001foreign I see the thumbs up are we okay to start we're good okay welcome everyone uh tonight we are going to start our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance so for those who are able if you unmind standing facing the flood congratulations to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you very much I have all seven board members in attendance so we do officially have a court as always we try to keep our vision mission and core beliefs in front of us to help guide us in our decision making tonight and I think our first order of business is uh from Mr Robert it is yes thanks Mrs Wilden and I love that chatter
002we had at the beginning of the meeting took us a little extra time to get back here and get situated but welcome everybody thank you for being here with the great reception we had to start and we do have a an appointment or we have a recommendation uh to our board tonight for an appointment to a position of director position and that position is the director of McDonald adult and alternative education center our recommendation to the board is that Mark Newell we place in that position Mark is a graduate of Columbus North High School so a bcsc product he has his Bachelor of Science in math education from Indiana University master of science and secondary education from Indiana University and also his building level administrator certification from Indiana University so Mark probably felt pretty good
003with things and how they went this past weekend right keep moving here I experienced Mark has been with our school corporation for a bit as well he was a math teacher at Columbus North High School for about 10 years and he took over his math department chair for Columbus East High School and Central Middle School and then was the interim Middle School assistant principal at North Side before being named as principal at Columbus East High School where he has been since 2008. we are excited to have Mark after serving as in his role as principal at Columbus East anxious to take on this role with McDowell the adult and alternative education center this position opened up whenever Megan shaff was named the director of title services so that created that vacancy and again I'm I'm
004pleased to recommend to you as board members Martin Newell for that position Mr Oldham thank you Dr Roberts do I have a motion to prove Mr Newell as director McDowell a Dalton alternative education I move that we approve Mr Newell as the new director of McDowell a second thank you are there any questions no okay all those in favor say aye aye there's a post congratulations thank you [Applause] okay uh first and foremost I'd like to thank my wife Jeannie for all of her support and encouragement she's my rock and my anchor and I'm truly grateful for her I thank you to the board and Dr Roberts for the opportunity to be a part of the McDowell team and Community it's one I do not take lightly and I'm honored to take this position and
005in 28 years of education there's lots of people I could thank in lieu of brevity tonight I would just like to recognize Bill Jensen Bill Jensen hired me 19 years ago as a math department chair brought me into the culture of East High School mentored me guided me through these 19 years Administration and for that I'm truly grateful Dr pleake asked me to pray a few words tonight and it took me back 15 years ago when I was accepting role of principal at Columbus East High School I was nervous excited not sure what I got myself into and guess what I've got those same feelings tonight but what gave me confidence drink 15 years ago was I knew I was going to work with a staff to a student-centered valued all students who who they
006were as individuals worked to support each student in finding his her own success and the same thing applies to this evening as I know that Megan and the staff of Mcdowell have that same Student Center focused that values all people who walk and look down campus they're focused on building relationships and getting to know the stories of the individuals they are supporting they're giving their students hope and a strong foundation for future success so once again I'm confident taking this next step due to another outstanding staff to have the privilege of working side by side striving to support each student and finding his her own success in closing the foundation of great Community lies with its schools and I'm asking for the support of the community and the school board to work together in supporting
007McDowell along with all the other schools in bcsc to serve the needs of our students and families together we are stronger and together we learn again I'm thankful and excited and very humbled to be the director of McDowell [Applause] foreign hey I think Dr Roberts back to you again yeah thank you so we'll just keep going here uh Mrs Wilden um this is an annual event for us a very exciting one each year as we consider our education Hall of Fame awards and this year we are very pleased to be able to offer two of them to very deserving uh Educators for the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation so to help me with this this is day off Dwyer as a former board member who has been involved with this committee for quite some time Kathy
008correct and so it was a part of of this process this year back in November December into January and making sure we got the right selections here so Kathy I'll turn things over to you for a minute thank you and this is kind of odd being on this side of the the board tonight but it's very exciting and it's one that I really loved being a part of in the 14 years 14 and a half years I've been on the board board members I appreciate all the work that you've done and in support of all our teachers and administrations over the years so tonight the education Hall of Fame just to give everybody a little bit of background on that is that we have community members teachers and support staff that actually said on a
009committee and I was the chair we have four plus myself is five we're doing math too so the idea is majority rules right with Robert's Rules of you know well sometimes when you just get through it and it's the same numbers that keep popping up and everything so this year we decided the committee decided that we're going to award two and looking at it's actually time fitting because one of them is currently a teacher and we're very that had that um relationship with our students and the other one is a teacher that had not only been at the elementary level but also in the administration and what people don't understand with what I've learned what I've been taught is that to have a good solid school system you need to also involve the community and
010there's a lot of work behind the scenes when it comes to our superintendents being out and about and building partners and bringing Partners into our world and we partner with our community because we are a community school as once I was told by a certain superintendent so so there's been other things I've been told too so we'll share that in a little bit but first I would like to recognize our committee for the education Hall of Fame this year if you're here please stand I know I saw a couple Mr Ferguson you could stand up in the vacuum so we have two of our four uh that are here this evening I want to appreciate their time because it is sometimes be laboring and I think the hardest thing is going through all the letters
011of nominations for everybody and really finding those pieces of that so Dr Roberts if you would like to go ahead and start I will do that thank you Kathy so the first uh person we would like to recognize tonight is Peggy Myers Peggy has taught with our school corporation since 1993 strong contributions to our special education department um you know we have a very strong special education department period and Peggy has been an integral part of that for the many years that she has taught with us and has been recognized many times before oftentimes you'll see Peggy's face in the newspaper as she is accepting one award or another a special program that Peggy was a part of was developing the Champions together one at Columbus East High School and it provided athletes with or
012without disabilities inclusivity opportunities in the mini school and sports programs that we have uh so in recognizing Peggy Pagan whenever you start walking up here to the podium and as she's doing that I'm going to read the plaque that we have for Peggy and the plaques that we put together for the education Hall of Fame award are based upon uh words that come from the letters of nomination that are provided to us and so we take those words and build a plaque out of it and so this particular one says 2023 education Hall of Fame Award presented to Peggy Myers Peggy changes lives fantastic teacher five-star mentor and friend altruistic creates an inclusive environment celebrates unique gifts is supportive and encouraging tireless a true humanitarian and Advocate innovative best buddies East coffee cart and unified
013track coach in quotes she is able to provide scaffolds and supports which allow all her students to make academic gains so on behalf of the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation and our school board Peggy I would like to award this Hall of Fame award to you thank you [Applause] [Laughter] thank you she forgot she was going to say a few words so I did not know all I can say is thank you and I'm very humbly and honored um I I can't begin to thank all the people that I should thank um because as you know I'd go on forever um but my family who's here in abundance and my students and their families because that's why I'm here so um George and Bill Marianne and Karen and Mark and Lori I can't say enough so
014and all our staff Dana who worked with me for 13 years before she abandoned me for higher things so thank you so much and thank you for allowing me to work with my students that's the greatest honor [Applause] one thing that Peggy has done which I think we should incorporate in all of Columbus is that every year at Columbus East stand at Columbus North high schools they have a banner out in their common area and it says ban the r word and it's not legally we're Banning the r word but what it is saying is that bringing up front that there's other words that we can use that is not hurtful that may be describe or you know use that just take that whole word out of our vocabulary now there's a lot of other
015words that we could take out of our vocabulary which I tend to take a lot of words out of my vocabulary at times so you know it's one of those that I think it's a cool thing especially if we get in the middle schools and even the elementary school because I know in years past watching students what we teach in our elementary tend to grow into our our middle schools and middle schools are tough you know and everybody knows that is the hardest time of our kids life six through nine it seems like it's a lot of growing changes and everything and I think as a community that would be something that I would like to see and I know a lot of other parents would support as well is that you know if we
016all get together and just say for the month of March which is a disability awareness month that we just be in that word and you know it's a commitment to us that we are not going to use that word and that we are an inclusive community and we are caring for other people that may have a little different abilities that we all maybe may have or may not have so with further without further Ado this next recipient was my superintendent when I came on the board and he's always a little intimidating you know just because he walks softly you know you heard he walks softly carry a big sick while he doesn't have the big stick but he always has words and stories and so I know a lot of his colleagues and other people
017that we run into we always talk about Dr John quick and him you know he talks about his horses and you know things and he's always a lot of fun to be around and his philosophy in things of when he was at Taylorsville teaching and all the different places and his colleagues and how he sees our community school and has he sees our community as a whole he's very uh he's a mover and a Shaker and he's one that I've learned a lot of things from and I appreciate very much the time that you have always given me but the time that you give them to our kids uh High School graduation is always a time where our superintendents talk and stuff I know at one of my kids uh graduation and I think it
018was maybe my nephews uh at East High School uh it was uh your message was to don't forget don't forget to call your mom on Sunday and it's one of those that you know and I thought you know that that is true our kids go off to college after being home and you know just give us a call let us know you're okay and how things are going so anyway uh with that Dr Roberts thank you Kathy so as Mrs day off Dwyer indicated we have a second recipient is Dr John quick uh Dr quick joined bcsc in 1991 as principal of Taylorsville Elementary School in 1998 he was promoted to assistant superintendent and then in 2003 became our school corporation's superintendent these individuals as Kathy said have been selected through a lengthy nomination process
019we're glad to recognize each of them in terms of this plaque for John just as I indicated for Peggy we took the nominations tried to find some words in there that would that would describe the person well I think we did an okay job with this Dr quick so 2023 education Hall of Fame Award presented to Dr John quick puts kids firsts values families highest expectations for bcsc immersed in our community exemplary collaborator leader and storyteller Trailblazer and networking skills demonstrated management by walking around far-reaching influence in the field of education and perhaps the most difficult thing for me trying to follow Dr quick is Dr Quick's quickisms things like just keep showing up I can help you get to the plate but you have to hit your own home run so on behalf of
020the Bartholomew Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation and our school board Dr quick would like to present this education Hall of Fame award to you [Applause] foreign [Applause] I'm not I'm not sure I deserved a standing ovation but then again I have arthritic knees I don't deserve that either uh and like Peggy I've been to about 20 of these so I knew I was supposed to say something uh you know you're old when you look around and one of your former elementary students is on the school board now and uh so I and I want to say congratulations to Peggy very well deserves I think first time I was in her classroom there was about 300 square foot room do you remember that and they had dance rehearsal in that same room and so one of the
021first things we did was build that nice big room over by the tennis courts uh I am very proud of bcsc and the bcsc family Andrea is the only family member I have because I have family you know all across the country and I don't have any relatives here in town but I'm proud of Jim and the cabinet and I appreciate Laura spearheading this and uh you know and I I'm proud of all the administrators uh you know I helped recognize and promote and recommend I guess uh hearing uh the kind words and everything I I felt a little bit like remember when Tom Sawyer attended his own funeral and he got to hear all the good things people were saying about him and I kind of to feel like that a little bit you
022know this month is the 50th anniversary of our first date and uh so and uh I did not know back then she would be the brightest best red person I know the only thing that I knew was she was into me and I was into me that worked out well for me uh we have uh the most important thing to Andrew and I were how our kids turned out and Megan and Tyler are great adults Megan and Joe are watching I think on YouTube in Pennsylvania along with our six perfect grandkids we're headed out that way next week and uh there are five boys and at least three or four of the boys have my uh extroverted and and sense of humor it seems like so it'll be interesting that uh John Tyler and uh
023CD are in Pasadena I think watching and so there's a middle of the afternoon they're going to take off work to to watch it I guess you know you think about how you get to a point where you're successful it's because you're you know on the shoulders of those folks that came before so I came from a long line of John quix that didn't get a chance on at least the fourth and or fifth or I know Tyler registered at IU because he thought it was funny be John quick the sixth I don't know if that's really true or not but he he thought it'd be funny to to do that but so there's a long line and and they didn't get to go to to college the dad got drafted in into Korea and
024and uh and had three you know little ones to raise and but uh I felt like I hit the parent Lottery we didn't we didn't have a lot uh dad was a mechanic and ran a an auto junkyard and and when I couldn't find a job I have to work in a junkyard too you know and so and he pretty much took care of a family I had 37 first cousins and you know you know how it is in in Pike County I I do want to well they they know I'm not going to tell any of the cousins stories but sometimes in cabinet they wouldn't believe my stories one time they even made me call Mom and say could you verify this or no but I did have a parent letter you know Dad
025was great mom was you know he's a general giant 6'4 250 mom was like five two perfect Irish mom you know uh now here in bcsc uh that whole career there's one fellow though that particularly that you know and I I want to say there's an air of omissions you know we buy that policy and I'm not going to be able to mention everything 2 000 employees 12 000 kids a year for 25 years you know do the math I can't do that but Ray Ziegler was on the school board 24 years and I I saw see Jill sheds here early 16 years I think she's number two and Karen garrity's mom was also 16 years I think on the board but Ray was a was a mentor and he taught me a lot about
026uh boardmanship about politics he's a master politician one of the things he said Ray said to me when I got to job he said surround yourself with people who are smarter than you he didn't realize how easy that was going to be but uh so I also uh had a lot of great administrative assistants three of the sweetest ladies that you ever met Shirley bazel Robin Dorsett and James surface surely when I took the job she said my job she said my job is to make you look good now she didn't know how hard that I was going to be but and I kept thinking I'm their seventh superintendent she's worked for and we went through several and went I had nothing you know so uh I wouldn't mention Jane Jane was with me 25
027years so when I moved you know wherever I moved to and whatever job I had I kept her as an administrative assistant her nickname uh by the ladies in the office was Saint Jane because she's such a and Jane surface here and then I know I see Jim nodding it is now Andrew said she got that nickname because she put up with me for 25 years and stay the other way around uh I'm the first superintendent to retire in the district at least in the last several decades and uh maybe the only one I think that ever retired in the community and so that has some good effects you know uh I for 13 years I never got a snow day right and uh there's uh stuff in the paper you know all the time
028you didn't get that right but here but but now everywhere I go in the community something in the paper or it's a snow day people will say well if you were a school superintendent you would have and then they fill in the blank of what they think is the right answer and you know so I'm I I always had a pretty good self-concept but I haven't made a bad decision in six and a half years so I'm feeling pretty good about myself now I'd recommend that the board to do boat I could list all of the great things that uh that this Corporation has done uh you know before my tenure and during my tenure but you know the 2020 referendum that was bold you know you're in the middle of a pandemic you pass
029a referendum that was a boat you know you need I I would recommend that you build programs and buildings that attract more students and fight the fights that are worth fighting not just the fights that you can win uh you know we have done that in the past and it moves in you know Pre-K uh was a tough was a tough time for us to try to do those references but you know what Pre-K now is is spoken as if that's one of the things that's going to come down the fight so and I you know keep keep expanding keep building you can't shrink your way to Greatness now the three R's now are rigor relevance and relationships and the most important to that is relationships I got a lot of credit for knowing every
030kid at Taylorsville School including Logan in and I got a lot of I bet you know where Andrew and I grew up and 60 in my class 50 in her class and they closed before they closed down Winslow High and you know you knew everybody and so I had to know everybody when I was a principal and one year I think in and out we had a total a thousand kids and so uh but if you met in the hallway I had to know that and that's those are the kind of velcro strips you have to have create a velcro strip and uh to every person you try to teach or or you mentor yeah the lesson um you know a few years ago I was invited to MC the 100th anniversary of of our
031old high school and um during the organization uh the guy that was organizing that and there was MC and he said uh I asked the principal Mr Thompson said you know you were here 40 50 years said who was the who's the student you remember the most who was the best who was the brightest who do you you know who is that one student and uh principal uh Thompson said John quick and that made me really proud because I knew he was talking about my father thank you [Applause] foreign well that's hard to top but we'll give it a shot okay I think next step we have best practice from McDowell thank you it's uh continuing the theme of Mcdowell as we start the year I believe so we're we're really happy to be here
032and share um a little bit about what McDowell um is and does for the community uh here for bcsc and Columbus um pictures see how it goes there we go quick history overview 1960 was when it was built if you've not been to McDowell I suggest at least drive by McKinley Avenue it is not the kind of school that you would expect to see in Indiana it was part of the Cummins architecture bringing in a famous architect's John Carl warnicky I assume you say and it was in 2001 a National Historic Landmark for its unique building since 1960 and Mr Ellen did share the story as I was researching just a little bit it was an interesting fact in 1967 First Lady Lady Bird Johnson was on a tour Across America had a stop in
033Columbus staying at the Miller home and while she was in Columbus she was a guest of honor at a dinner at McDowell followed by music in the gym from a 60-piece Orchestra so kind of a little interesting fact that I learned along the way so it was an elementary school at this point and then in the early 80s was transitioned to an adult education center I think the Indiana Winters and kids having to put on and off those snow gear coats and all of that really just was too much for not the kids probably but maybe the adults around and then Renovations were completed you can kind of see the difference in the two pods there in 2013 that really helped bring that up Mrs Andrea quick was a big part of making that happen
034and in fact as I was looking through some of that history Mr Newell said on quite a few of the uh meetings I think with the committee of folks who are part of that building renovation so the history goes deep with all the folks that we've heard from today and we're excited about the future of Mcdowell moving forward quickly you're going to hear from Josh Gunter with our alternative education program and Nikki nolting with adult education we've got lots of things going on at McDowell we say Learning for Life we've got four pods there and many different ways that we serve the community so it's it's one of the unfortunately we say Best Kept Secrets if you've been in Columbus for a long time it's the best kept secret that we don't really want to
035be a secret so we're proud to be here tonight but if you've been in Columbus for a while you know in the 90s you McDowell maybe had a different reputation in terms of what kind of students went there and what went on there but today we serve the community in very a variety of ways and and it's a pretty exciting place to be one of them is through our Bright Beginnings program and Kristen Marshall is the director we serve as an early learning program students aged six weeks to three years old we've got four lead teachers in those four classrooms many many um kids and a couple that you might see up here I don't think I have any of the Robert's Grand kiddos in these photos but they're here there's a there's lots of
036folks that that are around from teachers kids it was originally designed and it serves as a place for students of bcsc high school students or of bcsc who are parents or parenting as a way to help them really um continue and maintain that education to get their high school diploma and not have child care stand in the way of that so I would say in the five years that I've been there we've maybe had about five or so students take advantage or need to use that but it's it's made a difference for each of those uh young parents to finish their High School career so it's a wonderful program that's kind of housed under McDowell and and uses a lot of different folks through the title program and so forth to keep that going for
037our service we also house C4 cosmetology that Jim that was uh the 60 orchestra band in 1967 is now our cosmetology salon and that's through C4 so we're not going to go into that too much um but it's wonderful that students have that pathway and that option to come through uh C4 both our bcsc students as well as our County students coming with that opportunity to get certified by the end of their two years in that program it's also an open working salon so if you need your nails done or you a haircut you can stop by Monday Tuesday Thursday or Friday afternoons from 1 30 to 5 and they are an operating salon so another way that we serve the local community as well onto our real specific McDowell measures in terms of our
038our high school alternative education uh Mr Gunter Josh Gunter I think four years with us here at McDowell is one of our teachers and he's going to share with you a little bit about what alternative education is uh at McDowell [Music] um so just being a history teacher it's kind of cool being in a building that is a natural National Historic Landmark just being able to look at the architecture every day I think Jared Miller said it best when when saying the built environment of the community really makes that Community what it is uh actually had the honor of uh for my senior Capstone in college writing about the Cummins Foundation program I spent a lot of time in the in the architecture archives doing my paper over that so I have some a lot
039of interest in it to begin with and being able to be in the building is really cool um I just want to talk about some of the things that the program at McDowell does um and talk about some of the requirements from the state about the program itself before we get back into talking about students specifically it is a community uh school I think we can say this in the true sense of the word Community when you look at McDowell compared to every other school you saw all the different programs from it could be from from a three-year-old all the way to a 90 year old taking classes in the adult side and we see people come and go we see uh English language Learners it really truly is a community sense in that regard
040and I think our students in the small setting that we have really build that sense of community um McDowell is a place that we really want to be that welcoming inviting uh place that that students can come and have and find success as part of that in order to be eligible for our program and these are all laid out by the state a student has to have intend to withdraw or have withdrawn from school before graduation they have failed to comply academically and would benefit from instruction offered in a manner other than the traditional form our parents are expected parents and unable to regularly attend school are employed and employment is necessary to support their family and will interfere with their their day in sometimes in regards to students being disruptive they fall into the
041restart program and I'll talk about that in a little bit some also also some requirements for the state are a 15 to 1 student to teacher teacher ratio and research shows that the smaller class size the more beneficial for a lot of kids and and we see the results of that in our program of the high school side each able to give kids individual attention and kind of meet them where they are help find some successes and then eventually raise that bar and push them academically in ways that they didn't even think they were capable uh each student has to have an individualized service plan at McDowell we call it an individualized success plan everyone all the the staff have access to those so we can help as a group build those things together and
042we definitely have to have high expectations for the student it's not enough to just come and be a part of it we want you to be successful and we're going to build on that success as much as we can all right um yeah in regards to the high school program uh we have students from east north and new tech ultimately they are students of those schools will graduate from those schools uh remember that we are a program and what how McDowell operates is there are two different sessions we have a morning session where students can earn up to three credits per quarter we we do operate on a quarterly it looks like a black schedule but we meet every day okay so you don't switch out every day like you do in the normal high
043schools we meet every day it gives students an opportunity to earn more credits in a shorter period of time in the in the afternoon we offer two credits per quarter we typically do not have students that are there all day there are exceptions to that rule um with the when the fit is right uh and it's not right anywhere else the student may spend more time at McDowell than typically but uh foreign that's what a day looks like for us and we work pretty ex pretty extensively with the home schools to make sure we're getting on we're staying on track with what um we need to and to to kind of share some of that information that we're seeing in our classes with some of those teachers at East or north or new tech as
044well uh we have a bus bcsa provides shuttles from the home schools to McDowell and from McDowell to the home schools and also provide shuttles to the restart program at Youth Services Center each quarter we have students that complete enough credits to graduate so we had several students that graduate at quarter so first quarter they're done with their graduation requirements they're no longer they no longer need to attend school they're able to walk in May with their cohort but they've they've come and they've been successful and they're moving on with their careers or going to college or whatever it may be for them we also work in a collaboration with igrad we have quite a few students that are also part of the igrad system we work with a centerstone's FSS FSS sorry probation staff
045and families to support each individual student's needs in regards to the restart program we have one restart teacher that is at McDowell in a pod opposite to the high school program and we also have a teacher that operates out of the Youth Services Center uh restart is a program that is supposed to be a temporary pathway for students who need a little bit of extra attention so restart is even a smaller scale than you'd typically see in our McDowell classroom and this is for grades 7 through 12. so middle schoolers that maybe are falling behind or potentially disruptive are given an opportunity to find some success there and it's not only for academics but also for social emotional learning and ultimately what we want to see is those students be able to return home to
046their home school and find success there foreign we do utilize Edgenuity uh the uh same kind of the same system that CVP uses uh in those classrooms at restart we also see a students can help get credits through that as well and get that that support from a teacher in a small environment and um some some students that that we see in in these programs attend May struggle to attend school just for a variety of reasons and this is really an opportunity for them to uh to be successful uh if you haven't seen Don Michael Thompson's uh Sammy the squirrel this is Sammy the squirrel at the Youth Services Center we we actually have our own as well named patch um so I guess it's a theme with the uh McDowell education center that we
047do have these I just want to say that the both the Alternative High School program in the in the restart program um really provide an opportunity for it for kids to be successful and I know I've said that a hundred times but I want you to think back to your youth for a second uh how many of you guys attended camp like as a kid and think back to that small size and you're there for a week and you develop lifelong friendships and build relationships and some of those people you know to this day McDowell's a lot like that in a short period of time you're able to build relationships with people that you may not feel comfortable doing in a large setting and I think we owe a lot of our success to that
048yeah 20 years yeah Nikki nolting I'm the adult ed coordinator at McDowell last month I spent that was my 20th year there so I started in the bookstore when my son was in first grade and I just kept staying so that's how it works so um McDowell we have high school equivalency also known it used to be GED GED is to tissue as Kleenex I mean it's the same thing it's high school equivalency now in in Indiana so people may come in for a variety of reasons again they may have to quit school to work for their family support family members maybe parents were incarcerated they're basically raising themselves so when all else fails on all other sides we are the next we're the lab I would say the Last Hope because sometimes people come
049they leave they come back they come back again so I would say maybe sometimes with the eighth hope so um this guy in the middle his name is Charles he earned his HSE at 65. he also gave this one of the speeches at our high school graduation our HSE graduation and Charles had a stroke and watching Charles go across that stage it probably took him two minutes to get across the stage and everyone was silent and when he got his diploma the place just erupted so that that's the kind of stuff that we do and he came back and he's actually has worked on his computer literacy because he again lifelong learning he wants to keep coming back so this is our English language program which this year has um just skyrocketed but I have
050never seen this many English language Learners come through our program in 20 years since we've been there they actually have surpassed our adult basic ad um we had 40 students new students come through last week orientation so this has just been um it's been a crazy Year we're just trying to manage it but um yeah some so in since 2018 I kind of went back I'm kind of a data geek I like looking at all this stuff since 2018 we've had 496 individuals earn their High School diplomas through McDowell um 101 certifications we also do short-term certifications we do a certified production technician certified Logistics technician Microsoft Office specialist we also have a partner with another program we do CNA ccma so um we've in the last three years we've had 101 certifications that also
051carry Ivy Tech credits so if they want to go on and and go to Ivy Tech and join one of those programs those certifications just automatically go into those programs so that saves them money and mom and dad money as well awesome there again the Career Training high school diploma learning English we are part of region nine so we cover Three Counties Bartholomew Decatur and Jackson County so Jackson County again we have a huge ell population there that we're serving we're running classes basically four days a week for four evenings a week and four days a week so yeah it's it's been something so our enrollment this year usually when I went back to 2018 we averaged about 590 or halfway through the year and we're already at 470. so we're on to a record
052year this year so yeah been good talking about your partnership oh yeah sorry uh Partnerships we also do on-site classes with businesses this year it used to be I would have to go out and cold call and say hey you have a lot of English language Learners do you want to have on-site classes and this year they're calling me so um we have a partnership with ta Services that's with Cummins and that's with certified Logistics exhibition so they send us our their employees we just started for Via which was forcia now it's for Via we just started a class there last week we're starting one at Tipton Mills next week Beacon is coming up soon and Kai we just started two weeks ago those are all English language classes and most of these employers are
053saying they're about 50 percent Latino or non-english speaking so we're going out and meeting them where we need to be foreign that's good so as you can see lots of stuff going on serving in lots of different ways across multiple counties and really just I think Nikki said it with hope right I think our best practice that we share is hope hope for um future Community for each uh each individual and I don't know is it the next page where our video is we've got a nice little video and really the only thing that matters is is listening to some student voices McDowell has impacted me in a lot of ways when I first came here they came up with a plan I was not doing well in school so they were able to keep
054me back on track and I formed a lot of connections that I didn't think I could make which got me to exactly where I want to be in the law enforcement I made connections and now I'm doing exactly what I want to oh McDonald's has impacted me honestly a lot I love this school I think it's honestly better than my homeschool um the teachers here are really Hands-On they love the kids I feel like so that's like really important to me and just the community I met a lot of my friends here I did not have a single friend before I came here to be completely artist and now I've got like 10 15 so it feels amazing um so I I've spent a lot of my life incarcerated and McDowell actually allowed me to
055come here and get my high school everyone too and so now I have that and uh now I'm taking the computer class here so I'm just they're helping me get a lot more things under my belt so whenever I do want to move on to a career I can't for me I was having a rough time fitting in and concentrating or even attending my classes at the bigger high schools um but then I started attending McDowell and it gave me a new opportunity and a new environment that I really fit well in and the teachers considered my needs more and like more effort to build a relationship with me and I just feel like it's somewhere where I can focus more because there's less students after I graduate I plan on working at McDonald's some
056place that has impacted me that much I want to be a teaching assistant but that may not be an option right away so there are other Departments of the building that I can work in until that's a possibility so my experience at McDowell was amazing uh in Mexico I have the opportunity to make a lot of friends for and know about different cultures I can improve my English back years ago what's up and then when I feel confident with this I start to work at bcsc first as a volunteer at Southside school then at TA at Northside and now I am a coordinator for cultural and safety day space that I have the opportunity to help other immigrant people so thanks for listening to the whole presentation we probably could have just played that and
057that gives you the overview from adults doing lots of different things and really telling the story of of what it is every day at McDowell and why it's such a special place um full of Hope I will say can we oh there we go uh that's where we're located encourage you to visit us I will also say we do send out to the board an invitation in May for our adult ed graduation ceremony that we hold at Columbus North High School and if that works in your schedule we'd love to have you and are ready for any questions that you might have no question let me yeah so I have a quick quick question as you're leaving your position and Mr Newell's entering I'm sure you're giving him advice on the side but if there
058was something that you could do to leave the place even better than what you are leaving it what what can we do to help make that happen what is what's out there if you can name one thing that you don't have today that would make it a better place did you say yeah can we build a couple more pods so we can just serve a few more people keep it small more more adults and more space certainly uh you know we want to bring that message to others so certainly we didn't get into a lot of the details we do have um on the alternative side the high school program and restart we've got three full-time teachers at McDowell plus our two restart teachers and then three part-time teachers in the morning that kind of
059extend that to be able to serve more students but the need is great we're probably the largest right now every quarter we have new students that come through so right now we're at 120 just high school program students then those are bcsc Juniors and seniors working to try to graduate on time and stay on track for graduation so um you know that's the work certainly it has continued to grow we have that Center Stone FSS who's actually here tonight with a student at the team effort the the effort and the collaboration between north and east that's what makes it all happen CSA new tech a lot of caring adults so hard to say one thing but of course if we could always extend capacity that we would like to serve as many students as possible
060so Mr stair and I um Megan took us on a tour just recently and and the two things that stood out to me the most which you did bring out tonight is is we saw lots of students at lots of different ages but they were all engaged in learning so many different ways and and you can't walk through that building without seeing there's relationships going on but between the students but also between the teachers and the students and the staff and the students even the cafeteria people and the students there's just lots of relationships the other thing I want to commend you for is the the ell going out to the community instead of waiting for them to come to you that is very cool thank you it's been exciting and challenging including I think
061we've mentioned a few times from you know the Afghans opportunities we had and now we're serving quite a few of those on site so it is a it's been a fun time but a challenging one but great people make that happen so we have a great staff thank you very much thank you okay uh now I think we'll move on to board commendations do I have anybody I'd like to start Dale put his hand up well I had in there to um commend Megan Megan shaft and her staff at McDowell for hosting us so I will just put that in there but you you saw all the good stuff that's going on there um also commendations to the East High School art Department Allison koser Buck Brad Barber and Sydney Albert and their students they
062had 18 students recognized through the Scholastic art program in 3D art 2D art and photography if you go to the east website and the art Department you can actually see last year's student winners that I'm sure sometime in the near future we'll see this year's but they're worth it's worth looking at there's some pretty impressive art and finally commendations to Jay Payne and Blake Manuel at and the staff at Central Middle School Mr Stenner and I also visited Central last Friday and saw many core courses and elective courses and lots of good stuff going on one I guess extra Commendation to Michelle fee who's the media specialist at Central there are many good things going on but this just really stood out to me each quarter she has she hosts a different group of volunteer
063students who come out of the resource time and work on what's what they call the charge as in Chargers and it's a combination Video magazine and school announcements in one week the students Planet recorded edit the video and every Monday they show it to the school and it's I got to see the kids coming in on Friday all excited about it and saw some of the stuff they produced and it is phenomenal well I've got a few here but I'll try to go fast uh first off accommodations congratulations to the FFA parliamentary procedure team that won the section 4 contest and they will compete at the next level on February 11th so good luck to the FFA parliamentary procedure team I mentioned this group at the last meeting I'll mention them again the accommodations congratulations
064to the girls uh bowling team at Columbus North who continues to roll their way through the state tournament and they will be competing in the state finals this Saturday in Indy so good luck to them accommodations congratulations to three senior basketball players Sage tall at Columbus East Cooper horn at North and Lauren Barker at north um all for surpassing the Thousand Point uh uh Mark over their careers at north and east and you know they've gotten a lot of attention for that certainly through their athletic accomplishments but what's been very impressive is I know Sage's uh coach Coach Brown sages principal Mr Newell incredibly complimentary of State Sage first and foremost as as being a good person and asking coach Ferguson and uh uh coach flight at North about Lauren Barker uh coach white said
065you know not only is she you know hit the Thousand Point career Mark but she's an even better person than she is a basketball player as a member of the National Honor Society student athletic board member 4.2 GPA and the list goes on and and very impressively what coach Ferguson had to say about Cooper is that Cooper was a very humble player and had a unique ability to elevate the play of his teammates and even though he has been recognized for scoring a thousand points over the course of his career he has passed up probably that many shots or more to help Elevate the play of his teammates so again congratulations to those three for their athletic accomplishments and and being great people the East wrestling team who won their eighth straight sectional I've built
066uh just a superb program there and good luck to both the East and North wrestling teams who finished 1-2 in the wrestling regional and both teams Advanced 10 wrestlers to the semester real quickly here let's see Saturday the 28th the East boys swim team for setting three school records and two Hoosier Hills conference records and good luck also to East Junior Gabby Meyer tomorrow at the Jasper diving Regional after winning the north sectional for the third year in a row and the last two I had the opportunity to attend C4 open house at North on well last Monday the 30th and to say it was a well-oiled machine I think would be an understatement I mean it was super impressive event from Mrs Richards the first year nursing teacher greeting people at the door to
067conversations I had with some of the other teachers Mr Yates the assistant director and I wanted to make special mention of a C4 student ambassador monacy indulker who gave me a very thorough explanation about the uh I.T cyber security program at C4 so I mean it was a super great I mean Super well put together event I mean you couldn't hardly walk through the crowd hallways it was so crowded and then lastly I know I've mentioned this before but I think it's worthy of being mentioned again the monthly HR benefits and payroll news letter that goes out it's just always a very full of valuable information reminders opportunities I think one that stuck out to me was 30 30ish and clueless about retirement so I I can't say for sure but I would seriously doubt
068that there are lots and lots of Corporations out there that have that level of communication through the HR department so Kudos accommodations to them and that is it thank you any others okay thank you real quick sorry sorry um I've got uh one two things I just wanted to say I'm going to be trialing a process I hope that we can look at in the future which is I'm going to be looking at two different schools and working with their principal over in between each one of these meetings to try and get athletic academic and staff commendations so the next time I'll give a report on two different schools um I did want to tell all of the both academic and athletic teams you know especially with some of their Seasons closing out for a
069winter season you know congratulations and thank you for all the hard effort that they've put in as a former athlete it's kind of hard when you're a senior knowing that sometimes this is the last time you get to compete in whatever level it is so do you do your best at the end so that you remember that forever and the last thing I just I'll remember this forever it was a couple weeks ago when they had a senior night at East and it's it's easy for me to talk a little bit about East because my daughter goes there and we go to a lot of the games and one of the most amazing things I'd seen in a very very long time and I apologize if I get the names wrong but I believe it
070was the Roberts and Cox families saying the national anthem before the game the varsity game and I tell you it was it I got I just got a chill right now um just thinking about it because usually the band plays and the band does a pretty good job but just to hear people sing it and sing it almost perfectly I mean it was a Super Bowl level rendition without all the lights and and all the stage and so I just I thought that was something worth letting those families know thank you for doing that and doing a great job with it so thank you house thank you okay we will move on to school board member reports yeah Mr Grimes um so from the legislative perspective I had the opportunity to attend um third house
071virtual meeting this morning attended by Representatives Lauer and Meltzer and Senator Walker there wasn't an overabundance of uh discussion regarding bills and K-12 education probably the one that got the most attention and discussion the this morning was from representative Lauer who who talked about House Bill 1449 and the process to Auto enroll 21st century Scholars um so uh Cliff's Notes version of this today marks the beginning of week five of this legislative session and so kind of the Cliff's Notes version of week four um there were there were a variety of bills mulled over amended everything from the science of reading to School Board filing periods to school board partisans races again the 21st scholar Century Scholars and the process for auto enrolling those kids that are eligible increasing this was one that I thought
072was interesting that house bill 1382 that intends to try to increase the percent of Robotics teams that exist in school corporations across the state it's currently about 30 percent this bill proposes to try to get up that to 60 percent of the school corporations across the state with with robotics teams to help promote stem and hopefully eventually retain those people in the Indiana Workforce so about three weeks left uh this session for bills to get out of the Committees from their chamber of origin in order to remain active some have moved on many others are still being amended but uh originally again just over 200 bills that either directly indirectly um uh deal with K-12 education and then lastly from the school Foundation again just a quick plug again the Harlem Wizards Sunday March 5
073at two o'clock the school foundation's biggest fundraiser of the Year tickets can be purchased at bcsf stars.org thank you hi Mr Stenner I was able to attend business advisory committee on behalf of the board a business advisory committee was new to me so I'll talk a little bit about the committee and Mr Jensen is the facilitator for that committee members of the committee are mostly from the private sector I would say from the largest and some of the entrepreneurial small companies in the community the presentation at this particular meeting was made by a corporation employee Kristen Beck not in her current role but really related to her previous roles a high school counselor and it had to do with how and I remember 10 years ago being interested in this but the ability of a
074corporation to track its graduates where are the folks that graduated from high school four years ago how many of them are working toward a post-secondary degree maybe have achieved already a two-year degree have they been part of an apprenticeship program but the the ability to track our students and learn from their experience and what they do after graduation I think is going to help us tremendously in terms of understanding our high school students and helping them graduate and get on a solid Pathway to a career so it's a very interesting meeting my assumption Dr Roberts would be that at some point in the future we'll see a presentation like that maybe a strategic planning meeting or board meeting question I think to share with all board members yes thank you Mr Johnson the others Mr
075now um I haven't met with any of my committees yet but I did meet with Gail Coors who helps to lead the high ability Advisory board so I got kind of up to speed so two quick takeaways from that which were eye-openers to me one piece of data there's 140 students involved in the academic ChalleNGe Program but the high ability um highability work in our district actually involves 1200 kids that they take care of and track so there's a lot of kids outside of the academic ChalleNGe Program that are part of that and the other thing is I got on just at the right time because they did a whole lot of work and Mr Grimes was part of this um on the committee to put down I think it's four parts of their program
076in writing a lot of a lot of processes things that they have been doing but that weren't necessarily in writing and now it's formalized and in writing so I'm looking forward to working with them yeah pretty good thank you the others like Mr Nowlin I haven't met yet but I would like to thank Mr Green and Mr Phillips for sitting with me last week talk about the health trust that meets next week so I'll have a report next time thank you okay thank you okay and then uh for me the isba organized a meeting for all School Board presidents in districts nine and ten so that meeting took place a couple of evenings ago so got to make a lot of connections great suggestions there were some refinancing that was being done it felt good
077I had already heard that here and we were taking advantage of that they were also looking to raise teacher wages and we had already done that they were struggling with Staffing I think we are you know we're always hiring but I think we're in a stable place so actually I walked away feeling pretty good that we're being proactive in some of those tough spots that others are struggling with so um there's nothing else we'll move on Mr Phillips good evening each quarter we do an overview of the financial finances for the district this covers um the entire year 2022 so this is the fourth quarter report financial report um on this slide this covers revenues for the three primary operating funds for the district education fund operations fund and operating referendum fund the education fund
078revenues were up about five and a half percent over 2021 and we're just up less than one percent over budget this increase was due to uh increase in state tuition support and slightly higher ADM than expected we I always try to estimate low on the revenue side particularly from an ADM growth perspective there's just so much unknown when we build the budget when we build it we're actually a year out from this past Falls ADM count so we try to estimate low there and be conservative in that way interest earned was also a big surprise in 2022 you learned that at the last meeting when we went over the board of Finance report and so that was a pleasant surprise for the education Fund in 2022 on the operations fund side revenues were up about
0798.2 percent over 2021 but we're in line with our budgeted revenues we had tax cap losses of about 1.9 million dollars but um pretty much made up that entire 1.9 million from um increase in interest earned we split the interest earn between the education fund and the operations funds and um also miscellaneous Revenue categories um like excise tax Commercial Vehicle Tax financial institution tax indirect costs rental revenues and then also Dr Bozeman and his staff had a couple of auctions of excess vehicles and property during the course of 2022 and those were we served to offset that 1.9 million in tax cap losses on the operating referendum side revenues are up 4.3 percent from 2021 and about 1.4 1.4 percent higher than budget um that is entirely due to an increase in assessed value so
080that's on the revenue side um this is the education fund only and on the expenditure side salaries were up about three and a half percent of this actual salaries expenditures on salaries across all categories so teacher substitutes administrative assistance teaching assistants anything that is in the school setting for the most part comes from the education fund as opposed to the operations fund but they were about 2.1 percent lower than budget the majority of that I won't say the majority but the biggest chunk of that was actually substitute teachers we had over the last few years each year spent significantly more than the prior year on substitute teachers as we went through covid um all districts across the state I think experience that and so we budgeted more and more each year this last year we
081went almost back to where we were three years ago from an expenditure standpoint so that was down about four hundred thousand dollars in 2022 compared to 2021 on um on the substitute teaching side and the remainder of that again I um I'm gonna underestimate on the revenue side and overestimate on the expense side and so if Dr Fleek tells me hey we're going to add five teaching positions next year I'm going to assume we're gonna hire all of those every one of them is going to stay from day one until the end and with 2000 staff members that's obviously not the case and so we were um down about 2.1 percent compared to budget benefits were up 3.7 percent from 2021 and right in line with budget and just a reminder salaries and benefits on
082the education fund side the final tally for 2022 was 95.6 of the non-transfer portion of the education fund budget is salaries and benefits other expenditures were as expected while the transfer to operations was up mainly due to utilities and property and liability insurance which I believe we talked about last time as well on the operations side obviously this is more facility heavy and utilities fuel buses equipment those kinds of things come from the operations side so the salaries and benefits is a much lower percentage of the overall spend in operations but we were up about 1.5 million over 2021 but very close to Budget on the salary and benefits combined and then on the non-personnel side all the other categories this uh this was about 20 higher than 2021 and um we're driven primarily by
083utilities electric was about 340 000 more in 22 than it was 21 Water and Sewer about a hundred thousand more uh fuel about 260 000 more in 2022 compared to 2021 and then I'll also remind you we um the board allocated an additional appropriation in 2022 to spend three hundred thousand dollars on stop arms stop arm cameras for All Buses so that's operations fund side all the operating referendum side obviously this is the opposite almost all the expenditures are on the salary and benefit side and the largest part of the operating order for node is obviously teacher salaries we budget 5.3 million dollars per year for increased uh teacher salary increases and salary related benefits so that includes FICA and teacher retirement fund as well as 401a matching if teachers put their put dollars in
084their 403 b a question wasn't there uh buses as well in this fund or is that a different oh correct in the Safety and Security portion and I'll get to some of those details here in just a two slides this is a slide that we've just done for the last couple of years just to show you at the end of a year what have we done from a salary and benefit perspective from the operating referendum so as a result of the taxpayers and the the voters in this community approving the operating referendum what difference has it made well we spent just about ten and a half percent more on salaries because of the operating referendum fund that includes teacher increases hourly increases for both bus drivers and all other hour hourly staff as well and
085here's some of those details that um we've covered for the last couple of years just to again kind of review the impact because we don't have another board presentation where we do that and so it becomes part of the financial statement about 522 teachers received pay increases in 2022 as a result of the operating referendum the average of those increases was ten thousand eight hundred dollars and nearly 1100 classified an hourly staff averaged more than eleven hundred dollars in increased salary during the course of 2022 Safety and Security side Mr Schultz you mentioned the buses we spent 420 thousand dollars to purchase additional buses above and beyond while we budget out of the operations fund and I don't want to steal anyone's Thunder for next year here but I think we're probably within a year
086or two of having no buses that are older than 12 years old and that was one of the primary goals of the operating referendum permanent Safety and Security perspective um this we don't talk about the revenues on The Debt Service fund side because they're very consistent and they don't they don't vary um but from an expenditure side I do like to put this in front of you just to show you um the these are all of the debt payments that were made in 2022 almost all of these go to serve facilities and or equipment most of the equipment is just a one or two year bond that we've done in the last few years the rest of them are facility Renovations um the only bond that expired that we we paid off during that time
087was this 2020 Geo Bond and then the additional the new Bond was a full first full payment on this 2021 lease rental bond that is paying for the renovation of both Parkside and then a partial part of the renovation costs at Schmidt there are four Bond issues that are paid off within the next two years and so this list gets shorter and the majority of this debt would be paid off in the next six years if we take no further action and the last slide here is just a supported fund overview of the January 1 2022 balance revenues expenditures profit and loss and then the ending year balance and almost um well every fund with the exception of rainy day which no money went in or out of the rainy day fund and Debt Service
088which is down just a little bit all the other funds are up from the from the beginning of year from a cash balance standpoint a couple of notes there particularly for the the new members of the board this amount on debt service right here and we'll talk about this again in the fall when we build the budget but the state legislature changed the law several years ago and we used to be able to carry enough cash in our debt service funds to pay 50 of the next year's payment so some catastrophe happened like a Great Recession or a coveted related pandemic recession you'd have enough money to at least pay your first we pay in two payments June and December so big chunks of millions of dollars you would at least have enough money sitting
089in your bank account to make the payments for June even if you don't have any tax distribution during the course of that year that was a really good plan helped us build healthy balances and we have had two major Financial catastrophes in our country in the last 12 years they changed that down to 15 percent of the next year's payment that you're allowed to keep in cash basically basically extra cash on hand and so as a result of that as we retire old debt and replace it with new debt we'll continue to draw down that cash balance so on the debt fund side we'll see continue to see that cash balance be lower than what it was in Prior years and I'll also continue to advocate for these slightly higher cash balances compared to where
090we were before as we have continued to increase wages expenditures for wages and benefits the majority of our budget we need more cash on hand again in case there is some sort of a delay in tax distributions or state tuition support we're able to continue to meet payroll in the meantime so that's it for the 2022 Financial update happy to answer any questions Mr Phillips can you remind me rainy day fund how are you targeting rainy day fund we have not um we have not targeted anything with the rainy day fund other than what I I usually include the education fund balance and the ready day fund as one pot of money to say this is basically where we stand from uh if the state stops sending us money how much money will we have
091to keep keep making payroll and that's around the 10 million dollar Mark right now we have only in the last uh eight years there's only been two transactions here we withdrew money from this to basically pay an extra payroll to teachers to accelerate the the calendar because teachers were getting paid until mid-september when they started in August and then we put that money back two years later when we had money in the operating fund to replenish it so went out a couple years later went back how many how many bi-weekly payrolls would that get us through the the 10 million are we about 2 million in payroll um we're closer to 3 million a payroll now so that'd be three payrolls and it depends on whether or not federal funds also can stop to flow
092if if something were to happen but we should comfortably be able to get you through three payrolls um before we ran out of cash and then if if that happened there would be some other emergency um emergency ways to generate revenue from the state there are mid-year tax anticipation warrant possibilities we do tax anticipation warrants every year ask you for approval and you allow us to continue to do that during covid when they delayed property tax payments many districts went and did mid-year tax anticipation warrants and that's another it's another possibility if we were ever into emergency it's a it's a fairly small number Mr Phillips and I'm sorry if I missed it while you were talking but the other in the education fund what what kinds of almost 100 percent um supplies okay so
093in the education fund it's salaries benefits and supplies there's a very a little bit of mileage in there for teachers that travel um School sites that go back and forth supplies mileage a little bit for stipends and professional development that's it yep as you're going through the preparations for a report like this thinking about what's going on in 2022 did this give you any ideas about something that you want to do differently in 2023 or are you making any changes in in your operating plans based on our experience in 2022. um that's a good question the only I'm always thinking about how can I be more accurate how can I make sure that gap between actuals and predicted can I get that close while still being conservative and making sure we you know we meet
094our all of our obligations this is a bargaining year so we will be bargaining with a Teachers Association this fall so that's always on my mind the other thing I will mention is that Dr Boseman and the transportation team did enter into a in agreement with the uh basically it's a fuel purchasing Cooperative run by the treasurer the state treasurer's Department the Indiana Bond Bank basically to hedge against the price increases on diesel fuel so that's one thing that we did as a result of what happened in 2022. and uh I'm sorry last last question I promised uh you mentioned some of the unanticipated expenditures where expenditures might have been higher than budget or pushing pushing the edge of the budget even though you budget and conservatively or electric water and sewer and I I
095know Electric's pretty hard to predict but I mean we live right here in town with the folks that run water and sewer did something unusual happen that pushed our rates up or are they calculating rates a different way for us that was actually that was a an increase over 2021 so we did account for an increase in the budget for water and sewer because we knew that was going into place across all of the City properties anyway the city communicated very well they we knew those increases were coming Duke Energy does a terrific job of communicating with us about rates too so we had some inclination that we were going to see some increases there in 2022 but those numbers that I listed earlier were increases over 21's expenditures okay thank you yeah so I
096had similar questions and Mr Phillips had emailed me earlier and answered them but one of the other things I think that he had mentioned was the cost of fuel so I think that's something we can all feel right we I think in the last two years three years we've also fell water and sewage go up so so I take the the one that I would hit on to that you noted for me was the fuel cost so that was pretty expensive I think we all understand how that impacts everybody so 100 miles at low mileage okay any other questions again thank you Mr Phillips okay I think now we would cover public comments we have no one signed up this evening so we will move down to the house Mr Dr Roberts you're getting that
097wrong tonight yeah it's okay thank you Mrs Wilton I have a number of items here so I'll just roll through them we have the minutes of the regular school board meeting from January 23rd our last meeting supplemental contracts we have a list of those field trips and professional leaves and a quick note you had an additional field trip in today I think I thought maybe there was an extra meeting in in February we only have one this month so make sure to get that one in to you tonight school fundraisers you had a short list of those claims and payroll for this time the claims for February 6th today's date a little over half a million the pre-run for January 1 through January 31 totaled about 5.6 million dollars payroll and that question was brought
098up earlier 3.1 million dollars that does cover the check date of 127 for the work period from January 2nd to January 15th just a note on there was a one-week pay for nine month classified staff based upon their work schedule coming out of break additionally have these recommendations for your resolution to establish savings parameters and hire underwriter and bond Council a resolution to approve supplement to master continuing disclosure undertaking and reapprove building Corporation f and g legal things that we need to to address based upon a report from Mr Phillips last meeting letter H is permission to award Taylorsville Elementary School roof contract and also letter I permission to award a guaranteed maximum price Amendment amendment number six for the educational Improvement project we've been going through and then letter J is transportation routing software
099contract asking for approval for that and then letter K that very last one is a purchase of buses so those are my recommendations I know Mrs wooden might be one of those somebody's looking for a motion to pull out of there yes so um Mr major and I I believe feel like we have a conflict so do I have a motion to abstain Mr major and Ms wielden from the vote is that how I do that probably uh there was a question in talking with Mrs wooden and Mr major about a conflict of interest with letter K and so we just wanted to I think pull that need a motion to pull that out of the consent agenda item and vote on it separately so they could abstain on that one item correct so I
100would ask for a motion to um uh pull letter k out of the consent agenda items at this point yeah just to be specific those contain Cummins engines and I work for Cummins so I'm not going to vote for that just because so just for clarity I would make I would move to approve as written with the abstaining of K from myself Mr MacGyver that's the proper way to do that and pull it out separately yeah okay yes yeah I'll second that motion yep okay thank you all is in favor of approving items a through J can I do this guys you're looking at me like I'm doing it uh discussion yes of course Jay I got myself thoroughly confused Mr Phillips I apologize on the Master continuing and approve the supplement disclosure documents can
101you walk me through that Justice did you did you read those Mr Center several Pages there I'm impressed so these are both related to the refunding of the 2013 bonds and so these are the same approvals that we go through it's actually fewer there's only two of these uh anytime we do something with a lease rental Bond and those are documents provided by icemiller our bond Council basically the the master continuing to disclosure um includes all of the things about the district that we have to disclose to our creditors and to the bond agencies to make sure that they understand the complete picture of bcsc's Financial and Regulatory standing and they're in their long and written in legalese sorry Mr MacGyver thank you I appreciate the clarification and I've got a question for Dr Bozeman
102who I think we'll be back there in the notes he's coming all right and sorry to make you get up but just a quick question about Jay um uh transfinder and the way I interpreted it is that is a that's a new software coming up a change from what there was before I would be happy to have Mr McKean come up and address your specific question about this routing software good evening yes we are we had some issues with our current routing software we started school up this past fall at that point in time we decided we were going to go shopping for a lack of words to see what was out there we spent some time with the ID I.T Department as well as with my three routing Personnel in the office and transfinder
103yes is is a software that we have chosen they've been around for 30 years have a long-standing in the transportation Community all over the United States so we've been very impressed with their their serviceability and and what their what they can offer for us thank you all right so real quick if you wouldn't mind please um the one one question I had here is is um the software I'm assuming will help you with both efficiency and Effectiveness can you help us understand by how much it will it's always a challenge when we're transporting 9 000 kids every day and the current software we're using you know software is there to help us until it doesn't anymore so this software actually will be merging three different departments it'll also have our service finder that we use
104in the shop and the Trip Finder that we use to schedule our uh Sports trips field trips all that stuff and there's a dashboard so it will be used all those pieces communicate together and we can use that for data mining because and if I said in my desk I can see what everything's doing for today and so can the person that's three doors down the hall versus now we have three different software companies doing three different things and we have to pull pull data three times individually and then then compare that way so and also during this process we have their implementation team for a year to train train my staff and they reevaluate our routes and look for efficiencies deficiencies and help us make sure that we're doing everything possible to to get
105everything done right thank you okay all of those in favor of approving items a through J as presented tonight please say aye aye all those opposed they are approved Dr Roberts thank you so then I now recommend uh the letter K the purchase of the buses as well okay do I have a motion to approve purchase of buses as presented tonight thank you do I have a second second okay again Mr major and I will abstain from this film but all this in favor oh yes thank you and sorry I've got another question is it um is it standard I noticed um just out of curiosity is it pretty typical or standard practice when you go bus shopping to to just get a couple of quotes from vendors I'd be happy to introduce Mr McKean
106uh actually he can speak to the uh specifics of that a little more clearly so we we spec our buses in such a way and BCS even have for many years for example seat belts and all the seats and all of our security systems and all those items you've heard of before so we we submit those specifications to a co-op who then facilitate the bids that do you see you may notice if you've been with us before usually there are three bids on that sheet this year there are two the other company their bid was not accepted for some legal matters that they have going on there that they're working through at the at the state level so that's the difference if you notice two bids this time versus versus three I have one follow-up
107question on the buses would this be the the first round to final get rid of the ones that don't have seat belts or how far out are we on the seat belt I think all of all routed buses already have seat belts on them is that correct okay and this will just bring all the buses to that 12-year Mark it's essentially what Mr Phillips after yeah actually what's your what you're approving now um is the ability for us to pre-order buses that would be delivered in 24 and at that point yes we'd have zero uh buses on on routes that are older than one of that 12 years I know uh Dr Bozeman we did some things kind of retrofitting our buses and I'm thinking of the stop arm cameras uh some other customizations that
108we may have done when we're ordering buses to be delivered in 2024 will they come the way we want or will will we have to adjust them after they get here uh correct they they come with the stop arms uh the stop arm cameras um from the factory um matter of fact our buses that we'll have delivered here in a couple months um or as well so the only thing we've retrofitted would be those stop arm additions that you referenced okay all of those in favor please say aye all of this posts Mission approved thank you Dr Blake I request approval of the HR recommendations as presented this evening thank you Dr plate do I have a motion to approve each of our recommendations I move that we approve the HR recommendations as presented by
109Dr pleek thank you Mr Grimes do I have a second any comments questions okay all those in favor say aye aye on this post motion approved thank you all right we will go to that's a scary picture you put that up there oh it was a good looking group I guess I'll send you a different photo okay for next for next month okay board input and review who would like to start I'll go ahead and suggest that I need some hair photoshopped um no and I'll sit here no I'll take you to here right now um no I just I wanted to just real quick say again thank you to all the both academic and athletic seniors and others out there that are competing possibly for the last time and uh that over the next
110uh week will be Logan and I on our tour will be at the North side in Taylorsville and we hope to have a similar report as Mr now and Mr Stewart gave tonight so thank you I've got a few things um one I want to thank bcsc and the isba for hosting some new school board members writing it was uh very insightful and helpful to understand our role in this process and really allowed us to share some best practices with I think we met within what region 10 which is mostly Southeastern Indiana so it was nice to meet across and see other school systems the other thing is is and feedback wise I've been selected to be a part of this idoe standards review to reduce the number of measures specifically in the social sciences
111economics and financial literacy section so any input from the border feedback please feel free I think we meet two times in February and another time in March to get the number of Standards down so that our Educators can focus on a fewer number of metrics versus the hundreds that I see today and then the other the other thing that I noticed is our policy updates one thing that we talked a lot about at the isba training was how integral we are to the setting policy and one of the best practices shared was looking at how to get those in front of the public to drive engagement so I would like to see given that we have the second reading scheduled for March 6 to see if we can get the final drafts that we're going
112to be reviewing out to the public at least two weeks so like February 20th so that they can see what we are voting on and that way they can make public comment respective to those drafts and so that would be one of my kind of asks to Dr Roberts and the administration if we can get those up and available so they can have that opportunity to review yeah we'll look at how we could do that I think you guys get the PDF versions and and then review those prior so with a month out we can see what possibilities exist to to share okay any others okay um congratulations again to uh Dr quick and Peggy Myers for becoming bcsc Hall of Fame members thank you to miss chef and the staff at uh McDowell for
113their presentation congratulations to Mr Newell on his new position uh thank you to Mr Phillips for another uh thorough well-explained financial report and lastly based on that picture it makes me realize how super anxious I am to grow my hair back but unfortunately I I think I'm still losing it so I've got a while hahaha okay also Echo the thanks to uh all the staff at McDowell I know we just had a few folks here with us tonight but um not just for the presentation and for the best practices that they shared but for the work they do day in and day out with the folks here in Bartholomew County and in some cases other counties as well that's really much appreciated thank you yes yeah the only other thing I would give you is
114that picture would look a lot better too with the bcsc sign right about right here [Laughter] Mr Right no no hey just so everybody knows I have a quick guide to Robert's rules on its way from Amazon okay so I will get this eventually I am generally an informal person and this is sometimes hard for me so I appreciate patience and for Mr MacGyver's help and with that I think we'll call oh wait next next school board meetings yeah so let me just cover those real quick Mr Williams so the next school board meeting regular meeting as has been mentioned is is a month away so March 6 2023 again here but additionally we did uh approve those subcommittees uh last time and make sure we give public notice for those uh we have the
115school board agenda one meeting here in the terrorist room at six o'clock two weeks from now and the public engagement one will meet upstairs in the boardroom uh also at six o'clock so those are the two subcommittee meetings and uh well there I know I've been asking for input and feedback and trying to start working through some of the purposes meeting the purposes of those those groups very good okay thank you with that we will call meeting adjourned everyone have a nice evening