001thank you okay all right well good evening it's nice to see everyone here this is a regular school board meeting of the board of the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation so we're happy to have all of you here and those who might be joining us online we do start each of our meetings with Reflections from one of our board members and tonight I'm turning to Dr Stenner oh I'm sorry yes there have been articles and opinion columns recently in particular I'm thinking of two by Michael Hicks an economist at Ball State and by David Ricks the chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly um touching on Indiana's education infrastructure you can read those full opinions on your own but I'll summarize tonight by saying that these two individuals are not optimistic about Indiana's future should we continue
002to follow current trends that do not adequately fund and do not adequately address the education of our children and young adults these two editorials got me reflecting on the history of education in the state of Indiana why does our state government care about education and what is the history of education in Indiana some of the specifics I'm about to share have come from the writings of people like James Briggs Michael Hicks David Ricks Steve henefeld James Madison David Demery Banta Bethany Natali and the historic Columbus message board on the internet logically some of the first schools opened in Indiana along the Ohio river at the southern edge of the state the first school within our present state borders was probably either a French School in Vincennes or the one opened in 1811 just down the
003highway in Jeffersonville near the Riverbanks both of these were private and both preceded the establishment of the state of Indiana and the state's first constitution even before Indiana was a state the Northwest Territory ordinances encouraged the development of education in this region and emphasized the importance of Education by stating that schools and the means of Education shall forever be encouraged kind of like that with funding for education to come from land grants and tax revenues Indiana's first constitution in 1816 said an idealistic goal of establishing a general system of Education wherein tuition shall be Gratis and equally open to all however the funding for that General system of Education was not addressed for a couple of decades more in 1840 as part of that Year's decennial census I suppose Indiana had recorded the highest rate
004of illiteracy north of the Isle River at about the same time Abraham Lincoln lived in Indiana from age 7 to age 21. during the 14 years he attended school for less than a total of 12 months a champion of Education Caleb Mills who was a member of The Faculty of Wabash College had written a series of influential essays on the importance of Education in the 1840s while the second state constitution was being discussed these assays argued for free public schools that would be supported by taxes and that was essentially the language added to the 1851 Constitution before that Constitution was adopted in 1848 the general assembly issued a referendum for voters does that sound familiar on the issue of common schools in that referendum a majority of hoosier voters supported the establishment of a three-month
005per year State School System and in 1849 the Indiana General Assembly enacted our school law of 1849. What followed then was the second constitution in 1851 reaffirming the goals set in the 1816 Constitution and adding important language that created ways to to actually fund the schools in public education just 30 years later in the 1880s there were already a hundred Public Schools across the 14 townships of Bartholomew County actually according to one count there were 101 schools in Bartholomew County mostly brick buildings and one-room School houses but all of them working to provide a free and public education to the families that live nearby I'll stop there with the history and conclude my Reflections here I think that as a state we do need to continue to set Higher Goals for our Educational Systems and
006we need to continue to do better when it comes to adequately funding our schools and setting strategies for our schools across the state because we want Indiana and its citizens to enjoy a brighter future we need to show that we don't just value education but that we value in particular a free and public education I hope that bcsc will be a leader in this work thank you all right thank you very much something there so if you are able please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance to the choir of the United States [Laughter] foreign six of our members are in attendance so we certainly do have a quorum and are able to do our work this evening we always share with those in attendance and as good reminders to ourselves our vision
007and Mission as well as our core beliefs what is it that guides the work and the decisions that we make so we do have those posted here in front of you on the screen then we always get to start our meetings with excitement and recognition so I'm going to turn to our mayor lenop and Dr Roberts all right mayor lenov you could come to the podium that would be great uh thank you Dr it is always a great way to start school board meetings to have the opportunity for recognitions and I think we're going to have some more coming up sounds like our kids are doing pretty well in the Sports World these days over the fall so maybe some additional opportunities to recognize that at the next meeting but mayor lynp is here from
008the city of Columbus we've had a a neat relationship over the probably forever but over the last few years in in particular with the Tiff dollars the tax increment financing process that is involved within the city and some dollars in the way that they collect those they're gracious enough to work with a school corporation to then provide some dollars back we make a request on some specific topics specifically topics related to Stem igrad the program that we have to help with graduation rates as well as special education transition services for our students and so I think mayor lineup is here to indicate that maybe we've been successful with the requests that we've made indeed you have as as Dr Roberts indicated uh the money that we're talking about is what we call tax increment financing
009funds and they are an allocation of the property taxes that the taxpayers in Bartholomew County pay to the city of Columbus and so uh these are this Fund in general pays for many of the improvements that you see downtown that are publicly funded so the State Street Expansion Project contribution towards the uh the railroad overpass some of the work we're doing at Nexus Park you know those come from Tiff funds but we also have the opportunity to take some of those monies and send them to words or put them towards education it's occurred to us uh that there are four things that people want when they look at a city and so we're very interested in trying to understand what those four things are and make sure that we offer them they want a city
010to be welcoming they want a city to be safe fun and they want a city to offer an excellent educational opportunity for kids and so if we want to position Columbus to win in the in the future in the remote Workforce workplace if that's the right way to phrase it we're going to have to do well in those four areas we're going to have to be welcoming safe fun and offer education excellent educational opportunities and so with that in mind the city of Columbus through its Redevelopment commission has determined to allocate a million dollars of its collections for for this year to Bartholomew Consolidated School and Chad and talk on TV about a little check I guarantee you this is not a little check there's a lot of zeros on here but but we believe
011it's money well spent and as Dr Roberts has indicated I think this is the seventh time at least that I've been around that we've been able to do this so happy to be able to to make this up make this contribution and appreciate the work good work that you folks do with it thank you very much all right thank you very much thank you all right thank you very much thank you mayor thank you all right now we're excited to hear from Mrs Lynn Weber and some great students from CSA fodrea Mrs Lynn whatever you should have access with the clicker up there and a microphone I believe all right we are so excited to be here thank you Dr Roberts and the board for allowing us to be here this evening to present to
012you we are excited to share about our Squad system but before we do that I just want to give you a little bit of information about us at CSA fodria the school was built in 1973 which if you're doing the math next December is our 50th anniversary and we already have a grade level that is chomping at the bit ready to organize our 50th celebration for as a pbl so we're excited about that we have about 350 students in pre-k through sixth grade with 15 full-time certified staff members seven halftime staff member certified staff members about 14 classified staff members there are 17 different languages that are spoken in our 350 students so I think that's really incredible and something that I always like to point out um our free and reduced population is 48
013with 21 of our students being um or receiving multi-language Services an eight percent special ed my very favorite thing and I alluded to it when I talked about the different languages that were spoken at fodria but I love our diversity we have such a uniquely diverse population one percent American Indian one percent African-American or black 24 Asian 11 Hispanic nine percent multiracial and 55 percent White um we just all learned so much from each other and CSA Pottery is a really great place to be make sure I click the right direction tonight we are super excited to share with you our seven squads one school it is our house system or as we refer to it our Squad system so presenting with me tonight are Mrs Lily Hamilton our udl facilitator and Australia Squad member
014missed in a Flannery she is our squad leader for our Squad leadership committee and also second grade teacher and Europe Squad member Kyle and Keel fourth grade student and he is an Australia Squad member Kyle and Keel second grade kylan JV Keel a second grade and he is on Squad Asia minini Patel sixth grade student and on North America Squad Eric Keel sixth grade student on Antarctica Squad and Blakely Strow sixth grade student also on North America Squad our goal tonight is to share the why and how we utilize a house system as part of our PBIS framework to increase their greater sense of belonging and Community among our staff and students this engages and motivates Learners which improves both learning and behavior outcomes um our alignment with the Strategic plan um it supports both
015excellence and high expectations as well as welcoming safe and healthy environments by increasing our staff's capacity to develop expert Learners through the udel framework providing a school-wide way for us to celebrate Student Success in a meaningful way and increasing our capacity to implement our PBIS okay so here's our udl connection as Mrs Linda Weber explained the goal of our Squad system is to improve engagement okay good thanks from engagement learning outcomes and our overall behavior and all of this starts by building a community as the foundation for which learning builds because the first step to learning is feeling like you belong and that you are safe you can't learn if you don't feel like you belong there from there we can layer on our opportunities to optimize relevance value and authenticity these opportunities then lead
016to collaboration to further that sense of community as students become more confident in themselves then they can take ownership of their own learning environment and promote the expectations and develop their internal beliefs about themselves as Learners this optimizes both their engagement and motivation okay so why squads a few years ago our cic went through the stakeholder engagement to look at how CSA phaedria could be the school of choice for staff students and families as a part of this we determined that students had great relationships within their grade levels and so did the teachers however we were not connected as a whole school so after doing some research and connecting with other schools we decided to implement this house system or squads squads are PBIS structure that establishes a building-wide culture and provides those behavior supports
017needed to improve social emotional behavioral and academic outcomes for all Learners it also helps both students and staff form relationships with their peers throughout the building this establishes that culture of belonging by a network of resources for everyone to rely on outside of their daily routine with the built-in Squad sessions each week it allows for time to work on lessons focused on character building and those one-on-one conversations but I'm going to hand it over to the experts the students and teachers to tell you what squads are and all the great things they do we have seven squads at our school each named after a different continent and each of those squads has their own color their own chants their own anthems and logos our squads are made up of roughly 50 students with five staff
018members and students from kindergarten through sixth grade we meet every Friday morning for 45 minutes and during our session we celebrate birthdays and PBIS accomplishments other student and school accomplishments and we work on character lessons and relationship building we start each Squad session with a brain Smart Start last year we did a study in our school with Dr Becky Bailey's book conscious discipline and we look for ways to incorporate that and various strategies into our Squad time those activities include ways to disengage stress stress connect with one another and to unite all members of the squad each of those activities serves a different purpose these activities help students maintain their focused attention and their motivation to learn they also help release oxytocin in the brain which promotes connection and reduces aggression our activity to unite
019is always our Squad Anthem songs and chants these are really important as they build that connection they Foster a sense of safety and they release the endorphins here's a video that has a few samples of our squad's chants and songs [Music] [Applause] follow me [Music] [Applause] all right foreign following our brain Smart Start we take time to recognize students for their various accomplishments and celebrate their birthdays and the PBIS winners of the week as part of our pdis system s can earn Rock slips whenever they are caught following our school-wide expectations of being respectful responsible Cooperative kind and safe those Rock slips are taken to their squad meetings where they're compiled compiled into one container and students count them and we also draw two students to be the rock slip winners of the week those
020students are recognized with their names on screens throughout the building they also get a rockstar pin to add to their squad lanyard at the end of each quarter the squad with the most points or Rock slips wins the global citizenship award at our quarterly Global Summit so far this year I've earned about 15 Rock papers following our Rock expectations I like earning Rock papers to get points for our Squad we set a goal to get about 100 rock paper papers each week so we can win the global Citizenship Award and get a new clip for your lanyard following the celebrations Squad leaders lead character lessons these lessons often have partner work small group work and students are working in mixed age groups squads all complete the same lesson each week and these come from every
021Monday matters every Monday matters goal is to help individuals and organizations understand how much and why they matter to themselves the community and the world around them an example goal from those lessons is setting intentions to prepare for a successful day learning to value and appreciate all aspects of themselves as well as setting goals long-term goals for their futures we do lots of activities but my favorite is where we set goals and my goal is to be a firefighter foreign ly to wrap up our Squad sessions students meet in their squad families each staff member has a squad family to meet with it's about 10 students and this time is designed to build close relationships with that small group the reason we do Squad families is to take time to connect with others during the
022time we share what we did over the week and our weekend plans we talk about events going on in our lives and our interests my favorite part about Squad families is listening to others share my my favorite part about Squad families is that over the years you get to know a lot of people younger or older you get to skate stay in contact with previous teachers you can count on it's a great way to start a Friday it's Friday we held our first Global Summit Summit are held at the end of each quarter to celebrate our student and Squad successes from the previous quarter for each Global Summit we get ready by making science and props like making pom-poms when the global Summit the first thing all those squads do is a chain off then
023the squad awards are given the first one is the global Citizenship Award it goes to the squad with the most Rock points the second is the spirit stick it goes to the squad with the most excitement at this Summit by their cheering positive attitudes and respectful behaviors each quarter squads are so excited to get a chance to win my favorite part about the global Summit was when my squad North America won the spirit stick last year during this time we're also recognizing those individual students for their achievements as well as sports teams Academic Teams and clubs any questions nice so if I may I'm I'm I think it's exciting that you you are in your squads and your squad families of different age groups so like not all the fourth graders are together so so
024talk about that so what do what do you yeah what's different or what's new about becoming close and family members Squad members if you will of other Learners in different grades anybody want to answer yeah yeah it's nice to stay in contact with siblings you have around the school or just younger friends not staying in a separate place from them you get to be all together and talk to them ask about their day right Honest employment are talking about it Eric said when he was a cute little kindergartener that he looked up to the big kids and now it's cool that he's the role model and the leader of a squad family excellent point Thank you are there other questions I'm curious uh if somebody could talk a little bit about the impact in the
025classroom what changes have you noticed this year because of the um Global Summit at the end of the quarter or the the squad family meetings um one thing that I have noticed in my classroom in second grade is that students are holding each other more accountable in positive ways for their choices and the actions that they um have in the classroom as well as a lot of um good sportsmanship I would say where they're happy for the other Squad so like this last Global Summit my squad won the spirit stick and all my students were coming in and congratulating from each Squad they were congratulating me and the other second grade members of the Europe squad for winning the spirit stick another question well congratulations thanks for sharing with us tonight we appreciate it can
026I make one comment oh sure so for what's your name that wouldn't be a firefighter okay what grade are you in I'm second grade awesome so you know we had fire prevention week last week right we've been going through that and everything so you keep learning about that go visit the firehouses anytime you want they would love to give you a tour of the trucks and the gear and everything and hang on to that dream I have two older boys that had a dream of being a firefighter [Music] and one of them is set station five and he was on duty Sunday and the other one is on Wabash fire department up in Lafayette and my husband sat station two so you hang on to that dream because it's a great great career and a
027great job and you get to meet lots of people and save lives and be a pretty good Hero at that so okay thank you all very much all right now it's opportunity for public commendations and I can say as a board representative we're thrilled that um Todd is here with us and I'm going to let him lead off with commendations well thank you Dr shed and it is good to be here and I apologize in advance if my voice gets a little quivery or shaky it's this time of night when it starts to do that um first combination I'd like to offer is to coach Aston and the Columbus North football team who received an exemplary behavior report from an ihsaa official for their display of sportsmanship a few weeks back in their win against
028Bloomington North and the officials report read during extended injury timeout for a Bloomington North player the Columbus North offensive blind players reached out to Bloomington the Bloomington North defensive players and just began a conversation this was a moment that I wish all the coaches and fans could have witnessed it was just kids reaching out and chatting with other kids learning about each other and learning about the young man that was injured it's what high school sports are supposed to look like so congratulations to them on receiving that report also congrats to all the fall sports teams at Central north side north and east as their seasons have either ended or are drawing to a close and I know I'm kind of jumping the gun on some of these as they'll be recognized at the next
029board meeting but I hope I've I hope I've figured all these correctly the combination of north and east of all sports teams have seen five team sectional championships four team Regional championships three semi Champions all of which will be vying for a state championship next weekend the Columbus North boys and girls cross country teams the boys soccer team at Columbus North in addition the boys tennis doubles just finished as a state runner-up and then also one individual state champion um Ava bunker a freshman at Columbus North who won the state championship by nine shots and just to say a quick note about Ava and this is uh this is from coach sivers he let me know that Ava is very deserving she broke every record for Columbus North girls golf as a freshman she's a
030fierce competitor has a tremendous work ethic and has earned all of her accomplishments Ava is also a great teammate she's an a student and is very disciplined in her school work as well I'm thankful for her and of the way she represents Columbus and Columbus North High School so I know we'll hear more about her and some others next month and then also congratulations to the many individuals who have been named academic Allstate from both schools and those that have already been named and I know there are more to come in some of the other sports still to be mentioned and then lastly thank you to C4 for their regular announcements it's it's real nice to see what's going on in the various programs in C4 and and see a lot of the students highlighted
031in those regular Communications so thanks to C4 for for that communication thank you and there are others laughs all right now's our opportunity for public comments we've had four individuals sign up and I'll turn first to Logan Schultz to speak about the budget name and address right yeah that's the drill yeah uh Logan Logan Schultz 6973 West Paddock Lane Columbus Indiana 47201 and like I said I'm here to talk on the budget today it represents the Final Phase of approving the 145 million dollar budget before you which I feel confident will pass and it's not the budget that I'm frustrated with I want to make clear I'm frustrated with the lack of questions brought forth by this board in relation to the budget I will leave you with three examples from our September meeting I
032asked Mr Pruitt what added Investments are going towards graduation rates as bcsc is in the bottom half of the state and as Mr Berlin mentioned we need to increase that um response was mostly around igrad however since igrad's Inception in 2012 bcsc has only seen about a one percent increase and so what kids are being lost and those questions remain unanswered and then and also in that same meeting it was pretty clear that we were asking teachers to take a five percent discretionary pay cut which probably isn't going to be a sustained long-term answer however we're not buffering or planning to cover that cost difference against inflation and instead recognize that we will probably overspend or have to come back however in parallel bcsc is pulling from cash reserves and adding debt Mr Pruitt said
033that he would have to probably come back to the board later that year to address that however where is the buffer when we are in parallel pulling from cash reserves and signing debt obligations at a higher interest rate environment and then finally I asked this board about benchmarking and what had been completed to see where we had opportunities to improve the spending of this organization and Target the investment areas to where bcsc is struggling such as grad rates math proficiencies and so forth Mr Phillips mentioned that he collaborates with his peers I believe Dr sheju also highlighted a comp analysis that the administration board did in June that was recently done and should be done probably every six months given the current environment however that really doesn't take more than a day to gather all
034of the information that's publicly provided and then finally the mistahof Dwyer mentioned that we are being fiscally responsible we're not putting as much uh onus on the taxpayers we have a lower rate than our peers however we're not recognizing that that lower rate could be leading to lower education results we all have 401ks retirement plans and we recognize that below current by by putting below average Investments we can't expect an above average retirement and so unless you go go through to go through three different ways one you're the best informed two you make decisions before the masses or three you simply Get Lucky and the first two are the definitions of benchmarking which is why I continue to press this issue why we are not looking at schools doing better than us in these areas
035which is literally now half the schools in the state of Indiana in creating bridges of learning at this point without any of that action we are putting the outcome of this being of us being as we mentioned the choice of Education simply to luck and I'm frustrated as a parent that my children will not receive the same education that I received and so I ask that you just reconsider and ask those questions thank you thank you very much next on the list is Jason major speak about public comments and benchmarks yeah thank you for allowing me to be able to speak tonight I do very much appreciate the public comments section that we can actually participate freely in I do before I end up getting into what I wanted to say a couple one thing
036in particular just listening to Mr Grimes I very much appreciate the passion the energy and heart you put into your job I very much appreciate the fact that you openly common commend all the people in the community the school community that have been excelling and exceeding in their work I hope that the next time we come to a board meeting we hear similar comments from the rest of the board members showing that they're at the level they're engaged in the same level that you're in so I very much appreciate that so what I would like to know I've got two pieces to this question it's funny that Logan talked about benchmarking I have a slight question about benchmarking as well about the public comments section uh my question is is there a way that we
037could open the public comments section to people that may not be in attendance right now there could be families at home their parents single parent possibly that has a question doesn't get home until 6 PM is unable to attend the meeting could they have a uh a way to participate either virtually during the meeting where the question is asked and answered or could they zoom in and maybe ask that question from their home a lot of times I think when we talk about um diversity and inclusion it's in the classroom but in this case it's also with parent comments the more comments that you get whether it's unfortunately positive or negative both can be used to help better the the educational value that the kids are getting it's great to hear praise and it's also
038great to hear criticism so that you understand where the gaps are so that you need to improve so the first question is can we open up the public comments virtually and the second question is with respect to to uh benchmarking we look at uh at work where we all work we look at our competitors and try and understand why are they at the top of whatever metric it is that we want to evaluate ourselves against so what I would like to know is who do we put as the model school corporation that we're trying to maybe not copy but take great things from and are we then evaluating ourselves against those metrics to understand our performance our performance gaps and further improvements thank you all right thank you very much Eric grow you've written that
039you're going to speak about curriculum which is not on the agenda but given that we're working on our our budget and improving that it would make sense for you to go ahead and speak foreign good evening board Eric grow and as always I come to you as a Civic minded citizen of our community and a father of three the last time I was allowed to speak on the topic of curriculum regarding literature in our school libraries was that the April 4th meeting this year A lot has changed over the past six months so tonight I want to give kind of a quick broad brush stroke kind of bullet point recap to get us back up to April 4th and then hopefully from there we can progress forward so I offered um several books currently in
040our libraries along with a thought out claim regarding appropriateness to all of you you offered it would be appropriate to handle at the individual School level with Librarians and principals I followed your instruction to no avail and came back to you with a counter argument that is not the inappropriate literature that is the problem its presence is the result of the real problem and the processes that allowed them to get there in the first place are what needs to be addressed that would be well within your role to address after your unwillingness to address the issue and forward expression from me to you that I would do it um I read one of the books during my public comment on April 4th that book was pulled from the library the next day for review by
041the school librarian who had already declined my request to do so previously so what changed that specific example raises a transparency concern but also makes the point the whole story lays out a very straightforward case we all have been informed there are questionable books just like the one I read here on April 4th it was agreed that that book should not be in our school therefore it would follow the other similar books should draw the same concern so why are we not concerning ourselves with the others it is obvious this is an important topic for your constituents for multiple sites on the issue and just consider the public library meeting last week I don't want to abuse this opportunity I think we all need to handle ourselves in a proper manner in the Public Square
042so instead of reading another book from you know the examples I've given in order to get the point across I wanted to talk through this and get back to the issue we already have a case example you have been informed of others like it this is obviously very important to our community and it's within your scope I'm not saying you need to remove these books today I'm not saying you need to you know host a public debate where everyone's welcome to come and speak I am asking you to contend with the arguments I presented but you could at least publicly deliberate the issue amongst yourselves and consider review of our current processes our community needs to be a part of this and they need to hear their board members thoughts and insights as always thank
043you for your ear and I would love to discuss thank you very much and lastly is it Christina Carson and I believe it's about curriculum first and foremost if you can't hear me very well I just did an event on Monument Circle Saturday and Sunday it was a community event in Indianapolis so I've been talking to hundreds of people and for context I'm a Columbus transplant I'm originally from Indianapolis Indiana I fell in love with Columbus when I was a high schooler at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis I'm a huge art nerd huge history nerd so Columbus naturally appealed to me very well um currently I am about to get married to my I'm just going to call him husband we've been together for four years we have a beautiful family Brian eversole um his
044family um is uh Jim and Shirley eversole um they are I what I would consider prominent community members who do a lot of good and I'm more than ecstatic to be there soon to be a daughter-in-law um they're very involved with St Peter's so the Lutheran Catholic background is interesting but we we get along very well I have three children my Nolan he is um my stepson but he's my son his mother and I have a wonderful relationship Schmidt is where he goes and the teachers have accommodated really well with um the back and forth between the homes so I want to thank you for that um I actually used to work at Four Seasons I also worked at a Commons in the corporate office building I used to bartend for I don't like to
045call it bartending it was a little bit more than that a little classier but no no shame um and I got to meet a lot of Executives a lot of people from all over the world I'm very grateful for that opportunity that I had um my my daughter from a previous relationship her name's Olivia she's famous uh one of the um little boys brought up firefighters the First Responders in this community have really showed up for my little girl especially the firefighters she got stuck in a laundry shoot last year and it made the news she's famous scared me half to death but every time I see those boys I start to cry um and I just want to say thank you you're a great mom and you've got a great son um and a
046CPT as well and our EMTs my daughter has actually gotten out twice in the last four days to go to Schmidt that's how much she loves it there but she's not there yet due to my concerns with the special education then I have my three-year-old almost three year old Layla she's a Spitfire she's already reading and spelling and I'm a stay-at-home mom I'm not used to that but I really stepped into the role as my parents passed in my 20s so having the ever Souls Embrace has been critical in my motherhood so I want to say that in terms of curriculum I am curious on what material you believe is inappropriate for our community and all of the children of this community I can speak privately later but in terms of hoosier values if you
047look around specifically at fedrea wow what a concept um those are Hoosier values we are right dead center we're called the crossroads the Heartland for a reason and for me I really wouldn't change a whole lot I got private education for almost 12 years I actually got my high school honors diploma from IU Bloomington like I said I'm a huge nerd proud of it and I decided to go virtual my senior year to also work I had a full ride scholarship for Columbia College of Art and Design in Chicago that did not go through but everything works out for a reason I have an extensive background at Herron After School of Art and Design um I've been in the recovery Community for almost five years I have a huge history and harm reduction and also
048risk assessment for special needs children um Christina I don't mean sorry I went over time and yes so if there's a particular point for us yes sorry I hate everything I just didn't want to be a stranger in the community so I appreciate you getting me back on track sure um my biggest concern with our curriculum is that it not be limited due to a small scope or ideology this is America our constitution protects free speech and that applies to our children as well as they are the future I appreciate all perspectives they're all important that's what built this country so with that I would like to say thank you to the dads I'm a little spicy on social media but I'm really a sweetheart who just cares a whole lot I just want the
049curriculum to be welcoming and not polarizing both sides um we live in a country like I said with so many different perspectives Hoosiers are some of the best and I've toyed with leaving and honestly raising my children here in Columbus I could not my son loved science he's passionate about it he got an A plus on his science fair project with the help of all of us co-parenting and the teachers so you bring the excitement to to my home for education and I don't want that to change I believe that parents need to really step up if they want certain values preached to their children step up and do that I do agree that as single parents I was a single mom at one point maybe make more accommodations so that way we don't have
050more Rifts in the community in terms of the curriculum um obviously I believe in diplomacy so if we could get parents to maybe vote on these materials so our children and their unique perspectives are taken into consideration and their safety and you know their uniqueness so we can build Columbus into an even better City that's what my hope is for the curriculum we have Commons here it's an institution globally and I know that a lot of people don't believe that a curriculum that is global is good for America but that's why people flock here from all over the world and I'll just close with saying thank you for listening to me ramble I didn't plan I just kind of spoke from the heart I appreciate you all for being here and let's just keep our
051children in mind we were all children once and I know as parents we fiercely protect them but we need to realize that they are also individuals as well so thank you everybody for showing up and letting me speak thank you very much Christina all right the next item on our agenda is a school board member reports so I'll turn to my colleagues I guess go ahead Mr Grimes thanks Dr I've got uh two things to report on here um last Thursday the high ability stakeholder engagement team met for its third of five scheduled monthly meetings and at our meeting last Thursday the topic of discussion centered around K-12 High ability curriculum in in instruction essentially where it's currently at and what things need to be uh considered for the future last Tuesday the school Foundation
052board met and a couple of the highlights from what was discussed Community Development coordinator Brittany Lane has got lightning grants excuse me and the Chick-fil-A student of the month program back up and running again and then secondly just uh to emphasize the importance of this 13 schools 30 teachers have so far had 36 different projects funded through the school foundation's matching program through through donors chews and just an example of some of the projects that have been funded through that program Mrs Sanchez at Mount Healthy a project called mindful moments Mrs Denniston at Schmidt uh [Music] a grant called thirsty for Global Connections and another from Greenhouse to table Mrs Freeman at Northside so just to any teachers that might listen and maybe you're still not aware of the donors choose program it's on the
053school Foundation website and would encourage anybody with any creative ideas any teachers to please get those projects submitted very nice thank you others Dr shed yes just want to remind everybody that we're getting ready for the education Hall of Fame and we'll soon in November uh November 1st is the due date for nominations it will be coming forward and then the committee will be meeting and then we'll have celebration after the first of the year so hopefully people are putting their letters together and nominate their favorite education teacher all right thank you very much yeah all right I will share um Friday so the 21st are B CSE business advisory Council met we had um two presentations one was from Mr Phillips who offered information that will soon be seeing so I won't say a
054word about that um and also offered an overview to those in attendance regarding our budget all of which has been shared here in our own meetings and updates on our facility projects um our second discussion which was so interesting um Josh Burnett facilitated a conversation about how better to Market on bcse and what to Market about us and remembering that the audience typically is not people that look like me in my age so in thinking about that it was very interesting the discussions that we had so just to share that with my colleagues all right so next is cabinet reports and we'll turn to Mr Phillips will just have me this is the most amazing coloring okay go ahead sorry Josh's communication background is looking at this saying this communicates nothing thanks for that example
055but I was guessing so I've mentioned before that during our demography study uh the the researcher mentioned that we were remarkably stable that's what this slide communicates to you over the last 20 years of ADM counts average daily membership counts you can see that we're remarkably stable um really just showed you this to demonstrate that but then also just to kind of point out over the right hand side there the um the red sections that start coming in those are representing students that are virtual students and you can see that between last fall and this fall which last fall is the the third bar to last bar because we have the February counts in between Although our overall count was almost exactly flat down 0.24 of a student the number of students who are attending
056in person has gone up from last fall to this fall as we had more students transition from virtual to in-person education this next slide is slightly more meaningful I hope and just shows that year over year changes in ADM since 2002 2003 um increase is about just under 1400 students during that time period And I wanted to point out to you that it seems like it would be impossible for ADM to be nearly zero change from one fall to the next looking at this slide has happened six times in 20 years if you include the year that we had 13 change which is less than one tenth of one percent I believe so um not all that unusual for us as a district that we have ADM virtually flat from one year to the next
057and then the the last slide just shows this year's enrollment by grade level and it's a pretty predictable pattern for us there are a few things I'll point out to you most of our virtual attendance is at the high school level our high school enrollment has gained 175 students in the last seven years and so they continue to grow and if if we didn't have those students virtual we probably would be bursting bursting at the seams particularly at Columbus North High School but the last thing I wanted to point out to you is that and this was a pleasant surprise to me I told you before that the graduating class last spring those seniors there were 75 more of them than there are incoming kindergartners this year so somewhere in there we made 75 students
058up as as kids relocated to Columbus or whatever the reason might be but I want to point out the second grade cohort to you um those are the students that would have started kindergarten in the fall of 2000 so coming out of the first semester of covid and then into the second semester when we had much of instruction was was virtual we have gained nearly all of those students back as that cohort is really about the same size as the other ones so they're just a few things about this Falls ADM that I thought you might be interested in all right thank you are there particular questions yeah please the Mr Phillips I think it was the line the the one on the line graph there was a pretty significant jump and what's the Expo
059yeah what's the explanation there that was the year that the state changed from Counting kindergarten students as a half a student to a full student and so we didn't really have a 400 or 500 student increase there it was just a half of our kindergartners suddenly counted from a funding perspective can you remind me how we get fractions of the students 0.24 again 0.2.24 students we have Middle School students who from both Saint Peter's and Saint bees that we serve for foreign language instruction and also for some career and tech ed uh classes that come over for just one or two periods seventh or eighth grade and so we get a portion of their ADM thank you and the last couple of meetings when we've looked at um budget assumptions that you've made the ADM
060was a part of those budget assumptions do these numbers fit with the assumptions that you made pretty closely um no there are 75 students off I I budgeted for negative 75 and then we still had by the time it was Final for us to advertise and post public notice of our budget we still had too many unanswered questions about ADM I wasn't confident enough to go in and say yeah we can change that to a higher number so we will collect more in state support next year assuming the spring and fall of 23. those are actually the counts that count assuming that those maintain a certain level we should collect more in state support than what we budgeted four effects that because we get from other counties or other school corporations good question they don't
061affect the actual enrollment but we do collect revenue from those districts that send us there's a fee structure they send uh sending districts send us payments twice per year for the number of students that they have and the course that they take thank you all right great questions thank you and thank you for explaining autographs that we received all right next is our list of items for approval and I'll turn to you Dr Roberts to share them thank you Dr Sid you have quite the list uh tonight it goes from a to O A through e or our typical one so minutes of the regular school board meeting on September 26th our last meeting supplemental contracts you have a list of those as well as field trips and professional lease and school fundraisers the claims
062and payroll claims for October 24th dated today a little over 1.8 million dollars the pre-run from September 1 to September 30 was about 2.7 million dollars into the payroll for September 24th through October 21st those paid dates a little over seven million dollars and those were did include some experience adjustments for some of our employees in those in those numbers uh these next uh ones F through H so f g and H have to do with the guaranteed maximum prices that Dr Boseman has spoken about a few times tied to the various Renovations we have going on so the first one is approval of the GMP for educational improvements the second one being a change order number one for some educational improvements the third one being for HVAC improvements so that's FG and H letter
063I is approval of the 2023 health and dental rates or Health Trust has been working hard to keep those premiums as low as is possible the rate increase just an added note there for all the information you got does translate to a per pay employee increase range of 1.76 per pay to about five dollars 4.76 per pay that's the high deductible plan and then those still for the on the PPO which is a dwindling number very small number percentage or proportionate wise is a range of 3.25 cents to 12.71 again that's ranges based upon the plans and it's a per pay situation in terms of increases letters J through O then are about the budget so a resolution to adopt the 23 budget resolution resolution to authorized 23 reductions a resolution to adopt the 23
064bus replacement plan a resolution to transfer money from the education fund to operations fund as is appropriate a resolution to adopt the 23 capital projects fund plan in the resolution authorizing 23 tax anticipation warrants so those are letters a through can entertain any questions you have all right are there questions individuals have I have one sure we received an update from the bid information um so I think from Dr Bozeman I was wondering tucked behind the pillar there I was wondering if you could just speak about those just for a minute I can I thought you might have a question and I walked up here without my without my documentation with me so um you we received an email update to the board packet on Friday basically we had several big categories as you see
065within the athletic package which is part of the first educational contract in this case it was on improvements at East High School there was um some um I wouldn't say discrepancy some some matters with the warranty of the actual field Turf that we were that we were in the process of awarding that we needed to verify um relative to the um the subgrading which was actually a different big category so big categories two three and six uh you had seen those in your bid packet or your board packet rather on Thursday after we had done some further interviews with folks we we just wanted to have a little bit more time to review that to make sure it was appropriate and bid actually to the specifications we put out there so we went ahead and
066made a decision to pull that out of what you have in front of you to approve tonight uh it won't slow the project down at all either so that's the reason for the change of what you've seen between Thursday and Friday foreign okay thank you yes go ahead sorry can you talk a little bit about the projects portions of the projects that are yet to be bid where we are in the process on those yes um I should have brought my computer up here so um on the first contract which is educational improvements which would include the majority of the Parkside project and athletic projects at both majority of East High School but also North High School we still have site package big category two and three you just tell me if I'm wrong here
067and then and see um uh big category two and three would be site working concrete at Parkside Elementary we're going to bid those Mr Ferguson early spring late winter early spring next year uh that's it for Parkside is that right and then for East for the athletic package uh we'll still need approval on the items I just mentioned you may know in your packet we had no bidders on time for bid category five which is electrical at East so we will put that out to rebates already out now so we'll bring that to you likely at the next um at the next board meeting so that that's all for the educational contract the HVAC contract number two which you are you have the first of those approvals tonight that is the large portion of the
068HVAC improvements at Parkside but then all of the Schmidt Elementary HVAC renovation project that's still finishing design now so that's scheduled to start late spring early summer next year but those have not been out to bid yet I noticed on the electrical package you said this hadn't been submitted on time kind of emphasized that so we do have some bidders they just were slower than we're acquired we we had we had one bidder for that big category number five that had submitted his bid after the bid opening bid opening on the day was 10 o'clock in the morning and he was not here at 10 o'clock in the morning so we did not accept that bid so we'll rebid that thank you anyone else yes Mr right I've got one and this is probably this
069is for Mr Phillips so the under letter I there I think I remember seeing that the the increase in per plant per pay employee premiums equated to roughly two percent a two percent increase in premiums is that correct good question the overall premiums went up by two percent The District covers between 70 and 85 percent of that depending on which plan you're in and then the employee takes the rest so those dollar amounts are a two percent increase over this current Year's 2022 premium rates for employees and I guess a follow-up to that I mean I've heard stories of some corporations taking eight ten twelve percent premium increases this year would you how would you say that this I'm guessing this compare is very favorably to the industry average the ongoing industry average it's funny
070you asked I I wondered when I walked into the building this evening I had 15 emails which was strange because I just checked it before I left my house and my uh my colleagues in an email group were asking the same questions what are you doing in 23 for rates they they ranged everywhere from zero percent to 18 percent claims our claims and claims Drive costs so a district that has a really bad claims here is going to have a big increase particularly if you're self-insured like we are in most school districts in the state of Indiana are whereas if you have a quiet calm claims year you can take a zero or a one or a two percent thank you you're welcome all right I appreciate the questions are there other all right I
071will entertain a motion to approve items through a 3A through o as they've been submitted to us so moved thank you Miss day hofdwire is there a sec second thank you Mr Bryant all right so without any further questions all those who approve items three a through o as they're presented if you'd signify by saying I I those opposed all right there you go Dr Roberts thank you Dr ship Dr pleek it's your turn good evening I request approval of the HR recommendations as presented thank you all right thank you very much is there a motion to approve these Human Resources recommendations oh thank you Dr bills there's a second oh second all right Miss day off dryer any questions that individuals have about those recommendations or questions of Dr pleek all right hearing no
072questions all of those who approve our human resources recommendations as they've been presented to us if you'd signify by saying I I those opposed all right there you go Dr pleake thank you very much for all your work thank you all right we always offer the opportunity after we've heard all the information that's been presented if individuals have comments other things they'd like to say here at the end of the meeting Mr Bryant first nothing tonight all right thank you Dr bills nothing all right Mr Grimes um first of all thanks to Mr Stenner for his uh thought-provoking history lesson thank you to Mrs Lynn Weber and the faudry of presenters and all the um very good work they're doing with uh with squads at faudra thanks to the city council and mayor lineup for
073the one million dollars in Tiff's funds to help support the very important programs of igrad transition and stem and lastly best wishes good luck again to the boys and girls cross country teams at North and the boys soccer team at North is a compete for state championships this weekend thank you all right thank you yes and I concur with uh Mr Grimes I also attended a meeting this past Thursday and it was sponsored by the uh Arc of Bartholomew County also the um Down syndrome Columbus area Down syndrome support group and it was a speaker that spoke his name was Mark Hubler from Floyd County he graduated from New Albany he's 58 years old he lives by himself he's been living by himself since uh he the last 10 years he has a dog he
074has a degree in public speaking he advocates for people with disabilities all over and is involved with the world Down syndrome organizations as well as going to Washington D.C and everywhere he is quite the inspiration for people and employers need to hear he has two jobs you know and as I reflect back in my daughter who my son who just turned 23 you know we always gauge and we always seek for what other people are doing much like what our school district is doing and hands down I know people have heard me for many many moons to say bcsc has supported our kids with special needs they have supported kids with 504s and for kids that are struggling that don't meet those criteria to receive Services they are still getting support within our schools and
075my daughter's learning that firsthand being up at Indianapolis and IPS schools where they do self-contained but they call it inclusion and I have to watch because she tends to get very very um proactive maybe a little assertive to the point that she'll graduate in May and she tells them very quickly that they do not know what inclusion is they need to come to bcsc so I'm proud of her but it's also nice to know that one thing that stuck with me more than anything and listening to this young man and actually he's older than me but a great kid great family has three older brothers but the one thing he mentioned was that back when he was born the doctors told his mom and dad he was the last of you know the four boys
076and they said don't worry we will take care of him he will have a very very good life and you won't ever have to worry about him but we will take care of him and she said no we are taking my son home and he will have a great life and a great life he has and he's written a book and um so it's one of those that I am truly blessed to be in the school system and my kids graduate from our school system because I couldn't think of a better place for James to grow up and grow and to be able to have two jobs and live by himself as well so I commend our school system but I wanted to share that with everyone so thank you thank you very much all
077right well thank you all I do appreciate again the presentation from Padre it's always wonderful to hear it from the kids even though I know adults are smart kids really tell us a story I appreciate that thank you for those of you who've come to be here this evening and share your comments we do appreciate hearing from all of you our next school board meeting is November 14th 6 30 will be here I look forward to seeing everyone hello just a doctor said that there was a scheduled meeting for Friday but because of various conflicts and strategic planning sessions been postponed so that is not on the on the list here so the next regular board meeting is November 14th thanks yes it is thank you