a voting machine is those great big ones the big metal mon yeah they
037brought it in the children got to vote on it and the candidates came and wandered around during lunchtime and told about the office they wanted to hold why they they wanted to hold it and what was the responsibility how special is that it was really special we also got to be at the salute concert my little third graders had sandwich boards on the pays Jackson had them on they made them and they wandered around through thousands of people trying to get people to volunteer at the Uso we also had a big table and those third graders made PowerPoints I was told they couldn't do it yeah they can you set the bar High they'll achieve it they had PowerPoints they had a book they had made we'd gone to the Uso and they'd roleplayed and
038we took pictures and we had a hardback book we wanted to demonstrate what your job would be when you went the Uso when I was at Parkside we walked out to the airport first we went to the forest station and they learned about those Heroes then we went to the air museum Gordon Lake skip Taylor and others veterans taught us about the Tuskegee Airmen they taught us about Nancy War they taught us about women pilots we even had Gus poti there he had been a prisoner of war in World War II at the Bridge over River Quai look it up he taught us all kinds of things he donated a a painting that I hope still hanging in Parkside School and it has an angel in it every painting he did had an angel because
039he said that's what protected him that angel so every painting has an angel so after we did that Mara van Amon she's right here in the first row uh she arranged for us to go to iupu Columbus Learning Center ivtech and that Purdue school I went to IU that Purdue school because she we wanted kids to learn about what you could do right here in Columbus but also all the opportunities in the world we went next we would get lunches from blacker be hanger he'd fix over 130 lunches for all these third graders and he didn't make a dime because he didn't charge anything for him he did that out of kindness we'd go on tours downtown we'd be walking downtown and we were there and I hear Sandy Sandy bring your kids come on
040in here and then he said oh I mean Mrs whats come on in here I want to tell him about the great job I have and I want to tell him about this great great City well I bet you can guess who it was mayor Fred and everybody knew him as mayor Fred he proceeded to turn get this beautiful Container full of jelly beans and said do you like jelly beans I love jelly beans here and he goes it's from a distinguished visitor from Japan and I thought oh my gosh we're going to drop this so quickly my dad didn't raise a dummy I had a parent take care of it I didn't want that to be sh shattered on my watch that was a giving we felt I want to thank all of you
041it takes all of us all the groups I've named it took all of us that's what makes bcsc and Columbus a great place to be working together we're going to be with our two grandchildren in Disney World and you know the song where they say you make a wish your dreams come true I want to say you don't have to go to Disney World stay in Columbus go to bcsc your dreams will come true I have students that are anywhere from living in Canada to Florida I have students that live in New York and DC to California I have students my kids they're my kids they always will be whether they like it or not my kids all around the world we're Facebook friends we're still going to to high school and college graduation parties
042and weddings for my kids cuz they're part of my family so I want to thank you oh my gosh I can't believe this I made it this far um I always wanted to be a teacher ever since I was a little girl with my cowgirl boots on and Mary Jane Perry was my teacher I always wanted to be a teacher you made my dreams come true and now you're honoring for what I love to do with all the people I love that are here thank you so much I'll never forget this it's like having a funeral before you die and you get to hear all the good things thank you [Laughter] congratulations oh my gosh we go way back well congratulations Sandy I think with uh sy's words of wisdom there we can all understand
043why she was so successful and without a sign out signin sheet I think I know everybody that attended tonight because your name was somehow brought up at some time or another during her her remarks so thank you for your your attendance this evening oh [Laughter] [Music] oh all right Mr sprong we'll go ahead and get you up here and start to transition into the next next presentation [Music] Dr quick we rely on your help but back there to for this [Laughter] transition heard some cats you click the video and get her back to the thing right yeah yeah she asked me that I know she asked me [Music] that [Music] s all right well thank you again ladies and gentlemen for being here we are going to transition right now into the uh presentation from
044Richard's Elementary School with Mr spra and his team Darren good evening okay thank you thank you to Dr Roberts and the school board very difficult act to follow I was hoping some of these they're probably just going to watch this online I guess so so we'll move on from that um thanks for the opportunity to share a little bit more about Richards and who we are as raidar Nation um we are proud of our building um and who we are from our architecture um and the unique design of our building to the horses um and the art we actually have right inside of our building um we've had visitors from all over the world come to see our noola horses uh the sculptures so we invite you as well what we're most proud of is
045our diversity and our students and staff um and who we and who we are every day so our goal for our presentation is to show you a glimpse of how we're living out the goal of allowing our students the opportunity to provide community service develop a strong work ethic and connect to the community our motto is Big Dreams plus hard work equals success and we try to live out that goal every day so Karen Allen and Amy mochas are co-chairs of our PBIS team um they are going to um show you a littleit more about our strategic plan uh both are also members of our uh cic um and Karen has been the co-chair ca co-chair for 12 years with with me right um retiring this year is after 32 years of service so started
046when you were eight something like that um so this strong team of leaders behind me are going to show you um how how we carry out uh the core belief Bel of developing C civic-minded citizens and we'll show you the flexibility and choice as part of that from kindergarten through sixth grade as we develop our leaders our work is most closely connected to two of these bcsc core beliefs those two being that learning is most effective when we have Choice flexibility see relevance and that our community and School District are stronger when we partner with one another so our connection our goal is connected to these bcsc strategic objectives we believe that every student having Equitable access to learning growing and demonstrating success is deeply connected to their development of a strong work ethic and
047a sense of the value they bring to their classroom and school community Through classroom routines and structures and grade level and building-wide groups our staff work to remove barriers to participation so that every student has the opportunity to be a leader and see the ways that their hard work benefits their classroom and school Community some of the benefits of building a strong work ethic through school and Community connections we believe that through the responsibility of classroom and building-wide jobs students are able to see the Direct Value they bring as they help to make their classrooms and school and engaging environments where every student can learn they have the opportunity to partner with each other staff members and Community groups to work hard and participate in areas of high interest to them as students practice working
048hard at school our goal is for them to develop confidence in their role as Citizens so that they are excited about and prepared to volunteer in their Community many of our sixth grade students especially enjoy volunteering in the community as part of earning the mayor's work ethic certificate as we saw saw their excitement around that we considered what more we could do at Richards through grades K through six to prepare all students for that opportunity and for working and volunteering in their communities as they grow as you'll see in the video on the next slide we're highlighting these groups and these activities at Richards our students love having classroom jobs being building helpers joining gym crew being peer leaders in young champions and Community volunteering in sixth grade one thing I want to know as
049you watch the video the first student that is highlighted is a classroom greeter and you'll see her shaking Mr spr Strong's hand and in the video it doesn't come across how effusive she is with her greeting when you walk in that room she is immediately popping up meeting you at the door putting her hand out to shake your hand and saying Welcome to our classroom she has taken to that role loves it so much and is now training others in her classroom in that role as well [Music] my name is addessa um we're going around in collecting food for the homeless and and the people who in need um um because um the people are in need um they need help and they need and they need um food and water I like doing this
050cuz it's like trick-or-treating for other people we are Tak our to library it helps our books get down to the library hi I'm auri and my job is teacher helper um teacher helper is where we help um what will we help the teacher anywhere when she needs help or if we need to pass out papers we are the main um resource to where like if like anyone needs help or if or we need help ourselves the other teacher helper could help us and we have out the teacher these are our morning jobs uh we take the library books down to the LI Library um and I take down the breakfast count and then I take down like lunch money gym crew really improves students um ability to work with groups every every week we have
051to set up a certain activity for the for the whole school and it it requires a lot of um working together to be able to quickly set up those activities being in JY crew and applying is a very easy process and it will teach students how to improve their social skills and how to work together as a we are hi my name is m and I'm working towards the mayor's work ethics certificate I did two different um things for my community service and ended up getting 6.5 hours one thing I did was I rang a bell outside of Walmart and then I made cards for kids in the hospital for the holidays and me and my friend worked together for it and we both shipped our cards over there [Music] young champions is an opportunity
052for students to come together to support encourage and challenge each other as they learn new skills and then they're able to take what they learn about including others and being kind and be role models to their [Music] classmates thank you so much to Josh Bernett for so perfectly capturing the Civic Spirit of our Richards Raiders we appreciate his time and expertise so much here we have a couple snapshots of the of some things that didn't get into the video one is that um juvenile magistrate Britney long was able to come and talk to our sixth graders about um Civic engagement as an elect official and then um we have students being Library helpers students receiving the mayor's work ethics certificate from mayor linp last spring and then something um we do at Richards so we
053really want our students to get into the community to volunteer for their volunteer hours but there are barriers that some students have to getting into the community to get those hours so we provide opportunities at Richards um one of those is students sometimes help pack food bags for the food distribution that we do at school each week and they really enjoy that and then we also were lucky to have Dr Roberts come visit one day and get to get right into it with helping the students set up for young champions so we were happy to have him join us for that hi I'm Karen Allen I'm a special education teacher at Richards I'd like to talk a little bit about the connections that we've made between helping students build a strong work ethic and udl
054and PBIS udl short for um Universal Design for Learning is the framework that really guides everything we do in bcse uh udl allows all students to access and participate in curriculum and activities in the way that suits them best um it allows students to show what they've learn in the way that suits them best for udl to be successfully implemented it should should be implemented across the board at Richards we provide multiple means of Engagement representation and expression in the curriculum but we also provide multiple means of being an active part of the Richards community in our school different roles and jobs suit different children we try very hard to give all students the opportunity to learn the importance of a strong worth work ethic by contributing to the Richards community PBIS or positive behavior
055instructional supports is another uh foundational component of bcsc schools at Richards we have consistent behavioral expectations for all students in all School settings we provide direct instruction on these expectations and we um have a culture of positivity and accountability uh the connection between building a strong work ethic and PBIS is really a two-way street uh when students participate in the school Community by being helpful to others or by being responsible for part of the classroom or the building they experience engagement and empowerment that has a real positive influence on their learning in turn uh this sense of ownership and pride then helps Foster a stronger work ethic let me give you an example we have a student at Richards whom I'll call Jay Jay has has had a fair amount of trauma in his life
056and frankly his behaviors can sometimes reflect that um he's been known to leave the classroom without permission disrupt learning sometimes he hides um earlier this year we started enlisting Jay's help with some jobs around school their jobs any of us could very easily do their simple jobs easy jobs but we wanted him to start to experience the positivity of hard work and feeling ownership in our building and our school Community since we started that he's now asking for more jobs to do around the school and sure enough his behavior has really improved a great deal I we'd like to take this opportunity to thank our many partners with their contributions we are helping our students be their very best any questions for Mr sprong sure uh could you talk a little bit about the requirements
057and the achievements that lead to the mayor's work certificate work ethic certificate so students in sixth grade have the opportunity to earn that work ethics certificate and there are nine um characteristics that they need to meet and their teachers so their teachers for the year and any adults that work with them can consistently have to sign off so some examples and I don't know all of them just without seeing a list but some examples are um taking initiative completing their work in a timely fashion um practicing collaboration so if students are able to show that and then there all there are also requirements they need to have two hours of community service um they need to have 98% attendance and have shown growth academic growth throughout the school year to earn that certificate so it's
058open to all students in sixth grade and then leads to the chamber certificate in 8th grade and then the governor's work ethic certificate as high school seniors very good thank you questions what's the favorite job what's the job that all kids want to do at the I hope it's dishes no it's not dis it's probably delivering library books good any other questions no awesome great job thank you thank you okay comments okay we uh we're going to move on to public comments so um for for people who may not have been part of this process before when you come into a Schoolboard meeting there's always a blue sheet on the table in the back and if you wish to speak um during the board meeting you just need to sign in um so so people
059have done that our our process is you get three minutes um so there's a little timer up here that lets you know um how much time you get um and it will buzz when you're done and I'll ask you to step down I'll usually let you finish your sentence or your thought but we try to stay on the 3 minutes um if you're here with a group you can refer to a spokesperson or just say I agree with so and so and and and take your seat if that's what you wish to do um please don't use names of individuals students staff members or specific titles of roles it's kind of the same thing we just want to make sure we're making it a um inviting environment for everyone um and I think those are
060my highlights no cheers and deers so even if you really like what somebody said just tell them that afterwards um if you wouldn't mind okay so uh first first person who signed up tonight is Caleb sharp yep thank you Caleb good evening my name is g a junior at North and and I have high function in autism so I have somebody with me as well she she she's my mom and she was also so a student of Miss of of us once I was wondering if if that would really like the like that sorry not only I actually have two relatives though I can't really say the other person's name because that would be [Laughter] [Music] VY not only has she a great teacher she's also a great advocate for public education but apparently there's
061some people that want to destroy it I'd like to introduce to you said talk to you about Senate Bill 270 in the Indiana city house which provides that all School corporations who he to adopt a resolution for leving taxes via Opera taxes via an operating referendum or something after the 10th of May M who received from the levy was certain charter schools at all School group in all School corporations I don't think this is a good idea because it's a direct transfer of funds from the public school to the charter school put it down which in our case is the Liberty Academy de on 22nd Street near L Caesar I have a qu I have a question for anyone here if give me a moment if people people are so it turns out that the
062same school is a also advocates for the CC also uses the curriculum as a spouse by the hensdale college which is a which has been well known for its Ro in overturning public educ for advocating for for privatization of scho schools like and they're also stakes and also stakeholders in Project 2025 one more thing if anyone to watch Wheel for ar ar they might might know who Pat a is he's not only a well-known G host but he's but he's also their also Hill sales chairman of the Board of Trustees even though he was a good game show host he's not a really good human I'm sorry but he's not really a good human being a general thank you real quick Caleb's first time speaking in public so I think you did fantastic job and
063and mom mom is is Mom correct is there anything you want to add to Caleb's comments in terms of he takes care of it very good okay thank you so much appreciate it thank you Caleb okay all right um we have Crystal Pumphrey hi Crystal um my name is Crystal Pumphrey uh thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak I appreciate your time and I just have a couple of topics that I wanted to mention um with that being said uh I spoke at the last board meeting with the intent on speaking on the weather and how a few weeks ago it was 8° and the windchill or with the windchill and we still had school and I understand a lot of variables go into the deciding of if you cancel or delay but
064however instead I chose to speak on a book that I learned about during that meeting that is in our high schools when I spoke I went off of information that was provided during the meeting itself for that I apologize for my ignorance on the matter um please know that I am an avid book reader um and I finally read the book that was discussed and for speaking on a topic that I know nothing about I don't usually do that and I'm mad at myself for it um but however I have read the book and educated myself on the topic with that being said I personally don't think a book should be banned or removed from a school but I am a big believer in warnings and after purchasing the book and reading it I realized
065there are none on on this book and um with some of the information and topics that are inside the book itself um shame on the author for not putting something on the book itself um but also with that being said if there's going to be anything in a book especially one that's in our schools that could trigger somebody especially a child clarification anybody under the age of 18 is considered a child um I believe they need to be warned and it can be something simple as topics in this book may not be suitable for all for all readers that's a simple General warning that could allow the person who is getting the book the chance to understand that there may be something in that book that upsets them I'm not coming here to complain I
066simply just wanted to provide a possible simple solution for a controversial topic um whether anyone chooses to listen to my recommendation is their choice so um with that being said and with the few seconds remaining uh the last thing I wanted to mention is there is a video that is circulating and I didn't know if you guys were aware of not um are you aware that there's a video circulating from Columbus East High School that shows bed bugs in the carpet and if so um do you guys have a plan to solve this issue and uh prevention measures that might help as well thank you for thank you Crystal I appreciate it okay uh Amy hail hello my name is Amy hail um I'm a parent of bcsc students and I'm also a physician and
067I'm here tonight to voice my support for the Windrose mobile Health Clinic I think it was discussed at the last meeting um this is a great option both for preventative care and acute Health Care needs for students it will provide flexibility for parents and it will minimize time students spend away from school for appointments but most important in my opinion it will allow access to care for lowincome or uninsured students Windrose is a federally qualified healthc care clinic so what that means is it receives Federal funding to take care of um patients who may not be able to afford Healthcare otherwise um it provides care for medically underserved areas and populations and currently we don't have any Windrose clinics in Columbus so bcsc will benefit from the mobile clinic but this will be fully funded
068and operated by Windrose sounds like a real win-win to me and um I hope that you all will support this important initiative we all know that good health is essential for our students academic success thanks a lot thank you Miss hail okay that is all we had this evening in terms of public comments appreciate everybody coming out to share their thoughts with us okay next we have Dr ple good evening I request approval of three HR recommendations two were in your packet and one was at your table this evening for um this the third one here is the approval of Kathy Jackson as the principal at Rock Creek elementary school starting with the 2425 school year drers you want to take over I can do that um actually let's have the board go ahead and
069vote y so that we can then move into the next pieces so you have a recommendations for the human resources that does include Mrs Jackson as a principal at Rock Creek elementary school we would ask for your approval please I move that we approve the HR recommendations as provided by Dr ple which also includes the appointment of Mrs Jackson as the new principal at Rock Creek thank you Mr Gs have a second second thank you Mr Schultz any discussion amongst team okay all those in favor please say I I all those opposed say nay motion carries Dr B all right very good thank you for that approval uh Mr Jackson if You' please come to the podium and on your way up I'll talk about you so we do want to provide or offer congratulations
070to Kathy for her appointment to this position Kathy is a proud graduate of our school system Columbus East High School uh her experience uh with us um actually her first experience began at Franklin Community School Corporation as an art teacher but then she has been with us at Columbus North High School Northside Middle School and Southside Elementary School and Southside Elementary School uh since 2014 uh so is is is finishing her 10th year as assistant principal uh Kathy was recently recognized as the elementary assistant principal of the year for District 9 for or by the Indiana Association of School principles and when I mentioned she was a proud product of our school corporation she also attended Smith Clifty Creek at Northside before graduating from Columbus C so it's it's great to have a person come
071through our system uh become the person an educator that Kathy has and then give us the opportunity to reward her for that and and put her in a place an awesome place like Rock Creek elementary school so Kathy congratulations okay it is with joy gratitude and humility that I accept this honor of being the principal at Rock Elementary School thank you Dr Roberts Dr ple Dr hack the riew committee some of you here this evening and members of the board for your approval I could not be here today without the mentoring guidance leadership and friendship of many Educators along the way including Phil Miller my high school art teacher Pam milikin my former principal and Mentor in Franklin and Jeff bachmeier the principal of Southside Elementary School for the past 10 years Jeff has poured
072into me his knowledge guidance and support and as has prepared me for such a time as this my Southside Family of teachers support staff students and parents has helped hone my skills to become the leader I am today I am grateful for their support something you did not hear in the my in my bio is the fact that Rock Creek has been part of my life since 2001 when my oldest child entered there as a kindergartner and then I spent 14 years there until my youngest child made it through and completed sixth grade it was during that time that I learned Rock Creek has roots that run deep and their commitment to each other as teachers students and families is undeniable I look forward to being part of this tradition lastly as you can all
073see I may stand up here alone tonight but that's only because of those who have stood behind me alongside of me and sometimes even stood for Me Through The Years thank you to my support system my husband Robert my children Dakota and McKenna my daughter-in-law Haley and of course my mom she has always encouraged me to dream big and to follow those dreams and that is what I have done I remember when both of my children came out of the basketball tryouts from Rock Creek excited to share their news well now I too can say I made the team the [Music] Bulldogs [Laughter] congratulations all right some some good stuff tonight Mrs Wilden with Mrs watts and Mrs Jackson so again great to uh celebrate those those things on an evening like this thank you
074before we go to the next one and I tell you don't have additional human resource recommendations I would like to remind the people live on their crowd we are um still nominating teachers for teacher of the year we've been doing it for two weeks so far and they close on February 19th and as of today we have 365 nominations for teachers for teacher of the year so while you're here please tell your friends to please nominate thank you that's amazing than us the school board member reports okay D would you mind starting I do not have any okay I believe Mrs was covered Hall of Fame committee pretty well okay okay great Mr Gres uh a quick plug for the school Foundation uh the school Foundation did me I think the night after our last
075meeting but just to anyone here and anyone out there that might be watching or later or now um please please consider helping support teachers as they bring their creative ideas and projects to life for students through donor's choose which is a matching program through the school Foundation there are currently 13 projects um out there waiting for donations uh teachers from nine different schools there was a link in the last newsletter or you can go to bcsf stars.org to check that out and then um if I can follow my notes here and I'll try to keep this brief because this could go on for a long time the the Schoolboard Association report uh week four of the short session has just uh completed so we're approaching halfway through this short session the goal of the legislature
076continues used to be I believe Friday March Friday March 8th there were originally 116 K through 12 bills on the School Board Association watch watch list um and it looks like about a third of those are actually going to cross over to the second chamber um the third reading deadline to crossover Chambers is today in the house was today in the house and tomorrow in the Senate um just some quick bills of note Senate bill one which I talked about in the last meeting uh which isba supports the reading bill um has passed the third reading and we'll now move on to um we'll now move on to the house um two bills that I recently contacted Senator Walker about one that was Caleb just mentioned Senate Bill 270 which takes uh potentially U dollars
077raised through referendum through school corporations and shares It With Charter Schools and then also Senate Bill 146 which deals with um youth employment in the state of Indiana which many parts of are in direct conflict with with Federal legislation and then lastly um House Bill 1376 which was has been amended uh several times that um allows School corporations when they can put referendums on the ballot and so there's been a compromise um reached there but it has uh passed the third reading narrowly and is now also been uh moved on to the Senate so that's just kind of a quickie I think by the time our L next meeting March 4 things will be wrapping up up and we'll have a pretty good pulse on what it looks like we'll be dealing with moving forward
078thank you Mr GMS um for me I will cover that our superintendent position is posted that was a it went up last week um I haven't looked yet to see how many applicants we might have they will just continue to roll in is my um expectation and then the next um major part of the process for us is um that week of March fourth either a couple days before or after um the school board will meet with that University team and we will really organize ourselves around the interview process we'll select our questions we'll make sure we understand what that looks like and then interviews will take place the few weeks following spring break so that's kind of a high level what the next major steps are in that process um and then for my
079um committee assignments I'm on the uh County Redevelopment commission our first Mee for the year is on February 19th so I don't have anything to share here today Mr Stenner the uh districting and Facilities committee met last week uh Dr Boseman Dr Phillips used it as an opportunity to uh collect feedback and thoughts about next steps for Invision 2030 um and we have a meeting on on that topic coming up on the 19th so okay Mr maor yeah I want to just say for the Redevelopment commission there's nothing new but um I want to highlight Amy London shared some information with us on the Health Trust I did not see this until after she had mentioned it but the 2023 readers Cho Republic uh Readers Choice best family doctor for Columbus is our Dr Klein
080that serves the bcsc healthy clinic so it's it's a really good uh thing for us to have such a wonderful doctor here in inside of our health clinic serving uh so many people so I just wanted to make sure that that was highlighted and uh thank him for all the hard work that he does the nurses to support him and the staff and secretary as well so thank you Mr Brighton anything no okay we will move on to Old business no report sorry got ahead of myself Dr Phillips good evening thank you everyone I just have for you the uh quarterly Financial update and this wraps up all of 2023 is financials um and coming up here was just quicker because I could click myself and point to the highlights and move on um as
081you know we always budget revenues conservatively as in lower than what we would actually expect them to be um and that uh worked out in 2023 in that our actual revenues exceeded uh budget in the prior year for all three of our major tax supported funds as far as expenditures go of course the education fund is the largest of our expenditure categories we like to do the same here which is overestimate expenditures and try to come in under but as you know in um 2023 in the fall of 2023 um we we passed a a very strong contract with our Teachers Association and increased salaries there so we did exceed the salary and um budget by uh just a little bit um benefits were pretty much right on Target and the others uh the other
082category were uh very near expected on the operations fund side we also exceeded the budget uh for salaries and benefits again just by a a small margin um but again we have cash on hand um and you approv the additional Appropriations required to meet those uh to meet the um the needs in those categories in uh the other category which of course in operations is the the largest category since we do so many um facilities work and purchase so much equipment um from that side um we also came in u under budget in that category um this is just a summary of all of our debt service expenditures for 2023 um and we put I put the prior year on there too for you as well just to uh have a a point of comparison
083you will um you know note at the bottom that we were just under about 2 9 million uh more in expenditures in 23 compared to 22 you'll see at the end that some of that as has been the case for the last three years has been from existing cash balance so some of it's from additional property tax revenue with increased assess value because our tax rate actually went down uh from 22 to 23 um but because assess value went up we were able to um make our payments and use some of the the cash balance to do so as well Mr Phillips Dr Phillips go back yeah I like this slide because of the maturity dates that you have included in there and I think with it's that relationship to what we're doing with our
084facilities project kind of tells the story there because we have eight I believe uh that are that are maturing by 27 and and a ninth one by 29 which is within the the time frame of our of our project between now in 29 so that's correct so thanks for yeah thanks for sharing that on the operating uh referendum side uh again we also exceeded the budgeted amount for the teacher uh I put most salary and benefit together on this slide broke these up into the basically the main four categories that were spending operating referendum money for the teacher benefits and salaries for their increases are there just um ahead of budget again we had a lot of lot more people reached that fiveyear um threshold to start receiving those dollars um which is a good
085thing and means that that the operating referendum is at least to a certain extent successful um I will point out that we were um well behind the previous year under the security safety security and wellness category and that's simply because of the timing of when we paid for buses so still the same purchases that we expected it was just a timing issue there um on digging into the operating referendum just a little bit this is a slide I've used for the last uh couple of years uh over the course of calendar year 2023 we had more than 540 teachers that qualified for the retention increases due to the operating referendum those teachers averaged more than $9,400 in additional salary that's actually down a little bit from the previous year as far as the average goes
086because we had a lot more people reach that $5,000 threshold as opposed to the larger uh 10 or $15,000 threshold after their 10th 15th year of service with bcsc so we had more teachers qualified but the average was just a little bit lower for those folks um and more than 1,200 classified staff averaged more than $1,100 in increased salary in 2023 due to the operating referendum and these other two categories are the same as they have been in in previous years just to just pointing out um you know it were it not for the operating referendum what would we need to do the operating referendum between teachers and classified staff um contribute an additional 6.3 million and increased employee salaries that does not include these stem teachers this is just an increased pay for the
087existing staff if we didn't have that operating referend in place we would need to find 5.2% cut in the operating or uh education Fund in order to uh to fill that gap which as you on the education fund side since we're you know 96 to 98% salaries and benefits that means cutting staff this is a new slide uh that we put together for you um I do we do track this often this is from the um Indiana emplo education employment Relations Board report available on the Gateway website um the state's average salary here is um tracked in the middle in on the black line and you can see that prior to operating referendum we trailed that by $3 to $4,000 depending on the the year um for 1920 and 2021 after implementing the operating referendum
088we surpassed the state average by nearly $4,000 per teacher and that has grown even more in 2223 were it not for the operating referendum if we took those salaries out of all of those teachers um for the same report that we submit we would go back to being um you know between two and uh $23,500 behind the average State teacher salary and this is just a summary of the entire year I pointed to this um earlier and said that we would talk about the fact that we are reducing our our cash balance in The Debt Service funds and again um I've said this before but you don't live it so I'll just say it again quickly as older debt rolls off older debt we were allowed to keep f 50% of the next year's payment
089in cash balance when when older debt retires and newer debt comes on we're only allowed to keep 15% and so every District that had those cash balances in place is currently reducing slow the the uh cash balances that were in uh were in place for your debt service funds and so we were just at that about uh just over 65 million uh between those two funds combined at the beginning of last year of 23 and uh are closer to the $5 million $5 million total Mark at the end of 23 um on the education fund side I want to point out that this slide looks differently than your packet I apologize I included our tax anticipation warrant principle repayment in this number the 89.5 million initially so it is now accurate on the slide in
090front of you um I mentioned before on the very first slide revenues exceeded our budget they exceeded our budget by more than usual because of what we talked about back in January um significant increase in the interest earned on our cash that is invested during the course of the year and so largely for that reason both in the education fund and the operations fund um the cash balance actually increased in spite of us exceeding our budget for salaries and benefits um operations you might remember for the last two years we have budgeted about a million and a half more in expenditures than we expected to bring in in cash and yet for both of those years we brought more revenues in than expenditures so strong uh from a financial perspective there uh up in all
091of our major tax supported funds with the exception of The Debt Service fund which I explained earlier happy to answer any questions about the 23 financials if you have any Mr Gs I've got one one observation and one question and I just the observation I just want to say thank you for the slides on the in regards to the referendum particularly the line graph that quite obviously demonstrates the importance and significance of the referendum um and then my question is on the chart the and I hope that I haven't I hope I don't sound foolish here and I missed something but the rainy day um the the curriculum materials did that that money got shifted from rainy day to cover the shortage of curriculum materials that the corporation does not charge parents for now is
092that correct or we have not transferred any funds that would have been in 24 that was for calendar year 2024's budget and to to date I haven't I haven't transferred anything not had to happen my intention obviously from a cash standpoint we're in a healthy place as a school district my intention would be as we look at the the 2025 budget this fall is to bring that back in front of you with those options again and say you know we're nine months into the year now what's your preference for covering that $250,000 transfer thank you you're welcome good question any other questions D so I you know I like graphs anyway but just to reinforce what Mr Grimes just said that that line graph really does show the benefit that we got from the referendum
093that's that's powerful thank you I had a question on the next slide actually oh not that one um when we're talking about rainy day funds and I'm looking at all in reality is our rainy day fund and just for the audience in my better understanding is that the secondary level of because you have cash balances in each of these supported buckets so in reality it's almost a second tier of rainy day fund support am I looking at that correctly you're exactly right most most districts and I would do the same if I'm going to if I'm going to look at what is our emergency Reserve I'm going to consider the education fund cash balance operating referendum fund cash balance operations and rainy day those for The Debt Service funds are not you you can't touch
094those they're obviously committed to paying on your obligations but those other those other funds combine those dollars and that's the cash available to make up for any unexpected um emergency we can and do often times budget for um expenditures using some of this cash we will we will this year because of the the contract that we passed but we don't at least in this District traditionally have not ever budgeted any R rainy day funds with one exception since I've been here and I think the only advice is on the rightand side even after the balance it would be great to see the percent of anticipated spin for the next year and what do we have on cash on hand so for example right from my knowledge of the education fund is somewhere north of 80
095million so you're somewhere shy of 10% but I believe in operations you're going to be somewhere close to 40 or 50% so just as we all see we can then look at what what reserves do we have on hand against the anticipated expenditures we'll do thank you thank you Dr Phillips no I'm sorry thanks the uh following up on Mr schul comments it looks to me like if we got about 30 million and in and outs 150 each year that's about 20% as you talked to your peers uh in conferences and Association meetings it's 20% about the right number do we have any idea if it's too high or is it too low that's a good question um every districts are all over the place when it comes to this money and honestly I'll just
096say that I'll tutor on horn when it comes to the operations money we are very transparent about the fact that there's now you know $14.3 million in there um there's easy ways to obligate that money and and carry forward unexpended dollars from the prior year as an obligation and then have it not look like that it's available cash um we don't we don't play those games um my predecessor who most of you know Dr Silva used to say to me uh the goal is not to finish the year with the most money in the bank it's the the goal is to invest the most funds in our kids learning and so I do believe that um again that's why in operations the last two years we have um passed a budget of million and a
097half dollars more than expected revenues um to start drawing that balance down and it just hasn't come to fruition so I do believe that we're in a comfortable place now and probably have a a slightly higher than the average cash balance across the state making some assumptions based on numbers that I've seen um but I do think that because of the co year when people didn't expend as much operationally and assistance from Esser funds most districts across the state do have significantly higher cash balances than they did prior to 2020 and then the the followup we can see here the beginning of 23 and the last day of 23 are there any stress points during the calendar year at which you start to worry about the balance in any of these funds yes almost always
098in uh in June and December when we have to make our debt payments and the county hasn't distributed our property tax payment to us yet um again we we could make we could make our June payments for sure but it's it's one of the reasons that I stress this that property taxes are the most stable um way for us to make obligations particularly towards our debt and um the reason that we do carry significant cash balances because twice in the last decade we've had significant interruptions to the the economy and both times has resulted in a dramatic one time a dramatic decline in the education fund revenues and then the next time a delay in property tax uh during Co property tax distributions thank you Dr Phillips um Dr Boseman Mr Williams all right good
099evening thank you for giving us a few minutes to update you on bcse technology so our mission in technology is to create flexible productive universally designed environment that responds to the needs and challenges of all of our stakeholders and we do support uh everybody who walks onto a bus to the classroom to cafeterias uh we do see the entire District so it's quite diverse uh I have my team here with me tonight uh who we will kind of share this presentation but breny cumer is in charge of educational technology Brian is in charge of Technology operations and all three of us now are on kind of the the biggest state boards for these different groups um and I think are the only we're the only District now that has representation in all three which just
100means a lot more uh access to resources and just kind of General Knowledge from the state and we have a fantastic team uh across the district that are listed there so if you look at our Network and kind of our infrastructure it's big it's one of the biggest in the county we have over 2,000 staff members that we take care of uh over 12,000 student accounts and we also support a lot of parents sometimes um we do have also a 247 monitored Network and we manage over 70 systems so a system could be anywhere from like a power school to Skyward to parent Square uh and a learning management system and then finances uh we haven't talked a lot about this before but there's some changes this year that I'd like to point out uh
101we on average have around 3.5 million as an annual budget outside of personnel costs it takes about a million dollars a year to sustain student devices and that is new devices for every first Fifth and ninth grader and one of the changes is that the 12th graders the seniors now get to take their device home that's been a request from uh ibtech local colleges for quite a while uh and this is the first year of the seniors having uh touchscreen Chromebooks that were able to send those home so that's exciting um and it would be a four-year cycle that we replace them on and I think all all in all including laptops iPads it's about 1.5 that we end up spending total on devices and then over the last 5 years and again being on
102these committees and uh boards help is that we've had over 2.5 million in Grant money come into the district uh which has included all of these things and the most recent one uh is family engagement one that breny got um so we're excited about that but it is funded a lot or at least helped funded a lot over uh The Last 5 Years and this has been a big year for us um so nationally Dr Roberts was awarded last spring the 2023 empowered superintendent of the Year this was uh kind of a joint Award with this National superintendent Association and the national technology educational technology organization so that was really cool and then just a few weeks ago bcse was spotlighted in the 2024 National edtech plan for our work around udl so that was
103really exciting as well it's the first educational Tech plan since uh 2019 so it's been quite a while since they've released one and we got a full page highlighting our work in CSC all right I'm going to pass it off to BR hello everyone and good evening happy Monday I'm super excited to talk to you tonight about the connections between our uh strategic plan and really how our learning management system supports that so we have a very udl focused approach with what we do and what I'm going to talk to you about are the edtech pieces that really help our teachers and our students meet those high expectations and support all the diverse Learners that we have in our our classrooms so a few years ago we were doing a lot of remote learning if
104everyone remembers that and in the midst of that remote learning uh I got an email from our learning management system at the time that said by the way we're going to be leaving the United States Market in 5 years um so farewell so I remember going to Dr Roberts and saying okay what are we going to do and we started a process to select our replacement for that and honestly I'm glad that it's learning gave us some time because that allowed us to have a year of reviewing getting feedback from all these different groups including parents classified staff a range of teachers and all of those different staff members who support our students and that that also gave us year last year to train all of our staff on this new learning management system which
105is canvas and to migrate their content because we had its learning for about eight years so there was a lot of stuff there to move over so this has been our first year using canvas and it's gone really really well I have some examples on there of just some of the wonderful things our teachers are putting in those courses we use this K through 12 um and we have a lot of exciting features in canvas that it's learning kind of had some of them but not all of them and I think we kind of had outgrown its learning so it's nice to see some of these features that we had wanted for some time all in this one system a number of them include supports for our U multilingual Learners we have translation supports accessibility
106tools all baked in to that system there's the ability to have the elementary interface for our Primary students so that the buttons are bigger it's easier for them to navigate that system and there's a much more uh robust mobile app that goes along with canvas as well so we have many training opportunities as well I have just some screenshots I was able to cram onto this slide and I was like oh gosh that's probably a lot but um we have lots and lots of training opportunities for staff in the district to learn about canvas partly because we're firm Believers that we have a lot of different learning preferences and our students and our staff also have those different needs and strengths and want to learn at their own own pace in their own flexible ways
107so we've provided sessions on every District PD day for the last two years we've given staff the opportunity to learn at their own pace in staff baced canvas courses um summer professional development opportunities workshops Hands-On things and I always like to give away prizes and things as well so the most recent one we did was 12 days of tech and I actually need to go through and pick all the Prize winners for that but it's also just to give staff the opportunity to learn and grow and get a nice little prize for their efforts so that has really lent itself to the crazy high usage we've had in canvas in our first year um we have 96% student engagement in canvas each week and it's been on an upward trend on the graph every single
108week which is insane it's super exciting we were close to that in our last few years with its learning but definitely not in our first year at that usage uh and then what's really exciting for our Middle School and High School teachers and students and staff and parents is that the canvas grade book can sink over to our power teacher Pro grade book which is something something our secondary teachers have begged for for years and I'm so glad that we were able to deliver on that with canvas so next up I'm going to give this over to Brian thank you all right so it seems like every year we have some sort of system that comes online as Nick was alluding to we have quite a few that we manage maintain that we really hope
109support the staff and educ educational outcomes for students so one I was talking about for this year that we've started curating and working with the high school specifically is called performance matters and it's really like a data warehouse it's pulling all the data in from power school and it is allowing us to see for here on this example students that have some at risk potential um early warning indicators are showing you can see a little demonstration here of attendance rates of failure of courses of Behavioral incidences so what this is allowing our high school corts to do is really drilled down and see what students might need some supports and uh maybe some interventions earlier on so they can support these students and have just a better educational outcome for everybody as they're working through
110their High School uh careers and getting to that graduation Finish Line and then kind of one more thing with the uh kind of supporting the district's strategic plan especially the safe piece is we focused a lot over the last year and a half or so on cyber security so what we've been utilizing as a we have a cyber security task force in the IT department that we use what is called the center for Internet Security or CIS controls as a framework where we looked at our practices and compareed them to what is recommended for Best Practices as far as cyber security and trying to obviously reduce incidents reduce vulnerabilities and just really secure our uh uh internal and external facing systems and and really our staff as well to just make it as tight and
111secure as possible um we have a team that meets monthly we go through these cyber security framework pieces and see what people have done what people are working on and if they've completed something what's the next step in cyber security that we're going to be pursuing so some of the 2023 things that we've done we've uh updated our backup system and we are in the process of getting yet another way to have an off-site backup a air gapped backup if you will that is constantly being scanned for vulnerabilities for potential things that we want to keep obviously off of our systems and uh keep our data safe and our students and our staff safe as well we conduct self- fishing which is basically trick emails is what it is to our staff it gets it
112to um so we work through that if you get through it that's great um if you click on it there's a little message says sorry you might need some little more training on that we do provide training uh to various schools for fishing and other cyber security initiatives um we do tabletop exercises which is just essentially taking a real life example and working through that process to say what will we do at 8:00 a.m. on the first day if something happening what we do at 2: p.m. on the third day of something happening and then we take what we learn from those tabletops and app them to some of our practices do we need to make adjustments do we need to adjust our uh procedures do we need to look at investing in something that
113might help us avoid some of these issues that have been pretty well publicized throughout the United States uh improving password best practices I think everybody's updated their passwords in here at least I hope they have at this point um so again we're just following security practices make them a little more secure and just trying to keep everybody that's in bcse as safe as possible and uh we work with various partners and the cyber security and infrastructure Security Agency to do pen tests on our Network what a pen test or that's short for penetration test is is we're trying to find vulnerabilities what's out there that someone could exploit get into our systems and take over or give us a virus or do some sort of ransomware so we have places that are scanning our environment
114they're scanning our outside they're scanning our inside trying to vulnerabilities they give us a report and then we remediate those so we really try to make sure we are keeping everything tight everything secure as best as we possibly can to try to keep everyone involved inside and outside of bcsc as safe as possible and do you have any questions one quick one canvas a the the transition bigger pain less of a pain or about what you expected I think it's gone exceptionally well um like for the e-learning day I think we had six phone calls in first day we had its learning we had almost 200 so between the communication that we can provide now through parents square and the base knowledge that our staff already had of having a learning management system for so
115long um I think has helped us kind of have a successful adoption but it is it is a big step up how connected everything is is quite amazing awesome I was going to ask about the canvas statistic like uh Miss cumer I was kind of amazed that we hit 90 96% that's measured each week what what counts as a contact so engagement includes signing in and then it also looks at interacting with the course so it can be clicking so you go to your course you get your homepage that's technically not an engagement if you click to another item within the course that counts towards that statistic so it's not a matter of just pulling up signing in it's looking in the course and actually interacting with content and then I think canvas is used
116at a lot of postsecondary Institutions as well so students will does it look different or will they recognize what they're using when they get to College they will recognize it the only difference is just some of the branding but all the buttons and pieces are the same and that was one of the pieces that when we did parent feedback sessions that some of the parents were like I use this in my classes or I know what this is because I have a student who's using it right now and that was a big selling point and something that we wanted to make sure that we could easily support so they had that ease of use moving on after they're not with pcsc anymore and I think working together with Dr hack and Mr Edwards and Mrs
117vogle too over the years really every group group uh has had training or is focused on this but if students want access to curriculum they're logging into canvas and it's their kind of single sign on point to the reading to the math science everything else any other questions I will also add you have excellent board member Tech Support to Mr Williams you can add that to that slide as a whole category okay thank you we have the best K12 technology department in the state of Indiana um I will go on record to say we're fortunate to have that team um I'll be very brief good evening just a a standing um item on your agenda for Invision 2030 update just a couple of items for you unless you have questions um we continue to work
118with CSO on short and long range planning for our facility updates um actually met with the cumins foundation today and they hope to have a list for us this week or next on potential design Architects for the 12th Elementary that uh we will have a very uh public facing process for that selection that you'll be involved with um we're finishing up the RFP for that selection now and we will make that available to you and put that on our website as well for for public review and just a reminder thanks Mr stanner for uh his mention from the dnf meeting but we will meet with you um in strategic planning the board on the 19th that's an open session for the public will be upstairs in the boardroom we'll bring to you a phase one
119um proposed schedule for our facility Renovations and no action required by by you all at that uh just an opportunity for feedback and review um and then we we plan to issue an RFP for construction managers for those projects um that next day uh we'll bring that same um presentation with any items back to this meeting on the 4th of March uh for another public meeting so just a quick update for me and happy to answer any questions you may have any questions no thank you Dr BisMan okay on to Old business yeah so we have a couple of items uh both old business and new business so starting with the old business I request approval of the minutes of the regular school board meeting from January 22nd our last one but we also had
120a special school board meeting on January 29th so asking for approval of those minutes from both meetings also asking for approval for Neola policy 5710 which is student complaints my error did not make it into the the batch of policies uh the last time that you had them and so just need to make sure we approve that one as well student complaints the big changes in they we just making sure to reference back to the new policy we have uh which is um the uh parent or the uh complaints and concerns public complaints and concerns so just need to get that one done so we can submit that to Neola for publication thank you Dr Roberts I move that we approve the old business items as listed and presented by Dr Roberts second thank you
121Mr gson Mr Nan any discussion or questions from the board before we go to vote okay all those in favor of approving item five A and B please say I all those oppos say n motion carries okay thank you under new business we have a few items uh first supplemental contracts then field trips and professional leaves under field trips and professional leaves we had a couple come through you should have an additional sheet in front of you tonight that on the back side of that has a couple of highlighted ones these field trips were going to occur before the next school board meeting so we took advantage of having uh gotten the information about them to put in front of you tonight so we will add that additionally we have school fundraisers we also have
122claims and payroll the claims uh dated today February 5th are a little over $1.1 million the pre- runs from January 1st to January 26 of 59 almost $60 million payroll for January 12th was about 3 a little over $3.3 million and then we have um request for a letter of support for the health Clinic Grant we talked about that one at the last meeting also Dr Boseman is asking for uh permission for purchasing buses and also to accept bids for Schmidt Elementary School which is the next big project that we have going on and those are the items I have under new business thank you Dr Roberts I'd like to break out item G real quick to um I didn't last time when we had bus approvals we had a quote I forgot to ask
123about this earlier but do we have a quote for those and again since I work for Cummins I did not vote for buses the last time and if those engines are Cummins engines I would I would ask for that one to be broken out too so I won't vote on it okay is that okay yep all right we will pull out J and H separate g g g thank you H good C to F and I okay I will ask for a motion from the board now I move that we approve the new business items 6 C through F and I as listed second thank you Mr Grimes and Mr Schultz all those in favor of approving oh any questions or comments on those items before we go to vote no okay all those in
124favor of approving um 6 C through F and I please say I I all those opposed say nay motion carries thank you then the first one pulled out is the letter of support letter J G letter G again so we do we need a motion before we discuss it so I move that we approve um letter g under item six letters of support for the health clinic Grant thank you Mr Janel do I have a second thank you Mr Bryant any questions or comments from the team I think the only comments and I know Dr Phillips and I have been exchanging emails I honestly am still left with a lot of questions and not as many answers as I would like to see to give a letter of support um and so that's really my
125ask for why we're breaking this out I'm still unsure on costs I know the 150,000 for our build out but at the end of the day there's cost to the us taxpayers as well on here and given the tax season we we all know what that is and so I think we need to be see that I also have questions around the location at the clinic at North versus downtown East Columbus Taylorville and rural areas I also still don't understand the demand besides generalities um provided by Columbus Regional Health and I appreciate Mr Williams and the tech department we have all these tools to connect to our students and we haven't leveraged them to see where their need is and I think that's a step that we should take before we uh puts the burden
126on taxpayers um so I think that data should be collected and support I mean at the end of the day I want to support it I think there's an opportunity here I I believe Dr hail discussed it but at the end of the day we don't know the five ws the who what when where why and and that's the the questions that I have and still continue to have until we honestly can and we have the ability that's the hardest part for me not to understand is we have the tools and mechanisms um I know as a parent we fill out the sheet just like everyone else of if you got a pediatrician you list it um we could look at it that way or we could survey um um and both of are available
127to us and both I've discussed this um since it was brought to me in November in the ccic meeting uh the subsequent board meeting uh last board meeting and now and still um not using the tools I think is a Miss um when we're asking the taxpayers to burden those costs thank you Mr Schultz Mr Nan so I have a question around that either for Dr Boseman or Dr Phillips maybe um so a yes vote here I know it's a vote to approve applying for the grant um if it comes down to does it also approve an expend expenditure of $150,000 to build out a um clinic or is that something that would come to the board later if that occurs it would come after the grant was received it does not it is only
128approval for um actually I guess to give um Miss Weldon authority to sign the letter when it's when it's completed when once once the grant is released in the next couple months so we're not committing to $150,000 clinic at this point correct okay thank you thank you Mr gmes so I I've got a comment um a couple comments one it's my understanding that the expected cost would be a minimal and consequently in in my opinion certainly would be well worth it um from a personal standpoint um I work in a setting where our school counselor and social worker spends the bulk of her day trying to get caretakers Guardians parents foster parents grandparents proper Behavioral Health Care and medical health care for their kids and and I think since this topic came up here it's
129been on my mind a lot how beneficial where I happen to be employed such a an opportunity would be there and I think it would be in my opinion a big Miss not to apply for the grant thank you Mr Grimes anyone else from the team okay I have a motion in a second for item 6 G letter our support of Health Care Clinic letter of support for health clinic Grant all those in favor of approval please say I I all those opposed please say Nay Nay Nay thank you let let it show as a pass 52 vote next item then is the purchase of buses letter H I move that we approve um agenda item six letter H the purchase of buses second second thank you Mr nelan and Mr Schultz um I think
130as previously said I will abstain um from this vote and Mr major you'll do the same yep okay so Mr major and I will abstain from the vote um all those in favor of approving um six item H purchase of buses please say I I all those opposed please say nay 5 Z vote thank you for input Mr Bryant would you have anything to say help close this out yeah I think it was uh great uh miss wats my daughter had her at tville and uh all the th that she name uh they did at tville and it was great and uh my brother-in-law um was in as and he was going to uh my D got a re of the flag and so forth so I brought back some great memories because he made
131it back uh but uh yeah I want to thank her more than you could possibly imagine thank you thank Mr briy Mr major yeah there's a lot of things that have happened in the last couple of weeks we've got some teams that have played their last games uh some teams that are still moving towards that as far as sectionals are concerned for all winter sports but one of the things I think is the coolest thing that has happened in the last couple of weeks is uh the East boy swim team won their first Conference Championship in 42 years and so um I want to just congratulate uh my friend uh coach True Blood and the team for you know the success that they've had this year so that's great thank you Mr Mr major Mr
132stanner uh i' Echo the comments of the other board members that have already spoken it this is a tremendous meeting the uh Hall of Fame award uh best practices um annual reports on our Corporation finances and our technology use of Technology um really good meeting and then to Echo what Miss Weldon was talking about earlier in the meeting I'd just like for as many people as possible to participate in our superintendent search process uh by going to the bcsc schools website and then uh taking that survey to help us make uh the best possible decision as we're recruiting and selecting a replacement for Dr Roberts a sad T thank you Mr Stenner um on that note I would like to thank U Mr brette Mr Williams Dr pleek and Mr mcgyver who were very um
133efficient at collecting all the information we needed to get that position posted quickly get the survey out there Etc that was not easy and um I know there's a lot of work put into that so thank you for reacting quickly to our request um well I I'm sorry to interrupt I forgot there there is a time limit on the survey right it's it's two weeks two weeks okay so it will actually close before we meet again days I guess y February 16th thank you um uh uh Lisa Haynes had reached out to me and wanted to highlight something um Parkside um robotics team the fourth graders at Parkside won an Excellence award in the Fall Creek um robotics competition which is which is pretty awesome that qualifies them for State we have two other schools
134who qualify for State um Smith and Central I believe so just a great show knowing across the board bcsc in the in the area of Technology a special shout out goes to Lisa hu who I think does an awesome job Liz stran Vincent Rees via gajan I think and um D Murray who were the people who were most influential in that Victory along with all of the amazing children who dedicate their time and the parents that helped them do that so congratulations to them congratulations again to Mrs Watts on her very well- earned honor and her uh many years of dedication and service to bcsc thanks to Mr sprong and the Richard's team for their presentation thanks to Dr Phillips again for his always um thorough well-explained financials uh Mr Williams and the tech team
135thank you all the community members that are here community members stakeholders that are here or maybe out there listening and then lastly um I got this information from the regular newsletters that come out from Mr Bernett that always contain lots of good information with with the legislature paying so much attention to reading uh book buddies still needs volunteers and with the possibility of legislation getting passed um in terms of possibly retaining gosh many many third graders across the state that are reading below grade level U we've heard presentations about book buddies and the success of the program here so anybody out there that has some time on their hands please consider volunteering feel like I'm Bas basically repeating everyone but uh again thanks to Dr Phillips and Mr Williams for their presentations to us I
136also want to recognize Mrs wats I was a part of that Taylorville family when she was coming through and I mean I in preparation for this I mean I talked Remis with a lot of friends my brother included that had her and um the adjectives that are on that plaque are immortalized in everyone so at the end of the day I mean she she touched a lot of Souls and uh her and Dr quick and others made Taylorville the family that it was uh during that time and so really appreciative of her work with those children um and then I appreciate uh another teacher of mine Mr sprong for uh the best practice and and shareed for Richards again I think looking at I mean as a parent of child's children with trauma pasts holding
137them to an opportunity where they can Excel and have accountability is something that we can scale across the district and this is two back-to-back best practices with CSA Lincoln en richers that are easily scalable that we can bring um in being able to uh help our students that have that tramatic background and I just want to thank the two uh or the couples that uh spoke for public speaking Caleb for his bravery it's not easy taking on uh public comment and Crystal for her self-reflection um and giving us that input and I just appreciate everybody uh engagement um so I will add to thank you to the technology department um I don't know that I have hard data to back this up but but I am convinced that we have one of the best if
138not the best technology department in the state on a personal level I'll tell you that um five minutes before you join a school board virtually is not the best time to change your password um but even when you do that they come through and help you out so um and to miss Humphrey I want to thank you for sharing tonight and I especially want to thank you for for reading the book and sharing with us after you read the book I appreciate that um and to add to the Kudos of Sandy Watts I have one Sandy Watts story that I want to share uh at the risk of sounding political um it when I was running for school board she joined me at the German Township Fire Department in Taylorville um on Election Day and
139I don't know how many years it had been since she taught at Taylorville but I swear over half the people that came up knew her nobody knew me but they all knew her okay so on next board meeting we have our strategic planning session on February 19th 5:30 um in a boardroom so that's where we'll get some more information about project 2030 Vision 2030 um and then a regular board meeting on March 4th um 2024 in the Terrace room right here with that call the meeting adjourn everyone have a great night thank you