2/7/2022 BCSC School Board Meeting

001all right good evening it is wonderful to see so many people here at our board meeting tonight i know we have some wonderful celebrations ahead so we're all looking forward to it this is a regular school board meeting for bartholomew consolidated school corporation we are here on monday february 7th in the administration building we start each of our meetings with reflections from one of our board colleagues and tonight i'm going to turn to mr pat bryant thank you dr shedd tonight i would like to talk about relentless carry on neither for or against it for 32 plus years i had the opportunity to carry a gun from bethany county sheriff's department here in missouri county two to four times a year we went out and we trained we shot at paper targets we shot grass

002cans we shot at milk bottles to home our tools of carrying that gun at this particular time we're talking about a situation of people being able to go out and purchase a gun and have no training whatsoever now i know other licensed states like us have a situation where you have to fill out the application have to wait a certain period of time but now they're talking about going out and just purchasing a gun your 18 year old son or daughter would be able to go out and purchase a weapon with no training for years people would ask do you think i should get a gun my question to them is are you willing to take a life we have people at this particular time that are taking other people's life no they have no

003training no they have no permit but yes they are getting guns and i understand that but we have to think about what we're asking society to do when we say have no permit whatsoever this board knows how proud i am being from kentucky it's a state that doesn't have a license to carry you carry it like wider you have the okay corral in some cities some communities down there that bothers me as i said i'm not for and i'm not against but i want people to think about what we're trying to get people to do as far as carrying guns is concerned is very dangerous are you willing to take a life by buying one just because you think you need one 15 percent of the states that don't have a license those that have

004that are loosening up and letting their permits go a little bit free 15 of them are having more violence in that state gun violence we're talking about 16 year olds shooting 16 years we're talking about people shooting into houses and hitting kids that are asleep in their bed we're better than that so all i'm asking you all is to think about it i'm not telling you to go against it i'm not telling you to be forward but think about what we're asking our saudi to do thank you if you are able if you will please stand with us for the pledge of allegiance [Music] nation under god indivisible with liberty [Laughter] thank you very much pat we are all here all seven of us that's an official forum so i would call this meeting to

005order we have listed here on the screen and behind us our mission and vision all of which guide the decisions that we have to make and also listed are our high expectation objectives our guides as we continue to make decisions at each of our meetings so those who come to this meeting often know how much i love to play with the gavel so i'm gaveling out of our regular school board meeting and we have now arrived magically to an additional appropriation public hearing so i will turn to mr phillips for guidelines here thank you dr shed in the last board meeting we reviewed uh two items that had not been budgeted for calendar year 2022 that we're requesting approval to increase those budgets uh one three hundred thousand dollars from the operation fund for stop

006arm cameras and the second one 160 000 from the operating referendum fund for stem labs for the fall semester of 2022. all right thank you very much we had extensive presentations about both of these topics at our last board meeting so this is an opportunity for individuals who might have comments or questions about that funding and that change in our appropriations to let us know and speak now with any questions one of the things we teach all of our pre-education candidates is wait time i'm really bad at it but i don't hear anyone having any comments to make anything else all right i get to play again we are out of the appropriation public hearing and we are back in our regular school board meeting and we have the lovely opportunity for a presentation of

007the 2022 education hall of fame award i will turn to dr roberts and miss day of dwyer thank you dr shed we do have a list of presentations tonight and the most fun one will be the very first one as we celebrate uh the educational uh legacy that dr linda de clue has left here with the bartholomew consolidated school corporation before i go any further i want to turn things over to this day of dwyer who chairs the committee who makes the selection for our education hall of fame thank you dr roberts i would like to first if they're here if they would stand the committee that actually supports the decisions on going through all the applicants for the education hall of fame and it's larry perkinson jennifer detmer lucy mikhail patricia zavala alonso and

008i apologize if i slaughter the words uh and uh thank them i know larry is here um and thank them for their time to come in and you know i think the hardest part is going through uh all the applications we appreciate everybody and and really enjoy reading every application of why a particular you know teacher educator should be a hall of famer and if it was up to us many times we find that there are several in you know one year so um it takes a lot of time to kind of decipher and and everything so i appreciate the committees their work on it and uh particularly thanks to larry ferguson for actually crafting our words uh he smithed it really well and uh because there was it was like the plaque would be

009so huge linda you wouldn't be able to get it in your car so we we had to finesse it and we just gave it to larry so with that you know again we look forward to this year this coming november is usually when we go through the applications again and please anyone that you know that you feel deserves and earns and is worthy of our education hall of fame please submit your letters and application for that it's fun to celebrate and i know i've known linda for a long time since i've been on the board and it was just phenomenal to hear i thought i knew a lot but i learned so much more so with that uh dr roberts uh thank you and congratulations dr de clue thank you mr dave off the wire

010and as kathy indicated the application process is in the fall and i think the due date for nomination is always around november 1st and then we make the selection from there and here we are time to recognize our 2022 uh education hall of fame award winner dr linda de clue we're going to do so by starting with the video [Music] linda um this is definitely a deserving award for you we go back to our days at lebanon and i was truly impressed with the work that you and barbara peterson did at central elementary school he showed me what a great school could be what it could look like and what it could feel like and then you took that work and you came down to columbus you took your house and came down here to

011columbus and eventually i was fortunate enough that you rosemary and mike brought me down here to share in that work of that effort and our efforts don't work we never really find out what kind of impact we've had on people whether it be students teachers administrators but you've had a huge impact on so many of us and i really appreciate that and making me a part of the work thank you so much well i had the opportunity to meet uh linda um a very long time ago 1987 to be exact and uh we had the opportunity to work on the same project during our doctoral program at indiana university with dr leonard barrillo so that was the first time i met linda and we worked very closely for several years primarily on helping principals understand

012the importance of inclusion for students with disabilities among some other areas but that was that was our major focus and we had a great time during our work together in the doctoral program and after completing that uh linda came back here to columbus and i went on to other areas left and much in new york and some other places and who would have thought after 12 years i would have come to columbus as a director of special education in 2001 to get the opportunity to work with linda again and when i got here she was the assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction and really was very supportive of me and my role as director of special education and the families and students of people with disabilities and really helped us begin to look at inclusive services

013in bcsc uh in supporting uh working with building teams to help them understand the importance of including children uh began asking good instructional questions about how we were making decisions related to materials and placement and services um such a great partner in helping move special education forward in bcsc and then she moved into her role as assistant superintendent for human resources and continue to be a major support in our areas helping us find good high quality staff supporting us in various training opportunities and just always being there to support and answer questions um not just for for me but for all our special education staff our families and our children um and when she retired i have to tell you that it was a very sad day for me because we've been together so long

014and um she was just a marvelous person to work with and so deserving of of this honor and that i my words i don't even have the right words to to share how much she deserves this but i just congratulate linda on an amazing career and a fabulous job here in bcsc i've been fortunate enough to work with linda since the 1990s which really boggles my mind now that we're in 2022. i got to know her as a teacher as a principal as an administrator and even more importantly as a colleague and friend i think anyone who worked with linda could testify to her ultimate professionalism if you were a student in her building or a parent or even a teacher or a fellow principal you knew how hard she worked and you knew the

015commitment that she brought to improving life for her her students every single day i also had the privilege of working with her as a colleague when we worked together there wasn't a thing that i needed assistance with that linda wasn't already there before i had to ask for help she was willing to take on any task at any time and was truly the definition of a professional colleague along with that linda's great friend i was not a native of columbus and when i came here and she was here she welcomed me not only to her friends her circle of friends but to her family and if you know how large the jaclyn family is you know that that was a very welcoming experience for me she has a twinkle in her eye and a lot

016of fun she loved planning magical mystery experiences for the administrative team and unbeknownst to many she was the original founder of the unbook club which i believe got us written up in the onions one time for causing way too much noise in a local restaurant i don't think you could have found a better recipient for the hall of fame award linda is committed to the bartholomew consolidated school corporation and always will be and i know she's also committed to the community of columbus and always will be congratulations dr clue uh first of all congratulations i'm extremely happy for you uh this award is um [Music] very appropriate again [Music] young administrators always make mistakes i was no different and i always appreciated your patience and your guidance i also always enjoyed your sense of humor

017if you don't know dr de clue she has a wonderful sense of humor [Music] i'm glad to see you get it when dr de clue was a principal at clifty creek i was a parent i was a volunteer coordinator and i said for chapter one so i had a lot of interaction with her i was very impressed with how she was in charge but she was always kind firm and fair with everyone she was always very approachable with her staff students and parents i felt like she was a great leader and she made a made it a very good atmosphere to be in and i really enjoyed my time working with her when she was at clifty later when when when i was little just a few years back we get up early in the

018morning put some aluminum foil on the tv antenna and then turn it to coffee cup theater or the loretta young show now we cry a lot of those shows too but there's no crying today no crying in in a lot of things we do but especially when we're here to honor you the um i would share a loretta young quote loretta young once said that there's no personal achievement in being born beautiful that's just simple genetics and you got that but there is great personal achievement in the kindness and love you've shown for others our community's a better place our kids are better off because of you and you made teachers better but most of all you're the best friend ever and to have you come into our lives and and to be a part

019of it and to share so much of your time and talents what a blessing you've been and we thank you for it [Music] all right at this time we're gonna bring up dr john quick thank you let's get that we go there get the teacher voice going it's the same kind of reception i got when i walked in the teacher's lounge through that same sound you know linda would say that the best thing about retiring she retired a year before i did was uh sunday nights and uh you know except for last night i would agree with her you know so i was feeling a little ptsd i think coming to a board meeting after five and a half years coming back but if you know dr linda jo the clue you know she's all

020about family and uh while she is somewhere in the middle she is the glue that binds the duck clues i believe linda's mother martha has seven children and six live here she's 94 years young and is watching from home on youtube so uh if you are a part of the clue clan kind of wave that folks so that they'll see yeah wow they they are a close-knit group they are the coleons of columbus and i will say this this marks the first time that all five sisters have been together since monday wednesday and friday of last week they've given a lot of bio stuff so i'll skip some of that but i met linda in 92 i came here as a principal in 91 she had a commitment to lebanon and as she has told

021me many times the only reason i got that job principal's job at taylorsville she turned it down now i don't think there's anything against statos though it was just a commitment to lebanon so uh she had many office titles um she had she was a dr the only i think director of community outreach or some sort of title one year for that and she was associate suit for curriculum when i started working with her but i think really she met her kind of match and and found her best calling when she was appointed the associate superintendent for hr we had lunch together almost every day because you know you're all about people with 2 000 employees and 12 000 students you know someone was making a bad choice right then we just didn't know about

022it yet so so one time we linda a lot of times linda would drive and she always had that jeep and we drive and we so we went to arnie's and usually linda was the one talking me off the ledge because you know i'm a little more emotional and she was the even killed reasonable person and i was usually pretty fiery you know and so uh so we we pull into arnie's and the parking lots just jam-packed and i thought no that's not going to work and it's hard to park at arnie's anyway man it's hard to park there but right in front of the door there was a parking spot and i don't know whether someone had already run over the disability sign or the take out sign or something but right in front

023of the door it was just oh man it's like you know like a halo coming down it was open so linda was still railing and telling me about an employee that we needed to talk about and probably part ways with but so we went in had lunch in probably 45 minutes to an hour got ready to check out linda started couldn't find her keys following around keys no keys anywhere i said well go back to the table not to the table and say well maybe you dropped them outside the car we went out not only was the car the keys in the car the car was still running so i i wonder how many people saw that car running right in front of the door and stood there and waited for that parking spot and

024how many uh people wrote now so anyway i'll tell you one thing linda had a gift and she she she learned this from rosemary rehax sometimes you know we would have to part ways with people because people make you know bad decisions and nothing she wouldn't be she'd be non-judgmental she would be and a lot of times though by the end of the hour they'd be walking out and i was trying to avoid you know the people walking out you know but they a lot of times they would be consoling linda you know and she certainly learned that from that she was always cool and level-headed in negotiations and she when the student expulsions she was non-judgmental she de-escalated tense situations sometimes even in cabinet meetings she would de-escalate the situation and so i see

025a couple nods over there because one like most of those guys back there one thursday we'd meet all thursday afternoon because i had a lot on my mind you know and we'd meet almost all thursday afternoon i'd fill up the board with all this stuff and we saw problems but i got worked up and nobody i don't think did anything wrong but i just kicked everybody out i think everybody in that back row got kicked out and i don't know that kicked out and so i don't know why i did it but i did and linda linda she she was the voice of reason and calmed everything down one thing that i'm proud of and along with linda is we never rift an employee for budgetary reasons we always try to stay ahead of the

026curve in that one year when district our size got 100 teachers 120 teachers we didn't now we came up with ways to to do that so it's been my great honor that she was my right arm for more than a decade so at this time i'd like to welcome one of the nicest of the clue kathy shubal thank you john nobody likes to follow john quick in a meeting or otherwise but i just had one or two things to say um because i think john shared most of it what always always impressed me about linda and as an educator myself she always put the needs of students first and that's what it really was all about for her it's what was best for students and in working with teachers it was always what was best

027for students so that was one of the things that always impressed me about her was her caring for students and what was best for them and how do you help them get better in the right ways and helping teachers help them get better in right ways she was a great mentor to a lot of people me included and she was always willing to give and she's given so much to our community over and above the educational component but one thing i would leave you with and something that she always says and maybe you have heard her say this is that no matter the situation she always says but the good news is always and you've probably heard her say it so the good news is tonight that she's being honored for um so many wonderful

028things that she did for our corporation and i'm very proud of her congratulations linda [Laughter] well thank you dr quick and kathy before we bring up dr de clue i do want to talk about the plaques that we have for her so with our education hall of fame award we do have two plaques uh we give one to the recipient so in this case dr de clue and then we have her decide on a building that she would like to place the second plaque on so we can keep it here in our school corporation and commemorate her forever so it'll be up to dr declaw as to whether we where we place the second plaque we're going to give her the other one here in just a second but before i have linda come up

029and say a few words to us i will read from the plaque and then linda when you're finished with your comments i'll come up and present this to you okay so the 2022 education hall of fame award is presented to dr linda the clue and then what we typically do is take all of the comments the nomination letters and so forth and i think this is kathy we were talking about mr perkinson helping us support smith this we could get onto still pretty big plaque linda so the the items or descriptors that are included on this plaque for dr linda de clue empathetic and fair problem solver led with grace and dignity great communicator and mediator tremendous colleague fiercely loyal united way luminary unwavering community commitment instrumental in support and implementation of udl and pbis

030and then a quote her mission in life was not only to promote and develop the potential in every student but to bring out the best in everyone ladies and gentlemen dr linda the clue and dr dukel you can come to the podium [Laughter] oh thank you thank you so much i can honestly say dr roberts that when you called and told me that i was this year's recipient i was so surprised and so honored you know over the years i've written lots of letters of support for individuals who i thought were so deserving of this award so to now be a part of that illustrious group it really is a humbling experience for me and i really want to thank everybody who's here tonight um even if she didn't necessarily come i certainly want to

031to thank all of those who wrote letters of support for me um kathy your leadership at the selection committee um i i am so grateful to them and i obviously want to thank kathy and john who saw me worthy of nominating me for this award you know my sister kathy who actually served on the selection committee for a number of years and who served as principal at saint bartholomew catholic school kathy and i always leaned on each other for advice during that time she was a good counsel for me and hopefully i was for her too if saint bartholomew had a educational hall of fame award cathy would certainly be a recipient for them and that's something that we might suggest to them because i'm head of the school commission so maybe i've got some

032help and john dr quick i will be forever grateful that i had the chance for 20-plus years to work with and to work for you i am very proud of the what we accomplished during your leadership and it makes me feel always feel so good to know that that you think of me as a valuable partner in that work and as you can see john made me laugh almost every day working in education is hard work and public education i think is even a little harder so hopefully what i can say is i hope all of you have somebody in your life that is a colleague like john quick now as he indicated we had lunch together in a lot of days and that was that was useful time he if you know john well

033you know he has lots of stories and some of those stories i'm still still kind of skeptical about how and there was one story in particular that i said i don't believe you and insisted that we call his mother to try and confirm it and it was a story about i think one of your aunts he was telling me that she was born with human size adult-sized totes i was just skeptical and i said john i want to hear that from your mom well wouldn't you know his mom happened to be shopping so we never got to talk to her i am still skeptical of that um getting this recognition from my colleagues makes it so special to me as many of you know and if you didn't know you now do i was born

034and raised here in columbus i'm a proud graduate of columbus high school that ages me a bit because there was only one high school at the time but i had never worked for bcsc so in the spring of 1992 when i accepted the position as principal at clifty creek elementary school and i had the chance to move home and to be near this large family and to work for what i considered still considered to be one of the best school districts in the state of indiana i've always considered that to be such a wonderful gift that i was giving you know one of my products of this since i retired a few years ago one of the byproducts of knowing i was receiving this award led me to do lots of reminiscing about my 23-year

035career here in bcsc and the positions i held i can honestly tell you i loved being the principal at clifton creek elementary school i was only there for two years and then then they said we've got central office work that we need you to do but i really enjoyed those two years i i enjoyed leading correct the work in curriculum and instruction and i certainly love being the head of human resources there are lots of highlights that i could talk about and as i started thinking about my remarks for this evening you know i kind of started getting into those and the list was so long i would have just been you know talking and talking so i kind of came back to the fact that those highlights for me really mostly revolved around the

036relationship i had with the people that i worked with i was so lucky to work with people who were passionate and talented and thoughtful and creative and inspiring and tenacious in wanting to do what was best for kids and i've always hoped that that's part of the legacy that i left behind here in in bcsc that i'm remembered for my part in working on behalf of students and teachers and administrators because i had through my position the opportunity to do that but more importantly i hope i am remembered for how i treated those people you know i i learned early in my career and perhaps you have to that people don't always remember what you do or what you did but they almost i can tell you they almost always will remember how you treat

037them and i also believed and i still do that you hire talented people and then you have a big responsibility to them to nurture and support and mentor and develop them and then hopefully you can stand back and kind of let them show you what they got and it makes you look good too when you surround yourself i learned that until you surround yourself with talented people and i took that responsibility very seriously in the work i did here whether it was through working with new teachers or working with administrators that i had helped hired um i know that i benefited greatly from that kind of support and encouragement from those who mentored me and believed in me and i just have wanted to provide that for others dr albertus i think i only have

038to look at your administrative cabinet as a possible measure of how successful i was but not only me because i always wasn't working as part of a team i had a part in the hiring of all of them and from the beginning their passion and talent was evident and i only hope i played a small part in helping to develop them for the work they're now doing for you you know and and there's principals and administrators in the in the audience too and and i include them in that group i look at all of you and i know bcsc is in good hands and before i close there's another group that i want to recognize for their love and support and that's as you've seen this rather large group sitting up front here and that's

039my family they are my rock and they've always kept me grounded for example you know john always has already indicated i have four sisters three of those sisters after they offered me congratulations said you know goddess was well deserved you know all of those kind things said what are you gonna wear i'm not kidding you they said it independently of each other so it's so caring hey man i hope this meets with five i'm one of seven kids and as john indicated five of my siblings are here and that means the world to me um my older brother curt our older brother curt lives in seattle so uh i i know if he were in town he would be here too and as a matter of fact if he was here he probably would want

040to speak some of you know kurt you know that's a true statement and my brother kim texted me just before the meeting saying yeah words prepared if i need it um as john has said we and kathy said too we're all very invested in bcsc and its success our mom was a graduate of columbus high school i think in 1945 if my math is correct my siblings and ira graduates of bcsc 11 of my nieces and nephews are graduates of bcsc several of them are here i'm a knee samantha who teaches at taylorsville and i'm a niece who is currently a freshman at columbus north high school and next year begins the progression of of my great nieces and nephews into the high schools so for the next 12 years there will be a clue

041in bcsc because i think max will graduate in 2035. he's in kindergarten right now and in looking at all of those um a couple of them like great nieces and nephews right there but and look at them i think there's one here well they'll actually be six of them in the high schools at the same time so we are very invested in the success of bcsc it's closer close to our hearts so i just want to say thank you one more time for recognizing my work with this award i'm so grateful and so honored to receive it but i wouldn't feel right being here tonight if i didn't also thank you for the work that you're doing there were highlights and challenges to the during my tenure in pcsc but i don't think any of

042those challenges compare to the challenge that you all have had for the last two and a half years and and that challenge is not over i want you to know how much i personally appreciate it and certainly i know my family does too um mr center and i have known each other for a long time and actually i was one of the people who talked with rich early on about have you thought about running for the school board and so as i saw rich this evening i said aren't you glad i said it to you but um i i thank all of you for the work that you're doing and certainly thank you for this work you know i started you know when i was thinking about people when i was putting my remarks together

043um i thought about things i would want to say about bill and i thought about things i want to say about george and then i thought you know i'm going to kind of hold my dirt mind or concept some of my comments on a general nature but i will say to you that there were experiences that i um got in developing talent i always wanted to make sure it gave the right experiences to people to to help them grow and and maybe eventually be able to kind of do the work that they're doing chad you came to mind because there were experiences that i i offered to you and you always accepted that i don't think was ever on your radar um you know the day i brought him in and said have you ever

044thought about being an elementary principal you know you would train secondary you'd be good at it gina you're only here as some master and she popped her head in to say merry christmas and i said have you got time to sit down and talk because i said it took down healthy a long time to forgive me for this but we needed gina to move after just one semester because there was a school that needed her george george you taught me so much about students with special needs and um i i was and still i am forever grateful for that made me a much better person and a much better educator bill i often felt like i was just along for the ride with you you're mine i always so enjoyed how your mind worked and

045still do so um i i just leave you with that i might my sincere thanks and and my kind of hope for the continued success of bcsc so thank you thank you linda [Laughter] turn foreign oh okay oh could we ask all of the clues to come together you all deserve that picture as well i've tried to support inventor these guys they just tell me i'm being bossy [Laughter] and um [Music] doctor shed of the decl crew is making their way out the door we'll bring up maybe mr strong to get ready for the presentations for richard's elementary school there i think there should be a clicker up there and hopefully a hot microphone what you did all right you can go ahead there you go okay when i saw that dr declaw's recognition would

046be on the the calendar at the same time as richard's presenting i thought okay this is going to be a tough act to follow so i will say this anyone that's ever been in a meeting with dr de clue you do not want her to have to say bless your heart um over the years um you know you push it right to the limit in hr but then you stop right before the bless your heart so i'm hoping that uh uh that dr declaw would be proud of what we're doing but it is a nice segue because uh the conversation on uh relationships and trust uh and and building respect is uh what we want to talk to you about tonight so thank you to the school board thank you dr roberts and the cabinet

047for the opportunity to share with you some of the great things we're doing at richards elementary i have several folks with me here that will present and we have a few more in the audience as well because we have a really strong team that's pushing forward to make richards a better place for all so first of all the spoiler alert you do have a book in front of you there's circles all around us that book is not for you to keep i know a couple people already asked about that so i apologize for that you might see a teacher's name in the front you may even see a few lesson plans in a few of the books because there were some left behind but we wanted to put that in front of you so you

048kind of have the the theme around this school year at richards in the circles all around us i did give you a raider nation klingon if you can keep that as a consolation prize but we will collect the books back at the end the books were purchased um through a grant for every teacher at richards elementary this this year i will talk more a little bit uh later on about um what we're doing with that and the why but every child in our school has been read this book at least one time and we have multiple activities going on um through the school year um involving the book you may recognize the author kid president montague was the brad montague was the creator of kid president so it's a very kid-friendly book and you'll notice

049the dedication in the front of the book all kids making the world better right where they are so um the theme of the book is you know every child one child at a time making the world a little better so this has been a focus for us this year also as you read through the book it's a great it's a great book and it's kid friendly but it also says things can be slightly scary and uncomfortable as you learn and grow and we have found as a group our work around diversity and inclusion it can be scary and uncomfortable at times but it's the right thing to do so how are we building community one child at a time first of all what we try to do is live our motto every day and we

050say we are raider nation and that means that we all belong regardless of our background regardless of our developmental assets who we are we all belong as part of raider nation so we want to tell you a little bit about our story first of all our goal is a very difficult goal the goal to create a fully inclusive school where all students families and staff feel celebrated and have equitable access to education and services it's difficult to reach and we're working hard every day to make this goal a reality and in fact we created a goal action team this year tammy hebert is our leader of our goal action team around inclusion celebrating diversity with the goal of being inclusive for everyone and like i said this has been a a little scary at times

051as as we learn and grow but we're being intentional about what we're doing so a little bit about the why benefits throughout increasing student learning obviously the academic benefits to our work but also to provide skills for a lifetime so the why the work is many many factors more than just academics what you'll see today too is the um the core beliefs and uh next slide the strategic objectives that we will go discuss this evening this work ties directly to what we're trying to do as a district as well and as a matter of fact tammy as our leader of our goal action team is also a member of the district curriculum team so what we've tried to do is mirror some of the work from the district curriculum team with what we're doing at

052richards and the books that you see today are the ones that that that district bcsc curriculum team purchased for our school and our work so students need to feel safe they need to feel valued in order for deeper learning to occur so we're stronger and better community one child at a time so uh we're blessed to have many dedicated teachers many uh which are here tonight collaboratively working well together for raider nation to continue to meet these needs um so we will move on to the star of our show and that is our students so hopefully the video works but we're going to show you a little bit about our students and what they're doing this year so we are raider nation thanks to josh burnett and our team for creating [Music] [Applause] nation we

053are in our nation [Music] i have been honored to work with the team at richards as they take part in making this a wonderful diverse and dynamic school community lending my professional background in dei training and consulting to both training of faculty and staff and as part of the team thank you for the great opportunity hello i'm dan schmidt teacher multi-legal learners here at richards elementary at richards we value the many cultures in our building and here are a few examples of our celebrations spanish heritage month was highlighted in our hallway during the month of october in december japan's shiichiko sun was highlighted currently we are highlighting black history month our immigration outreach has also given the bandwidth books and other items items to every student in our building continuing with our community outreach and

054to celebrate our many cultures here at richards we invite you to our first multicultural fair that will take place may 7th from 1-4 hope to see you there one of the great things about having a student here at richards is that the program that's around the kids coming to this particular institution is awesome teachers interact with parents you don't feel like your child's up behind you feel like the teachers themselves are encouraging your kids to get involved one thing about the environment out here richards is so diverse and that's great for our children it's great for an opportunity for our kids to see so many other nationalities cultures and that way it gives us opportunity to discuss those things she sees and experiences and helps her grow long-term because i want her to be able

055to know more than just our culture but everyone's culture and i'm glad she's here good old richard greater nation okay so today for community circle our question is a little bit light-hearted and the question is if you were a color like represented by a color like if you think about a boxing prank if you were represented by a color in that box of crayons today what color would it be and why our special areas are music and pe help our students feel a sense of belonging we see our different cultures reflected in our lessons every day also there is artwork all around the school that shows that each one of us belongs to a larger circle and community richard [Music] hey we love the staff we love the raider nation and we really feel like

056the school is just a great family that includes everyone as the president of the pto i have formed a lot of relationships with the teachers and other parents and families i'm confident that they feel the same way as we do we love being a part of the richards family and greater nation [Music] hi my name is tiffany powell i'm the music teacher at richards elementary i hope that you are able to gain a sense of our school the community and the inclusion that we are building there every day so i just want to talk briefly about building community since that is the central focus of our presentation today we define community as a group of people who work with one another building a sense of trust care and support so that's very important that our

057students feel like they can trust their teachers and the staff at our school and that they also feel cared and cared for and supported so in this picture you'll see a sixth grade community circle where they are literally building community in their classroom and you actually saw that in the video as well that's a space where students can speak freely they ask questions they answer questions they can say what's on their mind it's just an open space for them to communicate and that's where they really learn to trust each other to trust their teacher and to hopefully feel cared for and supported so that's something they do regularly throughout the year and we will talk a little bit more about that later on so we identified six benefits of building community i'm just gonna highlight

058a few the first is that students have a sense of belonging so we have about 560 students at richards elementary as a music teacher i see all of them every week which seems like a lot um but students we want them to feel like they truly belong at richards they're not just another cog in the machine but that they have a place at the school and no one else can fill that place we want students to feel empowered to contribute in the classroom not to just receive from the teacher but to also give back and as a result we want them to take more academic risks we see that as a great thing if they're able to try new things ask hard questions and take those risks and lastly the ultimate benefit really is that

059students are able to take ownership of their own learning at a young age and we feel like that's really important that they learn to do that in elementary school that they're inquisitive and curious and they seek knowledge for themselves and they work collaboratively with their teachers and so we hope that if they take ownership at a young age that will carry them into middle school high school and well into adulthood now i'm going to pass the mic to tammy hebert so i am the udl facilitator at richards as well as taylorsville but i am also a parent of a child who went through richards elementary and i also live in the richards district i believe amy is also in that same boat so we are raider nation in more than one way i am sharing

060with you how our work with community building aligns with our instructional platform of udl when working with staff i typically have two different types of conversations most common conversations i have with them they want to know how to be intentional with their instruction and they want to be able to remove barriers in their learning environment so that all students can be successful this year with our work here it's been great to incorporate that sense of community into all of those conversations we have in those conversations and i have them daily i usually start with engagement and when we look at building community and how that aligns with our engagement principle you can look there at the providing options for sustaining effort and persistence and actually one of the check points is foster collaboration and community

061there but we can also then have conversations about how it aligns with the building the relevance value and authenticity for students distractions reducing distractions as much as we can we also then look into the self-regulation guideline where we talk about optimizing motivation where it usually starts and then helping students develop that self-assessment and self-reflection all right i'm going to now pass it on to amy mocus and she's going to talk about pbis thank you um just like tammy said i am a teacher at richards i am the pbis facilitator and i have kids at richard so i feel very closely connected to how our students are experiencing richards and that matters a lot to me as a teacher and as a parent um the let's see if i can figure out how to do this

062apparently not which one there you go all right so the principles of pbis ensure that we provide behavior supports and that we use the prevention approach instead of the punitive approach to behavior supports and modification some of the ways that we do this at richards is that we have consistent regular teaching modeling reviewing and affirmations when students are following our pbis expectations we also it is very important to us that we work with students to create classroom norms and expectations so that they feel a sense of ownership and so that they're engaged in those classroom norms we also just recently have added mediation scripts to our office referral matrix to provide opportunities for students to rebuild relationships when things go awry and they need to repair harm that has occurred in our work with school

063personnel to provide them with with supports for students so that they can enhance enhance academic and social behavior for all students some of the things that we do that are consistent building wide is that we all greet students in the morning so teachers are in the hallway saying good morning some teachers are super duper creative and have like fancy greetings that they do with all of their students and the kids can remember them they're much more intricate than i can remember but they're fun and the kids get really invested in it if kids don't want to participate in that they don't have to but they can say hello and know that their teachers are excited to see them in the morning we also do either morning meeting or community circle in all classrooms each day

064this just provides a time it can be five minutes but it provides a time for every student to be reminded that they're a part of that community that they can be heard that they can hear their classmates because that really matters too that they practice that skill of listening to others and then we also are doing a citizen of the week where we recognize all students at some point in the year for positive character traits to foster that sense of belonging so while we're so grateful for and proud of the community that we've built within the walls of richards we also know that the connections the community connections that we have are part of what have enabled us to have that strong sense of community at richards you saw pat mcclendon she has graciously given

065of her time and expertise we have been so happy to learn from her and our know that we have a lot more to learn our connection to iupuc we're able to work with instructors and students there other school districts learn about best practices and implement those at richards we also just recently were so excited to be able to have an author from the richards school district come in she shared a book that she's recently written about her husband's immigration journey from cuba as a child and talked to the kids about her writing process the publishing process what that all has been like for her so that was really exciting for the kids to get to be a part of so these are the members of our team that worked on this presentation tonight where it

066was exciting and fun to be a part of this team we're so grateful to get to share about richards with all of you tonight um we are raider nation and we're super proud to be writer nation if any of you have questions we'd love to hear your questions if you have any questions or go ahead all right well done that's most impressive so thank you very much are there particular questions colleagues have i'm overwhelmed but you've been very thorough and i love the video and seeing everyone in your community thank you so very much and of course your students were precious thank you thank you [Laughter] dr vaughn i'll just keep rolling here doctor into the next presentation we have a few of these for you because i think we even have some coming up

067in the cabinet reports a little bit later so with the cover 19 update uh we always give you the national information looks like i cut off the idea each part a little bit there with the state but still in red in the state although those are changing uh so even locally we try to start drilling down to our own numbers these numbers much less than they had been a few just a few weeks ago some new positive cases the most recent update we had was from february 2nd just the middle of last week but that was 97 positive cases with 32 hospitalizations but again those numbers coming down and then internally within our own school corporation we have indicated that number a few times that first semester had 960 cases since january 1st we've had

068915 cases that is 738 students and 177 staff members you can see the previous numbers in terms of the weeks the week of january basically so after we got back to school after the week of that began with january 1st or january 3rd i guess was that monday 213 cases right after that 262 216 and down to 104 last week the week that ended on friday february the 4th so again trending in the right direction as those numbers come down and uh just wanted to to make sure and point this out because it's going to be critical with a couple of more pieces of information that i share both from a number standpoint and what we stand with masking and close contact so first of all with the new contact tracing process that we just

069recently implemented we are using something called parent square parent square is a software tool that we have that allows us to communicate more effectively with our parents and so with the ability to quarantine differently through the indiana department of health uh we changed our notification process because previously by identifying a closed contact we would then contact each uh person the families of that that individual and indicate the person had been identified as a closed contact and then they would have to quarantine for up to a period of time and if you think about our history of quarantine we started with 14 days that was decreased to 10 days the beginning of the school year that was decreased to five days at the beginning of the semester it is now down to zero and we have

070followed the indiana department of health with each of those changes and with each of those changes that is dependent upon being in a mask environment and so whether we like the mass piece or not from the governor's executive order to the indiana department of health's quarantine guidelines our ability to not have individuals have to stay home and quarantine if they are in close contact is contingent upon that so when they changed that most recently to allow us to do that it changed from us identifying each close contact and telling the individuals you're close contact you're going to stay home to us being required to send messages to anybody who may be affected with that and so that created the need for us to use a group messaging system that we weren't using previously that goes

071back to the parent square so my wife is a second grade teacher here if there's a positive case in mrs roberts's class then we're going to send an email or text to the parents of the students in mrs roberts's class indicating there has been a positive case identified there the parents need to pay attention to that watch and and and symptoms are are noticed then the child needs to stay home but otherwise asymptomatic kids can continue to stay in school vaccinated or unvaccinated and that's another debate we've had in this corporation before is between those two things it doesn't matter with this particular situation so as we use parent square the positive is that 93 of the families in our district have a working email or phone number currently in our system so that does

072help when we're having identified people and say hey there's a positive case in your classroom as i state that one more time positive case in your classroom do think about the evolution of everything that we've gone through with cobia 19 at the very beginning of all of this fall of 2020 many parents were wanting us to inform them if there was a positive case in their classroom and we were only identifying close contacts and informing them so we've went full circle maybe in that a little bit and that's what we are doing now just to indicate that's the case and then leaving it to the parents to monitor for those symptoms and keep their child at home i add that last bullet there about families should contact your child school to provide updated contact information

073if you don't think that there's good contact information available for your child you do need to contact your child's school make sure that we have that if you've been receiving parent square information from us because we have had positive cases 104 cases last week so we've certainly been notifying parents in our school corporation of those positive cases if you've received one of those notices you don't need to update your information it doesn't mean if you haven't received one you do because you may be in a classroom that simply hasn't had that situation but might be thinking about that parents making sure that you have working emails or phone numbers available to us and that information parent square pulls that information from powerschool so just a little bit of information quickly about the new contact tracing

074process and this is the flow chart for that so i took bits and pieces off of our flow chart but if there is a positive test then those individuals are still notifying the school and that positive case still does need to isolate at home for five days at least and until symptoms have improved and they are fever-free for 24 hours without fever-reducing medications so that's the positive test if the negative test is the case the individual has symptoms present they may return to school day six is less than it's really after those symptoms excuse me after those symptoms have dissipated they're asymptomatic again so symptoms were present stay at home until the symptoms are gone um then that bottom part is based upon we've had a positive test identified all parents or guardians of affected

075classroom notified no quarantine required unless individual becomes symptomatic so a very different situation from a quarantine standpoint than we have had in this and i'll show you a graph a bar chart here just a second that shows the importance of us being able to follow that particular red box if somebody is exposed to a positive case outside of school then if they are vaccinated they may report to school less symptomatic if they're unvaccinated they stay home for five days again this comes from the department of health is the requirements that we're following there outside of the school environment would be any time outside of when a student would typically step on the school bus go to school and then step off the school bus that's the school day we have the mask environment during that

076day during the evening activities at home out about in the community maybe at a ball game playing sports whatever the situation is if it's outside of that school day what we can define as a school day that's when that box kicks in so we may still have some kids need to be quarantined but predominantly the number of students the majority of students that are identified as closed contacts or around a positive case are not and that shows up for clarification just is it literally just classroom or does it include cafeteria teams all that thank you doctor so prior to the new or revised guidelines requirements from the department of health it was only in the classroom setting or on the school bus now it is during the school day with the school day being defined

077as i indicated a kid gets on the bus gets off the bus so recess lunch anything else that happens during that school day uh if that person was exposed or would have been considered a close contact or run a positive case they still can stay in school as long as they remain asymptomatic okay but the parents are going to get a something in parent's place yeah so yeah going back to the example if you're if your child as a parent was potentially around a child who was identified as a positive case or staff member you're going to get notice that that is the case uh that there was in the classroom and uh any potential exposure and you need to look for symptoms or watch for symptoms awesome all right thank you yeah so looking

078at this bar chart if we look at um uh just this year these these are every week this is each week of the school year going from august the 1st all the way to now or friday february the 4th and you can see our positive cases and the last four weeks have basically been the most positive cases we've had with the outliers being the week of november 27th coming right after thanksgiving and then a high number back right after um labor day or right around labor day weekend and so those are the you know six that stand out if we then go to the number of students out you see that you know in the month of august and september when we had the 10-day quarantines the number of students out versus the number of

079positive cases and then as we changed the quarantine protocols coming out of fall break we were able to make some adjustments because we started keeping some kids in school in a mask environment and we were still at 10 days and then as we came out of winter break the department of health changed the guidelines to five days which helps a little bit and then the zero days is where we are now at least again in that school setting so an important piece there if we look at the month of january basically we have positive cases very large numbers those four weeks before this last one and aligning very much with the students out but looking at that last one so we have the week that just ended on february the 4th that is basically the

080fourth or fifth highest week that we've had all school year but when we look at the number of students that are out of the building that aligns as one of the six smallest weeks of students that we've had out of the buildings so by moving to the close contact protocols that the department of health currently has in a mask environment we were able to keep many more kids in school than we were previously can we go from about 750 students we had out of school to less than 250 students out of school in one week with a change in in protocols um absolutely that would be i think all the specific information we have there but i'll just reiterate that point in terms of of the mass environment i know how contentious that is how

081controversial it is and understand all of that i'm ready to be without masks at any point in time here too but we are under an executive order from the governor of the state of indiana and that executive order was renewed again for the month of february and is set to expire i think on march 4th that executive order gives the department of health the authority to set the close contact requirements for the state of indiana and those close contact requirements we've been consistent in following those and it is very simple in terms of if you have a mask environment you're allowed to do this with quarantines if you do not have a mask environment you have to quarantine and the number is still five days now i will have people say to me well this

082school over here is not quarantining and they have mass optional i can't control what another school does and if they're choosing not to follow the governor's executive order or the department of health requirements that are part of the executive order that's not something that control we will not do that we will not do one thing if we're going to go mass optional we would follow what is also prescribed as per the guidelines requirements from the department of health so that that's where we are i think in particular i just wanted to make sure you understood that by making that move just recently because it actually started i think last wednesday and of course then we didn't have students in school thursday and friday and that will affect that number as well but uh we have

083the potential to get back to uh quarantine numbers that are like you know the end of october um with the positive cases we have versus what they look like in august september and all of january and make sure we have more students and staff members in the building and on the staff member piece we are turning the corner there as well i think i printed out the email from this morning but we take a look each day at our sub situation and this morning we were we had 46 total jobs that were open meaning 46 substitute teachers we needed that's been compared to 80 90 and 100 over the last few weeks and 13 or unfilled that's been compared to double that number on a routine basis so also starting to go in the right

084direction in terms of number of staff members out as we move forward into this this week well good news are there questions that individuals have just real quickly how are we handling extracurricular activities and masking so in terms of the quarantine and so forth and masking and quarantine yeah so i'll comment on all of it uh so so first of all in terms of if we have a positive case then and then there's there are close contacts at basketball practice or anywhere else that's outside the school day we would quarantine those individuals that would be considered close contact so then we would get to the description uh definition of what a closed contact is identify those individuals contact their parents quarantine so anything outside of school day in terms of the masking it it's we

085have not required our administrators to to go up into the stands and and serve as mass police during the um extracurricular activities we've asked for compliance you know and understand how challenging that can be i will i will certainly commend the elementary basketball league i was at the games on uh saturday and and um it certainly wasn't 100 but but you could tell there was an effort to be compliant with that mask environment that's not always the case as we try to try to work through that thank you welcome and then i have a question for students who change classrooms throughout the day middle school and high school how does how does that work in terms of notification so you might get a few notices i believe nick is that correct in terms of if

086if i have a i'm in eight classes at columbus east for example in my block schedule over two days based upon that exposure to a positive case hopefully it's really just one of those days right so four classes i might get four notices uh indicating the class where that positive exposure potentially occurred so with parent square really slick system for us and that i think our nurses and administrators are are uh liking it compared to maybe how they've had to try to make contact before is it they go to their building they go to their class i mentioned mrs roberts before they go to mrs robert's class click on it put the body of the text into that email or text message it's in it's going just by that those steps it's going to her

087her parents of her kids that quickly so the process has worked well from everything we've been able to gather with the pilot of that just again starting last week all right any other questions i should take this opportunity to thank the nurses and all the staff that have spent all that time making all those contacts so thank you for what you've done to take care of our students and our staff and we'll watch those numbers go down and we can thank technology for parent square so thank you for that i would just add before we get into public comments here dr said so that is we've been doing the covet 19 update i think i haven't counted the number of times but it's been since march of 2020 i guess basically or at least since

088the fall of 2020 when we actually started having positive cases in the school um we're going to start phasing out the number of slides that you've been seeing because we're reporting the numbers to the republic every week our numbers have been as public as anybody's in the state we have constantly given that information put it out make sure that people knew what we had by building by students by staff we'll continue to do that but maybe not quite as necessary to throw the numbers at you on a on a school board meeting time however i'll keep you up to date with that piece about the number of students out because i think that will be of interest and then the governor's executive order and where that is because that does certainly jumpstart the conversation about

089what are you going to do with mass if there is no governor's executive order if there is no if there are no uh requirements from the department of health it's tied to a mass requirement where does that put us uh with that conversation about mass optional so that's that would be the uh a piece to then turn and have that conversation if that if that does occur and again i believe i'm right with fighting may the march the fourth being the uh expiration of the current renewed executive order uh which would be just before our next four meetings so that might be an opportunity to have that conversation i don't mean to take this slightly it's just been disheartening how how this has consumed us for the amount of time that it has all right

090an opportunity for board commendations go ahead mr grimes yeah surprise i've got my typical handful here first one accommodation for the district's transition coordinator mary hamlin along with community partners and students recent contact that i've had with ms hamlin uh she says that the current economy has resulted in many community businesses reaching out to the transition program in bcsc and so as a consequence the pool of collaborating businesses with the transition program has grown they've added e-step and company which is all the local subways the haircuts among others and as a result more students with disabilities are now working for competitive pay in the community and then ms hamlin shared a success story of one young man who was very reluctant to work and be in school at the same time the idea of it

091was just too overwhelming to him however he started working last summer at a subway with with support with additional supports in place and happily he's still working and attending east high school and even though communication was not a strength for him he's now he's doing great and uh is now uh happy as a lark working the uh drive-through at subway and so just to conclude there for ms hamlin this is a this is her words we've found that when a student gets and maintains a part-time job while they're still in school they're more likely to become a contributing member to our community sooner than later once they graduate from school being part of a community increases one's sense of satisfaction and overall well-being i'm very excited with this new trend i hope it will continue

092so that one day our community will be accessible to all just like our schools so thanks to ms hamlin and the transition program um this might seem kind of weird but i would like to commend dr roberts on his uh january 25th testimony before the indiana senate in regards the importance of enforcing bus stop arm violations and then to dovetail off that to mention dr bozeman and offer officer quisenberry um again on all the leg work that they've done for that very important work and then the uh the positive pr that the corporation got um recently from channel channel 59 on that topic um third uh just to to commend the columbus educators association its leadership from dakota huddleson and amy london in collaboration with the school corporation who will host a third house session

093with representative lauer and senator walker to a virtual session that will be focused purely on education related questions it's slated for saturday february 19th at 10 30 and mr huddleston uh informed me that um he'll get information out soon regarding how to register and then submit questions to representative lauer and senator walker in advance to again saturday february 19th 10 30 education related third house fourth to commend dr laura hack and others throughout the corporation for chipping in [Music] when and where it was necessary in order to keep schools open and again we just saw that the trends hopefully continuing to get better so hopefully this becomes more of a non-issue as we continue on but whether it be bus drivers doubling up on their duties custodians taking on more flexible schedules teachers giving up

094their prep time to cover a colleague's classroom the list goes on and on you know all those people are i believe are to be commended for taking on extra during a time when just doing one's so-called normal or regular duties is arguably much tougher and more challenging now than in so-called regular times so thanks to all those doing extra and then lastly um this comes from parkside students uh which tva the i love to read challenge is a challenge that's been taking place oh gosh it's in its 31st year and it's a challenge designed to encourage a love of reading in in third graders and the challenge this year started with 74 schools i think we're approximately a month into the challenge and the the classroom of mrs rollins from parkside is is in the

095sweet 16 if you will and so um they have spent an average of five and a half hours reading per week per student in last week's challenge so mrs rollins says the kids are doing amazing with their reading the growth is showing in their reading comprehension abilities and it's parkside's goal to have all of the third grade classrooms at parkside to take part in this in this challenge so good luck to them as they advance to hopefully get to the final four and the final game yes i don't read awesome thank you very much are there others no no no all right we'll move now to public comments mr grow has signed in and referenced speaking about school bus cameras and given that that was a part of our public hearing it would be appropriate

096that you could comment on that that was just a little test for you guys after last week um yeah so i think um i mean i know we're trying to limit what can be said publicly um and that's an issue i've addressed over and over um i think communication is relevant to every board meeting so i'm going to start with communication and i'm going to roll into my support of the bus arm cameras so i've been pursuing what i believe to be a core issue here and that is communication i've even gotten so far as to have several of you agree with me that this is a serious problem i agree that something should be done about it but then proceed to do nothing about it unfortunately i've been using other issues such as inappropriate

097books in our school libraries to highlight this more important foundational issue beneath that demands to be addressed i'm going to continue on that pursuit tonight i've only received responses back from two of you regarding those books but more importantly not a single one of you has yet contended contended with the reasonings i've put forth and that is the real issue here not just with these books but with all of the issues parents and members of our community have been had had been i guess bringing to you since last school year and really before that i've heard tell of issues over bathroom policy that escalated for the same reason in the past but sure you have been willing to allows our three minutes and we can email you but you are not considering and addressing the

098arguments presented each of you individually the school board collectively and many members and boards across our state acting like you are responsible for the immense response we are beginning to see the results of as evidence to build this case i point you to sb 17 poor school enrollment and pursuit of legal action sb17 has passed the state senate and if it passes the house will result in removal of the school corporation's exemption from liability to the distribution of pornographic content this bill will also remove that protection from our local public library i understand mr hatton our library coordinator is very displeased with this to say the least well i am too this is not the best solution it's heavy-handed and short-sighted but it is an indefinitely better solution than continuing to allow you to let

099our students be exposed to inappropriate material while you continue to ignore us and this is the direct result of you your unwillingness to discuss and contend with arguments presented to you so no sympathy should be shown no glory given to the opponents of sp 17 until you are willing not just to listen not just to give your justification for your stance but to contend to take arguments presented and either break them down or incorporate them into your understanding and reassess for a solution i believe it was reported bcsc enrollment was just barely up year over year however the private schools are seeing unprecedented record enrollment numbers many students have been pulled from bcsc to be homeschooled or transferred because of your unwillingness to contend you have single-handedly pushed a group of people to make a

100very serious and valiant effort to start up another local private school to compete with because of your refusal to contend in the future if this continues i would expect to see legal actions pursuits have already begun questions are being asked about filing claims against security bonds and what levels that is a possibility if sp 17 passes i personally guarantee you will see a lawsuit if you continue to allow to allow our children to be exposed to inappropriate materials i really hope you take the time to reflect on the magnitude of these reactions if you haven't already laws being created underperforming enrollment very real potential of another competing school potential legal actions to name a few that stand out and all because of you and other boards like you who refused to contend none of this

101would have transpired if you wouldn't have simply if you would have just simply contended with your constituents arguments which is what i am still asking you to do to grow mr grill it is past your three minutes yeah i understand i just asked you allow me to finish uh my comments i i feel like it is important this one is really made you and then i'll let you uh decide on the on the school board are uh best cameras school bus cameras right you will not be you've gone past your time okay yeah i'll get those comments to you guys afterwards i understand i'm sorry to hear um that we can't allow the time for the public comment youtube but you you've you know our limits so please finish your sentence paragraph very unfortunate but

102i understand and i can't even uh get a response from most of you let alone for you to contend with me which is a testament to the reason why we find ourselves in this very serious position now start contending start incorporating what is left of an argument after you have contended with it into your understanding of truth and then reassess to decide if a solution is needed nobody should disagree with that it is more than reasonable and this reaction will continue to build if you don't start doing that so why aren't we contending thank you for your time and i will uh send my comments for support um for the bus cameras thank you thank you all right next on our agenda is school board member reports are there reports anyone has to share i'll

103go quick sure real quick from the school foundation just a reminder that uh the foundation's biggest fundraiser of the year is coming up sunday march 6th uh 2 o'clock at north the harlem wizards the last thing i saw there's still volunteers anybody willing volunteers for souvenir stands and ticket takers and perhaps the score table so again sunday march 6th uh 2 o'clock at north the harlem wizards and then lastly um just to mention a couple of the lightning grants alive and well through the foundation a couple of the you know they're all you know pretty cool stuff but a couple worth mentioning here i think there there's a busy bee bus driver that recently uh received a lightning grant and used it to purchase activities to keep students busy to and from school and then

104mrs steele biology teacher at csa new tech used a lightning grant to purchase a double digger incubator and a brooding pan to help her students study embryology and cell differentiation so cool stuff going on with lightning grants for sure thank you very much others i want a question for mr grimes if that's okay sure is that has that been advertised they need volunteers well no probably not to answer your question it hasn't been yeah i think so but they're volunteers that are needed yes absolutely and uh yeah volunteers yes um and uh nicole cunningham the new executive director or or angie emmett either one would be the good contact person and i'm sure they can find a spot for any any volunteer thanks great thank you anyone else all right we're down to cabinet reports

105and i'll turn to you dr roberts okay thank you uh we want to tonight give you an update on the corporation's strategic plan that many of you have had well all of you have had an opportunity to be involved with a couple of times and a few of you and maybe a few extra meetings in regards to its developments so i'll walk you through that we are not asking for the official approval or anything this evening but giving you a first read of it and then a reminder to you that our first all-day professional development day that this corporation has said many of you might remember the old half days that were part of the state's professional development plan those went away in about 2010-11 so it's been a decade or more since we've had

106that dedicated time during the regular contract day monday february 21st president's day we will have a day dedicated professional development and that day will be aligned with our strategic planning so real quick just to get into the overview uh we were informed by 19 different focus groups that we ran through to have this conversation about a strategic plan had 1789 surveys completed and submitted back to this and then we had six additional design workshops around that information so it was back in the spring that we began to seek community feedback on our strengths areas of growth and direction we developed the strategic direction based upon that mission vision beliefs and then we identified some specific initiatives programs and methods to drive that mission vision and beliefs forward signed additional stakeholder feedback on the heels of

107that and have been finalizing that strategic plan and then it says in the bottom right launch strategic plan beginning fall 2021 that's been delayed a little bit as we get to this professional development day here in the winter of 2022. so in regards to where we are we we have listed out as our vision so vision looking forward where are we going to be in five ten years as an organization that bcsc is the choice to learn work and play uh the working and uh the playing piece being uh getting into not only how students and adults interact but also trying to create our corporation and make sure that's integral to the development of this community and people choosing to learn work play live in the bartholomew county area and go to our school corporation

108our mission being to develop expert learners by partnering with our community to invest in people so very community driven approach with this work you can see the core beliefs i'll read them quickly and they will not be reading all the rest of these slides to you but we all can rise to the challenge of high expectations learning is most effective when we have choice flexibility and see relevance we thrive when our physical social and psychological needs are met our community and school district are stronger when we partner with one another we flourish because of the diversity and variability in our community and our democracy and democratic institutions are strengthened by civic minded citizens so in thinking of those core beliefs that can help us drive the work that we do we set three focus areas

109then from that information excellence and high expectations a healthy safe and welcoming environment and then pathways to success so looking then at each of those you'll notice the bridges at the top bridges are a big thing around the columbus area and obviously architecture is strong so bridges being connections and that very first one bcsc preparing expert learners through an equitable system of high quality curriculum resources and educators and the two programs that we have or two uh areas initiatives that we have here ensuring the equitable access and achievement and then attracting and retaining a diverse high quality staff and these things align very well with the work that's being done currently in the community through the equity works program that's attempting to make sure that our youth across the county whether it's the schools or

110any other situation have access to opportunity and we are obviously the school corporation trying to ensure that that's the case that all of our students regardless of their backgrounds have an opportunity to have to achieve success and have high achievement we then listed some objectives and programs and methods in there i'm not going to delve into those at this moment in time i think you have all this information in your package so you can get into that detail a little bit more um but the two areas again coming out of making sure that we're providing an equitable system high quality curriculum resources and educators ensure equitable access and achievement and attract and retain a diverse high quality staff if we look at the next one we have healthy safe and welcoming environments the bcsc provides

111safe and welcoming learning environments in which every learner has positive relationships and access to resources needed to thrive and our areas here our initiatives under this focus area meet physical social and psychological needs of students and staff who are unable to meet those needs we're going to have a hard time having them be successful and then invest in welcoming safe and inclusive facilities not too long ago dr bozeman gave you quite a bit of information about some renovations that we're looking to do and we've had quite a few school board meetings uh with a lot of information around those renovations and the costs getting the contracts settled and so forth that ties into this so for example the renovation to parkside elementary school is our opportunity to upgrade those buildings and make sure that they

112are the learning environments are meeting the needs of today and tomorrow's students and the learnings we'll get from the renovations of parks elementary can then be replicated in our other elementary schools over the next five to ten years as we have that rolling off we take advantage of that opportunity renovate building out of time the next building i believe that we chief electric park site is schmidt is that correct dr bozeman parkside followed by schmidt in terms of of the work there uh with renovations the last area that we have is that those pathways to success and bcsc provides equitable access to flexible student-centered options for success and in doing that we're trying to increase opportunities for participation in existing pathways they're also trying to utilize partnerships to establish additional pathways so this focus area

113very much focused on what we see as a strength in our organization we have a lot of unique pathways available to students but we need to evaluate those and make you make sure that they are are meeting the purpose for which they were first to introduce and then evaluate those in terms of are they truly available to all kids do we have equitable access to those different opportunities for the students for our students in our school system and then besides the ones that already exist what new opportunities can we create for students that meet the needs of this community it goes back to that community relationship community involvement partnering with individuals in our community entities in our community to make sure we understand those so that is a pretty quick yeah it is uh make

114sure that next page was wasn't like it was uh this was the last page uh but that's a quick overview of what we're looking at in terms of our strategic plan uh we have many initiatives that are that are aligned with that i mentioned one in terms of parkside elementary school another one that i would just highlight very quickly is the peer educator pathway program that we introduced this year it was a pilot to hire individuals make them tas put them in the classroom and give them that opportunity to to get a college education a teacher's license and he come back to work for us we had nine individuals in that program for those nine individuals were persons of color and we believe that that will be beneficial in time in our school corporation and

115we're looking forward to each of them at some point in time completing that uh their education getting that teacher's license and coming to work for us but an investment again a pilot but an investment that we are seeing dividends being reaped at this point and also getting a lot of interest from other school corporations the department of education others in the state of indiana as to how we how we did that and how we how maybe other corporations can move an initiative like that forward so um that's what we have i'll take any questions at this point and this will be something we'll bring back at the march 7th meeting for you to talk about again okay any questions at this time we're absorbing i'm going to get it the ccic just to just a

116reminder to you that the corporation has a corporation continuous improvement council we spent about three hours on this plan uh just a couple of weeks ago went through all the initiatives that we currently have active tying to different parts of that so we can bring those to you as well perhaps next time just to give some other concrete examples of what's happening but that's ccic that helps drive the plan throughout our corporation so it's helping with the development of that professional development day on february the 21st and then each building level we have cic so mr sprong has a continuous improvement council in his building his cic is working on what they're going to do with their half day because they will have a half day at each of their buildings morning is kind of

117corporation focused afternoon building focused and cic will work on what they can do to align back to the plan and make sure as a corporation we're growing growing together awesome we're going to have a long meeting on march 7th i can tell all right i didn't hear any more questions so we'll turn to our 2021 financial report let's thank you dr shed be uh relatively brief here just to summarize the results of calendar year 2021 financially on first on revenues education fund was up both compared to budget and compared to the prior year that's largely due to increases in both adm and per pupil support on the operations fund side revenues were up just a little bit compared to the prior year and that would be expected based on annual increases in assessed value but

118certainly falling short of the budget and that's entirely due to tax cap losses of about 1.7 plus million dollars each year and then on the operating referendum side we don't have a prior year to compare to but revenues were higher than budgeted uh primarily due to uh assessed value increasing more than what we expected and then also the dlgf made a small error in the amount of miscellaneous revenues that they calculated on excise taxes and so they were left out of the budgeted amount on the expenditure side salaries and benefits make up obviously the majority of all of our expenditures as a school corporation salaries are up about four and a half percent as we implemented that nine percent support staff increase starting july one and uh just around six percent uh increases in teacher

119salaries starting in the fall that would have hit us in uh the second payroll in august benefits i'm sorry one more thing on salaries there substitute teacher costs were up more than 100 compared to budget um about 700 000 higher than budget and that falls under the salary category probably an outlier that i wanted to point out to you there as demand for substitute teachers uh has exploded across the uh the state and the country the second benefits is exactly as expected just up slightly from the prior year and just about right on budget the other category there's some variation there mainly because um in 2020 we purchased technology all this the devices in 2020 on a geo bond those came back onto the regular education fund budget in 2021 and so that's the variation

120there in the uh the other category transfers to operations were uh down just a bit compared to the prior year on operations fund expenditures salaries were up about 14 and that's uh expected for two reasons obviously the nine percent increase most of the most of the salaries on operation side are support staff and so that nine percent increase hit the operations fund side heavier but also because 2021 we saw more normalized level of staffing compared to 2020 sorry 2020 as we were shut down uh for much of 2020 and just sometimes we paid folks during that time but sometimes we didn't fill a position if someone left during the course of 2020 so that's the two reasons for the increases in salaries there in 2021 benefits again about where you would expect them to be

121and then on the other category we spent more on fuel and utilities in 2021 than we would have in 2020 for obvious reasons again due to shutdowns but also in 2020 we moved bus purchases to a go bond in 2020 and they came back on to the operations fund in 2021 so that's a big variation from the prior year on the operation side operating referendum again we don't have a prior year to compare to their but teacher referendum increases were just below budget while support staff referendum pay was just over budget and this is our first year doing these and so those were estimates of course at the time we'll get more accurate as we go as we move along i do want to point out that the teacher retention salary increases any unspent dollars

122in that calendar year do carry forward and get allocated as part of the collective bargaining process next time around benefits and safety and security expenditures were just under budget again as we were we were making estimates as we built this budget for the first time um in this in this in 2021 just a summary again i've done this each of the last uh four quarters of the operating referendum expenditures i won't read that to you you have it in your packet but it does summarize well the impact of the operating referendum on our on our folks and the the services we've been able to provide to students during 2021. uh here's another slide that kind of wraps up the impact of operating referendum basically we paid almost nine percent more in salaries during 2021 because

123of the operating referendum and these are month end balances i know you can't see that very well but um there's a table at the end we'll come back to that actually summarizes generally all [Music] year end balances were up compared to the prior year the white line there is the tax anticipation warrants and so they start off in january um when we borrow those and then go down to zero at the end of the year we when we pay those back um so that's the reason for all of them dip in in december as we pay back the tax anticipation warrants at the end of the calendar year a debt service fund this is the only quarter at the end of the year i review all of the tax supported funds instead of just the

124operating operating referendum and education fund debt services fund expenditures were just as expected and the cast balance was up as we borrowed less in taxi anticipation warrants and the interest rate was incredibly incredibly low in 2021 uh what we paid on tax anticipation warrants and so cash balance was up at the end of the year a little bit in debt service of the other two debt service fund you'll be happy to know that top line there pitch in bond last payment was made in 2021 so that 312 038 that line goes away forever and then that leaves us just with the um the referendum debt fund on the high school projects and so the cash bounces down a little bit there and we'll stay at about that level um since we cycled off the pension

125bonds and paid those off this is that uh that table i mentioned that shows the january one balance revenues expenditures the surplus or deficit in that fund and then the december 31 cash balance um the cash balance is up in the education fund in or the operating fund i'm going to argue that those are increases that i would like to see stay there mainly because of the larger payrolls all of the folks around the state in my role measure their cash balance on how many payrolls you can make if you stop getting revenue today and so since we're paying larger payrolls every time i do like to see those larger cash balances and we'll point out that the education fund cash balance at 3.8 million dollars will not cover two payrolls and so that's why

126we have larger cash balances elsewhere and the rainy day fund which i apologize there's supposed to be a bottom a line below at the bottom that included the rainy day fund that started out the year right at that 4.9 million that it had been you all approved a 1.4 million dollar transfer from operations in the spring of 2021 so that brought it back to the six just under 6.3 million that had been for the almost the decade prior to that so that's the 2021 uh financial report dr shedd and happy to answer any questions you all might have so the rainy day fund would cover two payrolls three um about two and a half two and a half wow okay are there particular questions people have i guess i can't remember if it's calendar year

127or school year but could you talk a little bit in addition to the oversight that the board and the public can can provide for the funding and spending of the schools state board of accounts and what their role is and when they look at our financial statements in financial transactions is that at the end of a calendar year it's every two years is when the state board of accounts will do an audit um they are all caught up finally we did about three audits in a two-year period as they were catching up so the next one probably won't be until next year we do report every revenue and expenditure every six months to the department of education so anyone who wants to to see any of the dollars coming in are going out can go

128to the doe finance page and they can look at every report that goes line by line and that's why i don't do this until february because they have approved the last six months the july through december 21 they approved that accepted it and those reports should be available to the public probably this month sometime very good thank you you're welcome are there other questions yeah i don't know if it's dr phillips of doctor please but with the increase due to the referendum of teacher salaries where does that place us remind me in maybe our peer group are we median are we high are we low how do we compare to others in terms of what we pay our teachers it depends on where you look are you looking you're looking at starting pay or the

129median pay or average salary we do believe that we on an average salary standpoint with the referendum dollars included for teacher salaries that we will end up being in in the top 10 for sure in the state of indiana just depends on how everyone else's collective bargainings kind of shake out but we do think we know that we'll be somewhere in the neighborhood of the 60 000 average range which puts us where the state the the governor commissioned a teacher salary report uh two years ago and it was completed last year and their desire was to get to the 60 000 range and we'll be above that dr complete did you have anything else all right thank you i'm i'm just curious because we're doing this at the university and we're scratching our heads um

130you know the variety of data have these like crazy blips and so striving not to think of our trends with these funky blips in them so your sense of what year might be when you're gonna stop and like start thinking new trends am i making sense yes i think i understand what you're saying in regards to the the um the coveted years and right right disruptions that those made um yeah luckily for us we keep federal dollars separate so um the trends and expenditures really were just 2020. 2021 for the most part from our standpoint from an expenditure standpoint was a pretty normal year again with the exception of substitute teachers okay so that one pretty much goes into history now i do use two years of data when i build the budget for the

131future but i'm able to look back and kind of eliminate some of those unusual those unusual activities okay thanks other questions all right we're two requests for approval dr robert all right well i have a list for you and so we'll start into that we have the minute to the regular school board meeting from the last meeting january the 4th supplemental contracts those list of those were in your packet we have field trips and professional leaves as well and school fundraisers we have claims and payroll claims from february 7th today's date 747 957 and 21 cents the pre-run of january 1 to january 31 was a little over 4.1 million dollars additionally we have just one payroll on here the payroll from friday january the 28th that will cover the work dates of the 3rd

132through the 16th it was a normal payroll usually we have something in there that we've we've added or maybe even subtracted if there was a support staff week where they didn't have any more days or something like that that total was just over 3 million we are also asking for your approval of the 2022 additional appropriations for which you had the public hearing on tonight and then a resolution to approve a multi-multi-district litigation or kind of a joint litigation effort mdl against a jewel and that is getting quite a bit of publicity across the country i think as school corporations say you know what there's been a lot of effort to uh get our kids addicted to nicotine again only this way through these vaping devices and jewel has been the leader in that so

133across the country school corporations are signing on we have a resolution in your packet in terms of all the data that cites what's happened across the country and certainly those statistics are mirrored within our own school corporation and then and what happens with vaping keeps our administrators uh very busy and that's even down into the elementary school level in terms of what we see with with that activity um so it is something that we have considered we ran through uh all of our the cabinet members and had conversations with other key leaders in our school corporation about joining this multi-district litigation effort it is something that from a an attorney or legal standpoint we have no fees until the settlement is done and then in the settlement is by individual school corporations it's not just

134a an amount that will come across the states or countries or whatever this particular setup of the litigation is not indiana for example or the doe or all the school corporation indiana it would be bartholomew consolidated it would be carmel clay it would be south mend or fort wayne or whoever else has chosen to get involved attorneys will work on our behalf with this we'll go through a checklist of the things the impact that we have seen jewel have on our school corporation fill out that information and submit that that will help if things go the right way with us it would help determine then the settlement for bcsc then attorneys would get their share as they they should they're doing some work there's a percent gonna come out of that for for their efforts

135but otherwise uh there is no uh outward expenditure for our system to to participate in this litigation against jewel the number of school corporations in indiana uh is is approaching 40 i believe now and then we'll grow over the next couple of weeks as that effort to make sure corporations understand what is required of them and how they can participate grows but it does require a resolution for you to approve so that is in your packet and that is my list of things all right so i will entertain a motion for consideration of the items presented to us under 3 a through g so thank you mr bryant is there a second second thank you miss day hofdwyer are there particular questions any of my colleagues have these are pretty typical of us except for

136the lawsuits are there any questions individuals have about that all righty okay go ahead other than financially what else are we asking them to do it wouldn't be uh anything pat there would be a financial settlement back to the corporation then most corporations will likely use those dollars to to uh battle the the vaping situation it may be devices that detect vaping or or additional supports for our kids uh programs that that help uh individuals who get addicted to nicotine and then are using it so so most corporations are trying to understand what's happened in their corporation then if they had resources more resources available how could those they put those resources to stopping the vaping situation helping kids who become addicted okay thank you all right if there are no more questions those of

137you who approve items three a through g as they've been presented to us if you signify by saying i i any opposed all right dr roberts we've approved those unanimously thank you dr pleek human resources i request approval of the hr recommendations as presented this evening all right thank you very much may i have a motion for approval of the human resources recommendations as presented thank you miss dayhofdyer is there a second thank you dr bills any particular questions i'm not sure i was prepared for the one resignation that i retirement that i saw okay all right if there aren't any more questions those who are in favor of the human resources recommendations as presented to us if you'd signify by saying i i those opposed all right dr pleak unanimously approved okay board input

138and review i don't know why i'm this way but i'm a very clockwise person i guess so dr grimes or mr i'm sorry yeah thanks thanks dr um so yeah i neglected to mention i guess it's maybe more appropriate here than in accommodations but uh congratulations to the fodrea boys and parkside girls uh for being the elementary basketball league attorney champs on on saturday thank you to mr sprong and the other members of the richard staff for coming and sharing and again it's refreshing i i think our our last school presentation lincoln and between lincoln and richards here the real emphasis being on um you know interpersonal relationships and developing a sense of community and an emphasis on prevention rather than reaction and punitive is uh and you know the realization that those things have

139to come before real education and academics come into play that's very refreshing so thank you mr sprongs mr sprong and richards and then lastly congrats to dr de clue and her i believe 23 years of service to bcsc and uh induction into the bcsc hall of fame thank you all right thank you dr bills i just love this book so i'm gonna have to get a few just don't abscond with that one i can't like find this in my first room 20 bucks in here i just i just thought the presentation linda de clue was just wonderful and the support she had all the people here to support her and the words that were spoken about her it just moved me quite a bit tonight and he was such a valuable wonderful member of the

140community and of bcsc for a number of years i just wanted to express thanks to kathy and the committee and for um organizing that process and just for everybody who said some who's worked with miss uh the clue and who was also said some words in the video about it it was just a really nice presentation really really well done great thank you mr bryant nothing all right miss day half time i concur with mr grimes and dr bills's comments as well it was really nice to see dr the clue again and her whole family and i'm very appreciative that she did get dr van horn down here because he's done some great things too so and that's probably one thing i'm most um happy about with uh dr declude being here so awesome um

141the only thing i'll say maybe should have gone on commendations oh i i have a bus driver justin richardson so i'm gonna give him a shout out he he goes the extra mile um every day he is in constant communication with us when things go right he had to have a sub he wanted to make sure i was ready for it in case the bus was a little off on time he does with other families in our neighborhood and he doesn't have to you know so i know how i'm taxing all of these changes are on our support staff too and we talk a lot about teachers and we should but our support staff is pretty pretty remarkable too i've been really impressed impressed with him and appreciate that great thank you mr stenner thank

142you yeah the presentations were the highlights of the meeting for me as well uh the hall of fame award and the best practices of richards are really inspiring so thank you to everyone who's a part of the board meeting tonight awesome thank you the only well i have two one is so i heard community throughout everything i think dr decludes presentation and everything about her and how essential she and her entire family are as a part of this community that theme ran through the richard's presentation and then to see it again in our strategic plan and essential to our mission it just um really resonates for me as to how important and how very very special columbus is and that it and that as a community it is what is bcsc that there really can't

143be separated very much so i'm very proud of that and it's very interesting to hear it constantly and reinforced the second thing i wanted to comment was to thank you pat bryant for making us think i appreciate it very much our next board meeting is march 7th it's at 6 30. it's in the levelless lovely terrace room so with all of that did you want to add anything dr roberts i did not well i will just add back to this sometimes we don't take enough time to enjoy the pictures we have and appreciate those on there but just work of our students um so we are we do have a building project happening over in the lincoln central neighborhood area as a part of their home buyer program and our kids are putting that together

144great great work from dr hack and and the team at c4 and putting that that together that's awesome thank you for sharing that and highlighting that all right you've got our date we've done all of our work we are ready to go home i will call this meeting in turn thank you