001have we heard from nikki no okay all right good afternoon i've been given the magical signal that it is 6 30. so i welcome all of you to the school board meeting of the bartholomew consolidated school corporation this is one of our regularly scheduled meetings and i very much appreciate all of you being here so thank you we start our meetings with the pledge of allegiance and if you're able i'd ask that you rise and join us [Music] and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice all right thank you very much there are five of us in attendance giving us a quorum so i will call this meeting to order we always like to share and start with recognition of our mission and vision which you
002see here on our screen these are what guide the decision making that we'll be making this evening so just so you're aware of those guidelines as well as our high expectation objectives listed here on the screen and then also listed behind us here as a board so i love these parts of the meeting because i just love playing with the gavel um the part the first thing that we have on our agenda this evening is our three different public hearings and i am going to turn to dr phillips to help us through these so i need to gavel out of our regular meeting i'm gaveling in isn't this fun i'm gaveling into our first public hearing and just as a reminder this is our second public hearing to take any public comments on the proposed
003bond issue of 13 plus million to be doing some renovation on several of our elementary schools so i'll turn to dr phillips to offer some suggestions or summary of these bonds thanks thank you dr shedd just a reminder anytime a school corporation is going to issue bonds for a facility renovation project they're required to hold two preliminary determination meetings we held one at the last board meeting public notice of these were published in the republic on july 28th and dr bozeman provided a summary of the projects on at the i think it was july 19th board meeting those projects include a complete renovation of parkside uh hvac at schmidt elementary school and then roofs on three different buildings and solar on one of those one of those roofs total of the bond is estimated to
004be 13.58 million dollars and the net impact on the tax rate is zero as we timed the issuing of this debt with both the refinancing of existing debt and old debt as it rolls off of the books so with your permission dr shed you can take any public comments all right thank you very much so one of my uh terms is twofers so it sounds like twofers to be able to do a bond to do some important renovations in our elementary schools and at the same time not impact or increase in any way our tax rate so if there are individuals that have comments to make about this particular bond i'd be more than happy to hear them now all right mr phillips hearing none i will gavel out of the second preliminary determination public
005hearing and i will move on to our project public hearing and this is very specific to one of our pop projects so mr phillips if you summarize that one for us sure i apologize for the repetitive nature of these two public hearings there's just no getting around the legal requirements when we're issuing these bonds this is the public hearing prior to the request for approval for you to approve the actual project itself as opposed to the issuance of the bonds and so it's very repetitive but essentially this is then approving the project's scope to include the renovation of parkside uh hvac schmidt the additional roofs and solar projects at the other building so again same project different context for the public hearing all right thank you very much so again we offer the opportunity for
006anyone to share their thoughts their comments about this opportunity to improve parkside as well as our hvac and a couple of in one building i think one too and some roofs along with solar panels yes sir it will not that's that's part two of the twofer are there any other comments all right we're out of that one and we are on to the next and this is a particular hearing as to the 2021 additional appropriation this is required when we will be spending more than the budget was approved for those who view who have not sat through our meetings before we approve our budgets almost a year and a half before we actually start spending so as you can imagine that's a little difficult to outguess as well as we do with cash flow issues
007as it relates to getting our our funds from property taxes from the county so i again i will turn to mr phillips to explain this one thank you dr shed this one is is completely different this is as dr said mentioned this is whenever we're going to spend money in excess of what the approved budget was for this calendar year and thankfully this the state legislature in this last session increased state support that actually tuition support per student tuition to support starting in july so that took effect in july and so we had a significant amount of new revenue that was unexpected when the budget was passed and so we have begun expending those those dollars in a number of ways the first additional appropriation request is specific to the education fund that's 2.2 million
008dollars those those funds will pay for three items number one uh covered stipends and added days that we paid in the second semester of the 20 20 21 school year that have already been expended the nine percent support staff increase that began on july one and then anticipated teacher salary increases be the collective guarding process but we cannot wait until after november to do an additional appropriation request and we won't have time before the year is over so those are anticipated items there just on the uh the teacher salary increases the second part of the additional appropriation request is specific to the operations fund it's 363 thousand dollars and it is only for support staff increases the support staff members that fall on the operations side of the budget there you go are there particular
009comments that people would like to offer regarding this additional appropriation all right thank you mr phillips for guiding us through these our public hearings are now over and we are on to our recognitions so super exciting and here comes miss dr kuk good evening yes very exciting indeed this evening we would like to recognize our 2021 bcsc teacher of the year so at this time i'd like stacey dowd to come up and join me as i say some wonderful things about her stacy joined bcsc in 1990 as a science teacher at columbus north she has taught the content areas of chemistry biology and physical science she has been a member of several professional organizations to assist her growth as an educator and has been a part of many different committees while at columbus north there
010are a few colleagues that wrote letters of recommendation on her behalf denise fryer richardson department chair in the audience here nick williams bcsc technology director and out he is a former student and co-worker and alex wayley a former student and current c4 instructor a few of their quotes the most important reason that stacy is deserving of the teacher of the year award is the ultimate impact that she has had on her students her ability to inspire a love of science goes far beyond motivating students to actively engage in her science classroom she has literally inspired thousands of students throughout her career to pursue further experiences in advanced high school science classes science extracurricular activities and even careers in science in my 35 years of teaching i've never known anyone more deserving of recognition of her
011ability to inspire students through innovative and effective teaching strategies and her dedication to continual learning the teacher profession and the success of her students and peers another recommendation stacy is the only person i was fortunate enough to have as a teacher a co-worker in the science department and appear in educational technology well what i admire most about stacy is her drive to constantly improve as an educator some teachers have been exceptional online teachers in-person teachers hybrid teachers and leaders in educational technology for their buildings but no one in bcsc has done all of it except stacy dowd as an instructor stacey brought great energy and passion into the classroom that motivated her students and challenged us to think creatively about chemistry and its applications she demonstrated a great care not only for her appreciation for
012the subject but also the students in the course and supported students that have paced at their own learning i am now in a unique position to teach now at columbus north and have seen that her energy and passion for teaching can be seen not only by her students but also by other faculty she demonstrates an eagerness to collaborate with and foster community with teachers i see stacy as a role model for the kind of teacher that i strive to be as i grow and develop my own teaching style so this evening as we present her with the award we do have two plaques one plaque will be hung in the entrance of the admin building that has our two so far bcsc teachers of the year last year many summers this year stacy dowd so
013that would be a recognition to enter those and then she also this evening receives her own teacher of the year plaque that she gets to have and represent so this time i'm going to turn it over to stacy because she has a few words she would like to share almost a hundred years ago now a young teacher named aina was standing on the corner with some of her friends they were attending the annual indiana teachers conference while they were chatting a dashing young teacher john pulled up in his new car and even though john and aina had never met aina told her friends i'm going to marry that man aina's words were prophetic as the couple later eloped to paris illinois why do i tell this story because i believe context is crucial to understanding
014you see john and iona were my grandparents ana ty ina taught homacon art and john taught math and physics the two they had two daughters my mother and my aunt who were raised to believe that education is the foundation of one's success and that pursuing an education can be transformative to their own children they passed on a love for learning and a reverence for education even though i have always valued the educational process i i feel that i did not choose education instead it chose me i discovered that i loved being a teacher i also discovered that teaching is a lot harder to do well than i could have ever imagined and to be a good teacher i needed to keep learning new things even before i knew its name i was looking for ways
015to implement udl so i started looking for good ideas at conferences during trainings and from my peers i am so fortunate to teach in a system that promotes and explores udl so so thoroughly i feel that there is still so much to learn i would not be standing here today if i had not learned so much from the many talented faculty at north and bcsc and had had the support of my family and my school so thank you all and thank you denise for nominating me for teacher of the year lastly i need to thank my students they have taught me how to be how to better teach them a few years ago i had a student sincerely ask mrs dowd why do we have a lesson on the last day of school i tried
016to explain how important every minute of my students education was to me and i ended up by saying that i felt i was called to teach and so he asked do they call you every day and i said no these days they just text and we do have a little bit more news she deserves that applause but i would like susie bruin to come up here thank you so much i'm susie brown with the where am i with bcsf the school foundation i was just so excited i'm trying not to cry because that was a wonderful story so thank you um but be on behalf of myself angie emma our community development coordinator and our board of directors and all of our donors we want to give you this gift of 500 to thank you
017for all you've done and we are honored to live our mission of supporting bcsc teacher students and staff so thank you congratulations thank you if you would like to take that to your classroom [Laughter] thank you very much we can't thank you enough for all that you're doing for our students all right next is the opportunity for an update on our coveted plan of action dr roberts thank you dr shedd i'm assuming josh or nixon we get a chance to get a picture with stacey and that big check at some point in time okay already okay thank you just making sure that that that happened congratulations stacy very very well deserved all right i'm just going to take a few minutes just to review uh where we are with uh covet 19 unfortunately this has
018been a set agenda item since uh i believe june well march of last year i guess my first started time has gotten away from us a little bit so just updating some information from our last meeting which was two weeks ago august the 9th our color stays the same with the cdc and department of health updated they update their color designations for each county every wednesday and so we'll see what we are this coming wednesday but as of last week we're at 2.5 just north of that red one there which is jennings county north and a little west so at 2.5 is where we are which is orange the local information so the community's covet 19 task force on its website each monday and thursday presents updated information so the information from today which although
019today is the 23rd they grabbed yesterday's data to get it posted and ready to go so it does say august the 22nd new positive cases in the community 15 that was yesterday's number and then hospitalizations were 29 that is down from 35 toward the end of last week the test turnaround time is stable below one which is a good thing to have if somebody is getting a test taken or administered that is a quick turnaround and then our local or internal information we talked about this quite a bit the last time that we we know that we get recommendations and receive all kinds of information from people around and above us whether it be at the federal level the state level even the county level in terms of numbers and information but the most important
020numbers to us as an organization would be what's happening internally and so these are the cases that we currently have as as just from a perspective standpoint first quarter of 2020 2021 last school year uh through fall break we had 29 positive test cases uh since the beginning of this school year so the first 12 days we count friday august the 6th through today so these are numbers actually updated at the end of today august the 23rd we have 107 positive test cases that is 94 students and 13 staff members identified within those cases are 698 close contacts and then 426 symptomatic individuals released have missed some time from school as they have uh went through the the testing cycle or whatever the case might be an important note on the close contacts the 698
021is that those not every one of those come from our positive cases we might have a staff member or a student who is a close contact from something this weekend or some other event that was outside of school but because they are a close contact because of covet 19 they do count the data for us and so this is information that we keep track of and submit to the indiana department of health added perspective in terms of that 107 when we look at information from last year again i cited the first quarter of 29 positive test cases through fall break we went to e-learning on november 9th of last year so on friday november the 6th we made that determination and started e-learning on november 9th and remained in e-learning through winter break and then
022coming out of winter break our secondary students went hybrid and element elementary students were back in the buildings but on that date we were at 106 positive test cases and that was 70 students and 36 staff members so still a lot of information we're trying to glean from that in terms of what that is telling us but the the most obvious thing is that we have many more positive cases within the first couple of weeks the school year than we did a year ago and numbers that arrival rivalling the first three plus months of the school year so just information for you in terms of that perspective i do not have any additional recommendations in regards to the cova 19 plan itself at this point i'll take any questions that you have sure thank you
023are there questions my colleagues might have can you elaborate on closed contacts and who's who's not in class because of them yeah so it's it's um i don't have right off the top my head dr shed the number of students versus staff but those and even today that 698 is the number of close contacts out of the building for each of the days of the two weeks so that is not reflective i appreciate the question as i shape that back up that is not reflective of how many kids are out today because of close contact that is the total number of days missed i guess or or number of people within potentially dave's miss that we've had over the two weeks uh but at the close contact as a reminder of how that's identified is
024that it is uh six feet within six feet for 15 minutes or more and that's an accumulative amount so it's not um if if i spend six different minutes in your person within six feet three times that's 18 minutes that would be the then in close contact by the definition and what we're required to follow if it is if the individuals are masked is three feet so the mass do at least allow us to potentially cut in half the number of close contacts because we're operating with a three foot radius as opposed to a six foot one all right there are other questions yes mr stenner doctor said i the similarity of the numbers between the day in november last year when we closed school nine months ago went all virtual and today is kind
025of striking but i know we've learned a lot and we're managing things differently can you comment a little bit on why a year ago was appropriate to close schools and why that's not a suggestion that you're entertaining today it's a really good question mr stenner because as as time has evolved and we've tried to understand covet 19 better and how we can manage the circumstances and situation the major difference in these numbers in our decision last year's staff because if we recall when we made the decision to go to e-learning it was driven more by our inability to fully staff buses and classrooms because the number of people that we had not only because of the positive cases but also the close contacts of adults and that created a situation where we had to hit
026the pause button and then that lasted as cases continued to build an increase within the community did not allow us to come back to school easily following thanksgiving break but the staff member difference is the difference there we are having less staff members also having to quarantine important to note with a close contact and a reminder is that if there's a vaccinated versus unvaccinated quarantine situation so if vaccinated individuals are not required to quarantine if unvaccinated they are so our staff looking at number of staff members who may be close contacts may not having to be quarantined at this point in time so it is it's a staff response or answer to the difference at this point thank you excellent point thanks for the clarification anyone else i do have one thing dr roberts so
027you mentioned the three foot versus six foot in terms of uh close contacts and it's hard to say i guess but would you say it would be a safe guess that those close contacts that number would be probably well over a thousand if students and staff were unmasked yeah hard to say the percentage increase mr grimes but certainly much more than we would have because identifying people in a classroom for example within six feet versus three feet again it would sound like it's double but it's not um as as we go through that so the number would be greatly increased all right thank you very much for the update it's an opportunity now in our meeting for a public comment and if i can just as a reminder of how this all works i will
028identify the individuals as in the order in which you've signed in please make a point please share your name so that we do have that recorded and we do have people watching live stream on our meetings and we have this wonderful little timer here to my right we ask that comments be made for a limit of three minutes out of respect for everyone that would like to share their comments this evening so if you will please honor that and the last thing i'll say is if your comments have already been repeated thank you will recognize that you're here but i don't know that myself and my colleagues need to hear it the same things again so i would ask you to honor that suggestion as well all right the first person on our list is
029katie rogers so good evening my name is katie rogers these are my two youngest boys grover and dean grover is nine and in the fourth grade dean is eight and in the third grade both boys attend school at csa fadria i have an older son john who is a freshman at east today i am here to stand up for them to stand up for their future for the future of my one-year-old daughter errol who isn't yet school-aged is i am their voice i'd like to share with you lyrics from pat benatar's song hell is for children as it applies to this situation they cry in the dark so you can't see their tears they hide in the light so you can't see your fears many say that masks don't have a negative impact on our
030children's health i know you want to hear facts that these are our facts it is a fact that the people making this decision for my children do not see their fears it is a fact that the people making this decision for my children do not see their tears it is a fact that the people making this decision for my children are not there when grover comes home from school and has to lay down nauseated falling asleep for the night without dinner or a shower because he spent the day wearing a mask overheated dehydrated inhaling his own exhaust it is a fact that the people making this decision for my children don't know that dean suffers from speech challenges and has participated in speech therapy since pre-k these people don't hear dean when he looks at
031me and says i'm sorry mom people already can't understand me if i have to wear a mask at school i just shouldn't talk at all these people say that we need to protect our community and to protect our children but who is going to protect john grover dean and errol it certainly isn't all of them and at this point it isn't even you my children are being physically mentally and emotionally harmed by decisions being made that are beyond my control and without my consent pat benatar goes on to say because hell hell is for children and you know that their little lives can become such a mess when does it end what is the goal here at what point will you stop putting these children through hell they deserve to know and they deserve better
032so i ask you to remember this much like the flu and the common cold covet is here to stay it is not going away and neither am i thank you very much next on the list is robert contretes uh good evening i'm robert contrado thank you i'm sorry that's fine i'm not worried about that um i'm gonna try and limit overlap so there are some points that she made that i i'm not going to but i'm here as a concerned parent i sent you guys an email which you all probably ignored i'm still unlawfully blocked on social media from bcsc but i can't stand idly by as you abuse our children we the parents have the soul right and decision to make with our doctors what we're going to do with our children not you
033the school this is of right you the school board has desert decided to usurp originally i had prepared dozens of peer-reviewed studies about the efficacy of masks or lack thereof dating from 1962 to 2018 peer-reviewed mind you from places like medical journals cdc world health organization different different medical universities such as johns hopkins mayo clinic balboa however it occurred to me as i was reviewing what i was going to say today you guys don't care about facts you don't care about science all you care about is passing your rules to use our children as political pawns you ignored the science between the start of the school year and the two-week incubation period required to determine that the school was actually the cause for the spread of covet you ignore the science that says every covent
034test is not actually covet 19 but broad spectrum coronavirus which includes sars mers and other common colds you ignored the science that would require you to ask questions like why did new jersey and new york have the single highest numbers of transmission and deaths per 100 000 while they still have the most draconian measures you ignored the science that shows that annual illnesses increase during winter months because people choose to stay indoors instead of getting fresh air the fresh air you so choose to remove from our children's breath by requiring them to wear masks if you cared about the science you would ask why the death rate of pneumonia nationally has increased by a factor of locally from 8.1 to about 14 in bartholomew county per 100 000 people during these mass mandates you care
035so little for the science that you ignored the studies by the british journal of medicine that determines that during children's most critical learning periods that they are showing an iq drop deficit of nearly 20 points so why the mask mandate i have to assume it's it's a 100 political it raises concerns on what else you're teaching the kids are you not teaching them the scientific method you're not teaching them how to do research to read behind editorial headlines are you not teaching the kids what it what science actually is or are you teaching them to do as i say because i said it are you teaching them dangerous topics like the earth is flat or that their race or gender has anything to do with their success mr contrado could you summarize please your time
036is up i'm here to say that the evidence shows that you guys are irresponsibly imposing this mask mandate i think it's dangerous it is not for the children and i think you guys need to rescind it immediately and anyone who would vote against it should resign immediately and if not done we will file our taxes under protest and file litigation against the school board dory burton good evening i have four children in bcsc and i am playing a video for you guys to listen to is an emergency please hang on hold on are you guys able to test for the delta variant um so we [Music] um i guess there's not like a specific swap just for that like the swap that we have just [Music] are you there yes ma'am okay i had to
037ask um someone in the microbiology department because i wasn't sure um but so [Music] the state board of health does do like an experimental thing but a physician or a patient can't request that to be done it's just like it's like sporadically tested but like there's no swab that just looks for the delta okay the coven swab is the copic swab so there's no way to look for that they said okay all right well thank you so much you're welcome thank you bye-bye bye all right so with that being said your guys's whole meeting last time was about how the reason for the mask is because the delta variants so bad for these kids well there's not even a proper way to test for the delta variant so again like the other parent said just
038a few minutes before me the political theater needs to stop our kids need to breathe and we can and will file to where you guys will no longer get funding you will no longer get our taxes we make decisions for our kids not you guys you all ought to be ashamed of yourselves and you need to resign so next on the list i apologize there's not a first name n burton hi my name is nolan and i am in sixth grade at southside elementary and i'd like to say a few words although i am not a tax paying citizen yet i have yet chosen whether i'd be the choices that are made will one way or another affect me in the future i don't like the choices that have been made for me recently mass
039mandates i would prefer that the choices be left to the ones currently being mandated as children i've lived my life first for far being able to choose what i do and dealing with the reward or punishment you will you now have made a choice for me remember we are the future and what you do to us now may affect you in the future thank you thank you and again i apologize there's not a first name it's r burton good evening my name is rylan and i am currently a freshman at columbus north high i feel that my american right has been taken away by this country by choosing for me that i must protect myself the county has not mandated whether or not i must wear a condom so why try to protect me now
040most stis have a low mortality rate just as covid does so why has the county mandated this but not the other protective measures for more problematic diseases thank you william bradis fredis good evening my name is william broadus and i reside in 4151 columbus indiana and i'd like to speak tonight my concern is for what's going on in america right now in our great state of indiana more specifically what is going on in our schools and across the state you think by the governor passing the buck to the school boards that you have the authority to do what you want but you don't you are overstepping boundaries called the united states constitution the rules you have put in place regarding mass mandates and policies that you have created around cover 19 is absolutely asinine and
041a violation of our inalienable rights it simply makes no sense these rules vary from no masks to only visitors are required to wear masks and i'm speaking across the state of indiana except after hours because kova can't of course spread after hours to all masks without exception unless you are playing sports of course then there's the whole contact tracing policies that have been put in place where if a child has been tested positive by a test that the cdc says cannot distinguish between influenza and kova 19 they have to be quarantined along with any other student that was around them however neither this teacher school nurse or bus driver has to be quarantined because they are far too important and they are needed on staff this is such a double standard and if the masks
042work what are you afraid of if the vaccines work then what are you afraid of what are you afraid of anyway for a virus that has such a high recovery success rate why are you ignoring the data that the cdc published less than three months ago regarding mass and children in school this study concluded that while masking then on vaccinated teachers and improving ventilation was associated with lower levels of virus transmission in schools social distancing classroom barriers hepa filters and forcing students to mask did not result in a statistically significant benefit covet 19 possesses little to no risk to children 4.2 million children tested positive for covid and a total of .008 have died what about influenza the cdc shows that 480 kids died from influenza in the 2018-2019 season but no one required mass
043then in fact cdc stated that in 2020 only 654 children between the ages of 5 and 24 died from covet to put this in perspective out of 3 million 358 814 total deaths across the u.s only 0.019 percent of these deaths were due to covet in this age bracket this is what you're afraid of this has got to stop this is a violating our civil constitutional rights why are you selling out our rights as parents and the rights of our children for some federal funding all in the name of health care well you don't get to determine what is right for our children's health they are not your children they are our children so do the right thing rescind your vote and your determination we the people are tired of the shenanigans thank you mr
044broadus next on the list is eric grow good evening my name is eric grow we witness things just from the last school board meeting that should outrage everyone no matter their position on this divisive topic you refused around 30 of our constituents voices it's irresponsible and negligent it's bad enough in itself but then a bunch of people in scrubs were let in the doors after they were closed for others that's foul play in surprise they all spoke to present one side manipulative there are medical professionals that support other conclusions from what you had pushed that night we were given the impression you would consider our comments before you decided but consideration was impossible because you voted right after there was a lack of transparency and explanation this could have prevented at least the previous problem
045if not more i do want to make a point just to say that i do greatly appreciate mr grimes's comments on his vote regarding his vote i encourage everyone else on the board to follow his example of leadership on there you could tell that he put a lot of thought and effort into explaining himself so i greatly appreciate that i am however disturbed by the lack of representation of our community from this board a lack of effort to measure the representation and the lack of explanation of your actions and votes overall i was appalled by the explanations from the school they were repetitive canned answers that clearly trickled down from the top our school board took the advice of medical professionals and made their decision for the safety of all i heard this one a
046lot we can all agree that we all love our kids and just want what's best for them what a terrible foundational flaw in leadership of course these are all very agreeable statements but they are completely irrational explanations for your decisions as a leader they aren't even explanations they are excuses you can't you can make a terrible decision for the right reason you can simultaneously love our children and hurt them you made a decision and then pawned the responsibility off on quote medical professionals no it was your decision you stand up square your shoulders and own it it's the same political tactic our governor is in the process of utilizing defend your votes with fervor and thoughtful explanation don't just cast them quip an explanation and then sidestep we need to know somewhat intimately you know
047why you're making the the decisions you are we need to understand where you're coming from we need more transparency when you chose to sit on our school board you chose to put yourself in this leadership role you chose the pressure the importance all of it so do better but if you don't and the school board continues to make decisions from this place this place that is far from truth and transparency and we as a community stay so divided where do you think this is going to lead you can superimpose our current situation right onto the past other school districts have already taken maybe we're six months from where they are now maybe it's five years but the path is clear the case studies are there it only just so happens that this fight is manifesting
048itself on the hill of mass mandates but if we don't push back this fight will continue to move from hill to hill to hill to everyone sitting on the sidelines parents experts bcsc employees everyone thinking this isn't the hill i'm going to die on know this the real fight is happening whether you want it or not and it isn't over a hill it's much deeper and if this fight is allowed to continue it will be fought on hills like critical race theory vaccine mandates gender fluidity over sexualization and many more mr grow i have to ask you your time is up could you summarize quickly please parents in other districts thought it was just as unlikely to happen in their town as many of us here in bartholomew county do now don't wait for the
049root cause to encroach upon a hill you are willing to die on take action to stop the problem now before the stakes are too high don't wait for your back to be against the wall don't wait for this fight to knock at your door take action now get involved thank you thank you mr grow next on the list is roy west hi my name is roy west communication is a one of the most important parts of any relationship so i thought i'd just come here tonight to communicate some of my feelings and thoughts i wasn't extremely pleased with the outcome of the last meeting but more than that it was about how it happened i really feel that we as a community had a lack of representation and i think that happened in two potential
050ways right so during the last board meeting there were limits put on the number of people who could attend the meeting in person i certainly understand the limitations of this facility and you know how it could accommodate people however if that's the case then the meeting should be moved somewhere that can accommodate everyone who would want to attend additionally in the future if we're going to limit attendance i would ask that everyone be required to use the same entrance during the last meeting after admission admission from the main interest was stopped a number of individuals were allowed to enter from somewhere else i think those individuals deserve the right to be heard but not at the expense of others who have been patiently waiting in line i don't think it's too much much to ask
051that we attempt to try to treat people fairly if we continue to have rather large crowds i would suggest we have a change of venue however i know that's not always possible so if we can't do that i kindly ask that you share the school board fast pass system with everyone so we all have an equal opportunity to attend the meeting the other way that i feel that we you know weren't represented is during the last meeting the plan to implement a mask mandate it passed unanimously that seems very odd to me as this is such a contentious topic so it's it's clear that you know everyone had different options you know different sides there was a pro mask mandate and then pro parental choice if i had to guess on percentages i'd probably say
05275 pro parental choice and 25 pro mask that's debatable so let's say at the least it was 50 50. now if the public is spit on the topic you know and the board is supposed to represent the public shouldn't it also be a split vote however that wasn't the case and only one board member communicated voting per their constituents therefore if you're not voting for your constituents who are you voting for what reason are you going against the voters is is there more information that hasn't been communicated to us that would help us understand your decisions or do you think your beliefs are more important than those of the public i think it's clear by the lack of mass the first few days of school where people's thoughts on the matter are if you're uncertain
053about this just remove the mask mandate and reinstall parental choice i think the actions of family would give you all the data you need in closing i just asked the school board to do a better job of trying to represent their constituents thank you [Applause] thank you mr west next on the list is patrick edwards hello i'm patrick edwards i'm here to say things that some people have said goodnight a little bit but not enough look none of this is being done rationally nobody is thinking clear-headed here let's start with the data and by the way all i want here tonight is the truth if you want to find me after the meeting and correct me on anything i want nothing more than to be wrong no more not one more minute do i want
054to be wrong about anything if i am so please correct me i don't think you will the people who were here the past couple meetings who were nurses and doctors they were lying to you through a mission through semantics i used to teach english could i ask mr edwards you're to be speaking to the board so do you mind talking to them sure no problem no problem thank you um just seems like they're really willing to listen to us more though to be honest but the vega says 361 kids the last i checked have died from coven johns hopkins research proved that none of these kids were enrolled in school none of them none of them not one kid and it makes sense if you look at the gega you see that kids who get
055coveted and die are kids who are in hospice they're already very sick look it up yourself if you don't believe me 361 that's it compare that like he a gentleman said earlier the 2018-19 school year flu deaths 480 that not good enough for you take the average of the past five flu death years or flu years however you want to phrase it average them out they're always going to be more hospitalizations they came up here last week and lied about hospitalizations or a couple weeks ago they talked about how there's hospitalizations filling up in bartholomew county i looked that night one of them also talked about florida the florida cases were surging not that that's relevant to here but i went home and looked 18 000 people were hospitalized correct 200 something were kids when
056you dug further seven were in the icu none have died the last i checked delta actually has been less serious less deadly than the other variants it's just more contagious our culture it seems has such a difficulty accepting that a virus can kill so many older people who are more vulnerable and immunocompromised but do nothing to children practically that it seems so hard for people to accept i look today there are no kids hospitalized from bcsc schools in this county period and by the way they also got up here and talked about hospitalizations with covet of kids spare me that is so misleading being hospitalized with covid is not the same as being hospitalized because of coving a kid can go in for ankle surgery get screws put in his ankle have to recover in
057the hospital for a few days and upon admission they were tested they're considered a kid with covet finally and i'll wrap up everybody else got four minutes julie good to see you again but i am tired of i mean you work in elementary education so you know all the distractions our kids have already the blue screens the social media sometimes when they're as young as eight years old all the home distractions they have the fear we're putting them in and now what are we doing we're trying to suggest that suddenly they're in some kind of a danger when the data just doesn't it doesn't provide for that and let me finish with this does anybody really think a parent who's on the fence about sending their kid to school like let's say their kid is
058a cancer survivor or is immunocompromised are any of you as parents really going to send your kid to school once you find out oh they approved the little cloth mask that's going to keep my kids safe spare me all of you and all the doctors and nurses who are up here lying for the past two weeks the past two meetings i should say all of them they know and they cannot get up here and say otherwise they have a better chance of their kid dying in a car wreck on the way to school than from kovit they cannot dispute this they will not be able to dispute this that is a fact please can we i am asking this board i am imploring you i haven't even got into the social anxiety it causes my
059daughter he already i'm not going to get into it i'll get emotional but please reconsider that's all we can do is ask i feel like i've at least gotten it out i've expressed myself if you have any data you think i've gotten wrong let me know i want to learn but mostly i want some rationality back in these schools you guys have a job to do and you're not doing it thank you mr edwards next on the list is chandra williams hello my name is chandra williams thank you for allowing me to speak tonight i currently have four kids in bcsc i'm also a first responder on the front lines of this pandemic for the last 19 months we have all faced a very difficult situation that nobody was ready for many people have different
060opinions as we all are allowed to because we are free americans just as we all have opinions we should all have a choice if your opinion is that mask works by all means you should have that choice to mask up and mask your children if you don't think or if your opinion is that masks do not work then don't mask yourself or your children the choice should lie with those that are responsible for their children on a day-to-day basis i understand that you guys are responsible for the education of our children during the school hours but you are not responsible for the decisions i make for my children their medical bills and their overall well-being you don't have to deal with the emotional mental physical and negative social effects of our children day to day
061like us parents do my children come home daily with dirty masks and now are currently sick not with covid and have had to miss a whole week of school waiting on that negative covid test result and now are one of the numbers the health ramifications of the pathogens such as bacteria parasites and fungi in the mask are beyond concerning my four-year-old eats her mask tell me how gross that is the moisture retention reuse of cloth mask and poor filtrations increase the risk risk of infection in a recent study cloth mask which many of everybody has were 97 ineffective and surgical masks were 44 ineffective in blocking influenza-like viruses covid19 is smaller than the flu so please explain to me why is a first responder on the front lines of this pandemic we are told that
062surgical and cloth mask do not work and we are not allowed to wear them at my job but yet you're forcing our children to wear masks which leads me into our constitutional rights article 1 section 1 where you are taking our power and liberty by taking away our choice in which you said you would not do in the second dot in letter 3 that is being sent home with the kids that are refusing to wear masks which then leads to article 15 section 4 that says every person elected or appointed to any office under this constitution shall be entering before entering on the duties therefore take an oath or affirmation to support the constitution of this state and us which you are not supporting the constitution by your decision to refuse our choice so i
063ask that you re-look into and revise your mask mandate to allow choice since it's our freedom and you focus and be responsible on the education of our children which really needs the attention because many aren't aware of all the changes in curriculum being taught and us parents will focus and be responsible for the health of our children i would hate to see i'm finishing i would hate to see bcsc lose funding for all the children in this community community that is withdrawn before the middle of september because our freedom and our choice and we're being silenced thank you thank you miss williams i apologize i'm not going to do this name right is it dan mcgurk i'm dan mcgurk i reside at 1870 brookfield drive thank you for the privilege of addressing the board today
064i'm here to talk about the current policy of asking our children to wear masks while my topic has been discussed by their speakers for which i'm grateful to hear their support my points have not all been addressed i'll be brief and factual but first it is a real privilege to have been inspired to take a more active role in the administration of our school system especially as my wife and i have four young children i'm excited to come back in the future and learn more about this process my question today is why are you masking our children as we've heard the peer-reviewed science and literature shows no benefit to children wearing cloth masks to prevent the spread of covet parents should be allowed to make this choice for their children if it's appropriate for their
065medical situation many states in the u.s as well our peer countries in europe including the uk france italy switzerland the netherlands and all of scandinavia are not asking their children to wear masks to school even with more stringent adult requirements for them even the world health organization cautions against doing so and it's not in line with the cdc's more stringent recommendations on this subject our children's health and well-being is at stake masks should be removed to allow max o2 saturation and full depth breathing no rebreathing of mouth bacteria no risk of postural changes from shallow mouth breathing full adaptive learning capability by being able to communicate with the whole face no constant learning distraction by having a cloth on their face all the time and more the risk to our children is vanishingly small i
066won't go through the statistics that i've been gone through right death was a higher risk to our children than covet or flukes death of course flu was a higher risk to our children than coveted i urge the board to reconsider and then the policy of mandating children wear masks in school for coven it's not actually protecting them and kids wearing masks is not protecting the teachers as shown in science and statistical analysis so for whom is it being done thank you thank you all right and last on our list is jonathan abbott howdy everyone i'm mr abbott i'm here on behalf of myself and my family of course all the parents here instructing the bcsc employees i'm here to inform and instruct our representatives of the law and their duties and obligations to uphold the
067law as well as the roads we are also here to inform the people of our community of their constitutionally protected and secured rights and our duty as americans to properly hold our representatives accountable to the law first and foremost i'm here to obtain the lawful authority upon which the bcsc claims to have the power of that ultimately violates the rose overrides the constitutions governing the indiana republic and materially burdens the constitutional rights of the people to which bcsc serves so i would actually like that response in writing as soon as possible at your least convenience if anybody can provide that answer for me now let me explain in detail why the bcsc has the duty and obligation to share this information of what i asked because we people should have competent knowledge of the public
068policy of the state of indiana which is clearly evidenced in the indiana code i see section 51431 which declares as follows a fundamental philosophy of the american constitutional form of representative government is that government is the servant of the people and not their master this [Applause] and if you would please there are two crucial concepts to take away from that sentence first is the state local and federal governments of the constitutional united states of america which includes all of the states of the union are undoubtedly the servants of we the people so since all public officials and government employees are public servants of the people this indicates that all state local and federal governments exist only to aid in the conduct of the business of the people and this is evidenced in indiana code section
06951431 which states the general assembly finds and declares that this state and its political subdivisions which is columbus exist only to aid in the conduct of the business of the people it is the intent of this chapter that the official action of public agencies such as bcsc be conducted and taken openly in order that the people may be fully informed now a couple of the parents and individuals have expressed how there wasn't much opportunity for the parents to really speak uh and and there was maybe a incentive for others to that would correlate with that we there's not for instance as saundras talked about i have here letter three which was passed by the bcse and this was issued to students and parents concerning the coronavirus who are not wearing face coverings and it specifically
070states as indicated by the following but the bartholomew county school corporation has been given the authority to require universal masking in his school buildings and the second option as sandra pointed out the school corporation may exercise any power it has to enforce policies of the board provided that it does not violate the state or federal constitution and of course this derives from indiana code title 20 section 2634 thank you so much will you summarize please mr evan gladly um we the people do have actually the constitutional protected and secured right to not wear masks because it's also provided as a statute two of them one being in the emergency powers ic 10 1432 and it specifically states this chapter may not be construed to compel a person either on behalf of the person or the
071person's child less than 18 years of age to submit to any physical examination medical treatment or immunization if the person parent or guardian relies in good faith on spiritual means or prayer to prevent or cure disease or suffering and objects to the treatment in writing so i want to present that to you guys they do have the authority to a certain extent until it you know overrides the constitutions they that their statutes there protecting our constitutional rights that being there right there so turn it in writing you turn it into the bcsc board and writing saying that you don't want your children wear a mask because you rely on the good lord to protect you to defend you so if anybody needs that information we're here me and jessica all the time we'll be glad
072to assist wherever we can so i got more unfortunately we're limited on three minutes you are thank you very much uh which violates like you said article 131 of the republican constitution 1851. thank you so much [Laughter] i appreciate all the comments that were made i'll ask you to put your name on your list and i will ask that you must submit to the three minutes please i need your name on the list um yeah my name is jason major and i just wanted to highlight a couple of things real quick one request i would have is for the next school board meeting and i'd like for everybody else to just think about this of the approximately 1100 kids and staff that have been traced or identified as asymptomatic how many resulted in a positive
073test so the kids and the staff that are not at school for some reason were they a positive case all right and i'm not i'm not here to talk about mass or no mass i'm really again like last time talking about how to keep kids in school all right so my daughter is a sophomore at east and she is in the top i think 20 in her class which is apparent i am just extremely blessed to be able to say she's in the top 200 let alone the top 20. that just goes to speak to her good work ethic and the grace of god to give her the the brains that she's got to be there but like dean like it was mentioned earlier she's had a little bit of trouble in learning to speak
074spanish so because she is not at school with other kids last year she had a little bit of difficulty in that class she had some trouble understanding the teacher over zoom you don't get the direct interaction like you would through zoom with the teacher and the other classmates so that's why i would just ask that you know aside from the mask no mask keep the kids in school please all right keep the kids in school um if we have to go to e-learning can we instead maybe think of a e-teaching bring the kids to school and let the teachers teach from home and do zoom then possibly using some substitute teachers that that might be less worried about being in a classroom that's a potential option learning to speak socialize and live with mental issues
075like we talked about last time is a big deal for these kids especially middle school and high school that are at such an impressive impressionable age the last thing i'll say real quick is i'm a board member for three years at a local non-profit learning center and i can tell you over the course of the last year we've been part of the bartholomew county first responders for kovid and we have had uh we've got about 130 kids enrolled in school right now and uh through the last year and a half we've had zero transmissions at covid in school and these are the kids that are doing this all the time and got all this not all over because they're they're everything from memphis to school age so please take that into consideration too that again
076as it's been mentioned kids are a lot stronger than we think they are thank you thank you mr major all right again thanks everyone for their comments and sharing that with us next on our agenda are those uh are what we identify as our what and the first one has to do with our policy revisions and our first reading we always go through at least two readings of these yes so you have uh in your packets uh pages of marked up policies and hopefully you've had a chance to review those this is your opportunity to ask questions in terms of a first reading i can scan through i did not have all the slides up but it scanned through in terms of the kinds of policies that you have for example there are some bylaw
077pieces that were do were in regards to just the purpose of the the board uh that has been brought up a few times this evening um in in the check here just a second so that first uh that first one in regards to the bylaw on the policy for the board uh began to get toward your ability to accept transfer students for example and options in regards to transfer students and how you would handle those school indiana code indicates that you have to accept students of employees that you have you do not have to accept all transfer students and so gave some leeway into that ability and that's what we've done for years is we've accepted all transforms transfer students who have had interest in coming into our school corporation that's just clarifying that particular
078piece he also had some information about the employment of the superintendent employment of professional staff and employment of support staff answer revisions to those policies specifically there were some non-fatterization pieces in there as well as nepotism was cited in those policy revisions the next policy that you had was 2266 which was nondiscrimination on the basis of sex education programs or activities there are some specific definition changes at the federal level specifically the recognized definition of rape that was changed in january 2021 there was an original reference that came out in may 2020 some revisions made in that and so we were just keeping up with federal changes in that definition we also are adding policy 4425 is actually a new policy or recommending that it be added which is for nursing mothers that is a
079new policy pursuant to the provisions of federal law two that require a corporation to permit additional unpaid break time to support nursing mothers so that is a policy we did not have in place and we're asking for that approval we have a technical correction and leaves of absence there just was some wording in a sentence that were out of order and so i've corrected that made that technical correction for you we also had a revised policy or recommending for promotion placement and retention and specifically this gets into a student's iep or service plan as per state law and we are making sure that the case conference committee is involved in any retention conversations that are occurring about a student so just revising that policy to reflect that language we also have policy 6250 which is
080required adm counts for the purpose of state funding and verification of residency for membership that's bringing us up to code with last fall's memorandum from the doe about the requirements that we need to receive from families about verification of attendance or residency for their children so there are required documents that we have to have on file that is brought up to speed we have uh a lot of wording uh in regards to property inventory and accounting system for capital s assets policy 7450 and it goes back to some changes that have not been made for a long time through the u.s department of education newly updated education department general administrative regulations or edgar and just bring us up to speed with those new revisions we have a policy revised on staff use of personal communication
081devices just indicating how and when those staff that staff use should occur including in vehicles we have a revision to food services policy 8500 this is being revised to add the emphasis being sought by the usda or united states department of agriculture to make sure we are not stigmatizing students who lack the funds to pay for their meals or have unpaid meal charges so some updates to that policy you also have specific policy i mentioned cellular telephone use earlier we have additional policy in regards to the use of cell phones by bus drivers except in an emergency situation that's policy 8606 and that exhausts the policies that we have currently a number of pages about 85 i believe if my math is quickly correct that you have had those questions yes are there questions that
082my colleagues might have about any of these proposed revisions mr stenner thank you dr shedd uh can you explain for me the you talked about accepting transfer students yes i i think is something that we've been doing all along we have yes but now we're putting it in to policy yeah there were just some revisions in language based upon changes with our policy is not changing and even the way we had it written was okay to allow us to to accept the transfer students that we do because as you're indicating we basically had an open door for that as most school corporations in indiana do but there is a statutory code on who you have to accept and so we have the language is ensuring that not only do we accept the ones that we
083have to but ads then all other students that are perhaps interested in our school corporation thank you so just aligns with language from indiana code but by practice mr does not change anything that we're doing thank you for that are there other questions i'm wondering a little bit go ahead wondering a little bit about the food services revision from the usda to prohibit stigmatizing students who lack the funds to pay for their meal i'm wondering um i'm looking i've been looking through it i'm wondering um how that if you could explain that just a little bit more yeah let me pull that one back up so that was a number eight five zero five zero okay so with with the information you have in front of you as a reminder that we've um scratched out
084anything that we're removing and is in red for you and then changes or even in some cases aligning with past policy and just bringing it back as we make other changes is in green so there was some changes in the discrimination piece just making sure that wording was aligned with federal guidelines for language on discrimination and then we have the numbers that are indicated in there for example under dietary modifications we have to have information to us and attend school days within 10 school days from healthcare providers to make sure we're taking care of needs of a student from a dietary standpoint and then scrolling here without going too many pages dr biltz the next change [Music] also gets into dietary modification includes that number 10 again there is a checked area there the food
085service program shall not accommodate a student's request for specific substitutions to the standard bill pattern that's based solely on religious or lifestyle choices so there is dietary modifications medically it does not have provisions for other situations list the person this goes through any any charges or challenges to the policy the director of food services and the part that you're probably most interested in is the paragraph under mill charges the procedures will provide direction so the deposits into a student's account are not considered income to the child nutrition program until the student charges a meal to his or her account further the procedures will this is where we're including it provide direction so that students attending corporation schools who do not have funds in their account or on hand to cover the cost of their military
086time of service are treated consistently and two address feeding students with unpaid meal balances without stigmatizing them and three provide for notification of parents when a student charges the meal and four establish a plan to collect the charges made by students so the unpaid charges are not classified as bad debt at the end of the school year so the policy sets up the the what is required by us to do the administrative guidelines and the practices in the in the cafeterias and our food service department will have to reflect those four four items the additional amount that that was added there is a significant negative lunch account balance shall not be permitted a significant negative lunch account balances any balance owed in excess of fifteen dollars and so then there is working with the families
087to to try to address that if we get above those those dollar amounts so these practices the intent is for to remove the stigmatism that goes along with that's always possible with with children who are are unpaid or on on free or reduced priced lunches based upon circumstances or practices that some schools might have that there could be a stigmatizing circumstance or situation this policy is to ensure that that is not a part of how we conduct business within our food service departments okay and um i the practices i believe we have in place already uh do a nice job of minimizing that the policy is aligning with federal guidelines updates uh to ensure that that is is not the case okay and i appreciate those questions and just a reminder to to the board
088in terms of each of these policies that are brought before you either about every six months and are based upon case law uh changes to indiana code changes to federal definitions like the word rape and that one one policy as those items are updated we are provided with those updates for potential review addition of policies or revisions to policies if we see fit and each based upon each of these policies and who might be overseeing that department or circumstance then cabinet members will review those for those changes before we put them in front of you so the markups have occurred through a process that's based upon both the recommendation from neola which is the vendor we use for the service as well as then review internally thank you dr robert you're welcome thank you very
089much for the questions as well any others all right we'll have the opportunity to review them again and they'll be on our agenda of our next meeting next on the agenda is the opportunity for board commendations mr grimes go ahead i've got three here that i would like to share last saturday i had the opportunity to catch just a little bit of the east soccer game at the uh at the new soccer complex and just uh compliments on the very nice facility that that has turned out to be and i think you know even more so than the playing surface and the stands and all the niceties surrounding it the thing that stood out to me was you know it's good to see this bcsc soccer complex sign out there with both columbus north and
090columbus east on it and i think that's just a uh i don't know it just struck me at the time of a good reminder that you know north and east yeah different schools but certainly part of the same corporation and at the same time you know all part of the same community as well and i i think that's you know i don't know that just struck me as being a nice touch and then uh secondly i also had the opportunity to see c4's contribution to exhibit columbus tunnel vision anybody out there audience members here anyone who hasn't seen it i would encourage you to take a peek it's on 5th street between st peters and central it's uh you know a super neat tribute to columbus's rich architectural heritage and i i would like to
091share just a little bit from mr johnson c4's architecture teacher of just what goes on behind the scenes to make such a thing possible and he shared with me a little timeline and the people involved and so forth but this is all from mr johnson he says the project started fall of 2020 with a group of 15 to 18 c4 architecture students by winter break the design group had identified a concept for our exhibit after spring break thing about 18 construction students began the building process around 70 construction students under the guidance of both mr johnson and mr mike metz completed the foundation and installation just this past week he went on to say mr metz mike matz was essential not only in this 2021 installation but also the 2019 installation in addition a student
092from mr jeff metz's design fundamentals class assisted with the layout of the qr codes and the designing and printing of what he says was their swag in other words t-shirts students in mr dalton foley's precision precision machining as well as mr derrick gratz's welding classes also assisted with fabrication uh he wanted to give thanks to forced construction for transporting the structure to central and the tony london company who printed uh k the qr codes at no cost and so mr johnson concludes with there's no way i could begin to name all the students that have touched this project and i'm sure i've probably left out some of my colleagues there are a lot of very talented instructors and students in c4 to make projects like this one possible so again a very cool thing and
093then my last one i wanted to mention a report from mr jensen about uh ap scores in bcsc and just to share some things some a handful of highlights from mr jensen in 16 content exams taken by 15 or more students in bcsc nine of those exams had more of our students scoring a three or better than the state and global average for students earning a three or better three being kind of the predictor from the college board on college success columbus north 55 students took the exam for ap calculus bc and 14 students earned the highest possible score of five also at north six of 18 students took the physics exam earning the highest score five 10 of 32 north statistics students also scored a five and then also from mr jensen lastly here
094a clear source of pride for the district is the performance of our students on the ap computer science principles ap english language and composition ap spanish language and culture and ap statistics both high schools are achieving outstanding results in these ap courses so good job to the students and teachers in all those ap courses absolutely thank you very much for highlighting that there are other commendations all right thank you mr grimes school board member reports dr bills thank you dr shedd on august 18th we had a bcsc health trust meeting just to give you a little information on these meetings they typically have mr phillips will typically give us a financial report of the quarter on the health trust and then we had some quarter two reports from optimum rx which is part of the
095health trust and then sciho we get a report from them and we were looking at several different options with mj insurance also gives us a update and then we have a health center i know this is quarter 2 20 21 report a wellness update from kelly thompson and that's kind of the schedule we go we do every health trust meeting as we have some updates from cyclo and from different mj insurance and mr phillips gives us some financial reports what kind of claims from the insurance from poseido we usually hear about um claims reports maybe if they're higher or they're lower and then any type of other financial reports or kind of what's the what people are going into bcs maybe to the hospital for or to um the doctor kind of patterns and trends
096of what's happening over the at the health trust just for informational purposes so that was the bcsc health trust meeting last wednesday august 18th great thank you others i will share briefly um i sat in on an indiana school board association leadership roundtable on the 18th it's a very interesting conversation about school board meetings this year so far and then on friday the 20th the business advisory group met and it was noteworthy this is my first year on the business advisory but this year is the 18th year that we have had our business advisory council which says a lot about our continued effort to really work as a community to offer the best that we can in our schools dr roberts offered an update regarding the pandemic the numbers have jumped since i heard them
097on friday morning and then we also i wanted to share this because i personally was not aware we offered a shout out to united way and their student help line that that is available to really help all of our learners or students in particular need and a specific example here at the start of school was their offering of water bottles for using in you know the water those things that i use at school all the time because we had we had students coming to school without them so that was very thoughtful and appreciative dr roberts also offered an um update on a draft of the strategic plan and was very open to good questions and observations that were made by the business advisory members and i think with that about summarizes our work all right
098cabinet reports mister yeah i just have a preliminary enrollment report for you on the fall enrollment for the district generally we're still cleaning up numbers at this point in time particularly at the high school level but overall total enrollment is up over last year kindergarten enrollment is back almost to its normal range of course that first grade group was small last year as the kindergarten class it did not rebound like we we had hoped it would with those students coming back at the end of last school year this fall the class of 2028 our current fifth graders remains the smallest cohort in our corporation and i just remind you those are the children that would have been born in 2010 at the end of the great recession so a few dips on our enrollment over
099the last couple of decades and columbus virtual pathway is at about 350 students as of this morning awesome there are particular questions for mr phillips about them okay on to the how and dr roberts those items for which you're requesting approval sure so uh in your package you had information about each of these approval items so i'm requesting approval for the minutes of our last school board meeting which was on monday august the 9th two weeks ago you have a list of supplemental contracts typically we have field trips and professional leaves or school fundraisers or and school fundraisers we did not have additional ones for you this time claims and payroll typically on here we had the claims for august the 23rd so just one set of them it was about 900 thousand dollars we
100didn't have any additional pre-runs prior to that so that's all you had for claims from payroll we had the one for august the 13th that covers the work days from july 19th to july 30th this is a normal payroll it did include new teacher contracts it began on august the 13th and uh just a reminder here the pay for bus drivers and nine month staff has not yet started so as we've gotten them now underway they will get paid here coming up so that was about 2.3 million dollars in payroll this last time we also have a teacher appreciation grant policy in your packet from dr fleet that policy is a required one it has to be filed by a certain date each year we're not changing anything with our policy that is simply indicating
101that as understanding that we will probably receive teacher free appreciation grant money i believe it was budgeted if we do then how do we uh pay our teachers that so a reminder that teacher appreciation grant dollars received from the state of indiana can only go to teachers scoring either a highly effective or effective rating on their evaluation there's a 25 percent differential between highly effective and effective so just reiterating or re-upping that policy these next ones are all tied to the public hearings that you had tonight three of them three public hearings four resolutions so letter g is resolution to approve the 2000 or 2021 lease rental bond uh to adopt the preliminary determination resolution to adopt the reimbursement resolution and then to adopt the 2021 additional appropriation resolution again all tied to the public
102hearing items that we covered earlier and then we do have a revised 403 b401a plan this changes our vendor to equitable it also changes support staff match from a concrete finite dollar amount of five hundred dollars to a percentage three percent of the base primary pay this would go into effect november the first and then we have remainder remaining items for mission received bids for the hvac building control projects at clifty creek and richards and also permission received bids for hvac building control projects at mount healthy and csa fadria mr edwards i think these are first approval items mr edwards uh new position so he does have a lot of federal grants that are on the table for him and he's asking for your permission to file those applications for title one part a title
103one part d title three part a and the non-english speaking or nesb federal grant and those are uh mine that may be a long list as i've provided to you a through q ask for your approval thank you very much so if i may uh i'd entertain a motion for approval of four a through q as they were presented in our packet still moved thank you dr bills is there a second thank you mr bryant are there any questions that individuals have of dr roberts for it or mr edwards or anyone else that can help us with questions about a through q mr stenner sure i had questions on the resolutions four of them there about the construction projects and the additional appropriations what are the next steps that we're going to go through in
104those processes if we approve tonight what what are the next dominoes that fall there will be i'll have to look at the the timeline there will be more approvals not at the next meeting but at the following meeting both for for two different parts of the project you might remember that we are um also refinancing the existing debt at central middle school there's just three years left on that debt but it's it's we're allowed to refinance it now and with with uh rates where they are it's silly not to it's it's only going to save us about a hundred thousand dollars but it's certainly worth a hundred thousand dollars to go through those steps i apologize mr stenner i'm trying to find this uh okay at the september 27th meeting you'll have three resolutions in
105regards to the refunding of the central middle school bonds existing bonds and they're just approving the amendment to lease the continuing undertaking and approving re-improving the building corporation so those lease rentals we have a sub-group basically that serves as the lease rental corporation and then regarding the parkside projects three resolutions to approve there as well no public hearings but three resolutions one to officially determine a need for the projects one to approve the lease rental plans and one to approve the reformation of that building corporations because they each use their own building corporation thank you there are other questions all right i'll call the question so those who are approving who items for a through q as they've been presented to us if you'd signify by saying i i those opposed all right dr roberts
106those items have passed thank you and dr pleek your turn i request approval of the human resource recommendations as presented this evening thank you very much i'll entertain a motion for approval of those recommendations so moved thank you mr grimes is there a second thank you mr bryant any questions for dr pleek all right hearing none those who approve the re the approval those who approve the human resources recommendations as presented to us if you'd signify by saying i i those opposed all right those have passed unanimously duct to plead all right is there anything else for the good of the order individuals have comments to make i'll say smidge is that all right sure yeah for anybody that's still left out in the audience just for the i think i've lost track this is
107a third or fourth meeting in the road in a row where we've had outside uh community members speak and i would just like to say you know appreciate you coming out and spending time this evening to share your comments and concerns and not to get too philosophical but i know it was unpleasant as disagreement can be i do sincerely believe that healthy civil civil discourse is certainly a um you know a very important part of any well-functioning society and obviously we've gotten to the point where there is no shortage of what i hope continues to remain healthy in civil discourse and then also congratulations to ms dow for being the recipient of the teacher of the year and also wanted to mention i think she was a 1920 bcsc teacher of the year mindy summers
108for being selected top 25 for the indiana teacher of the year just recently and then also i'd just like to extend best wishes to north and east athletic teams as they participate um against one another um all week um cross country tennis tomorrow girls soccer wednesday boys soccer thursday football friday and saturday and look forward to the northeast football game friday night and school foundation will be there with some blue and orange cookies so feel free to partake of one of both perhaps and oh and also the sound of spirit sound and spirit of columbus the the joining of the northeast bands will make its debut performance friday evening at the uh football game as well great all right awesome thank you for that mr stenner i'd like to echo mr grimes comments about participation
109in these meetings i think we make better decisions when we hear everybody's point of view also particularly proud of all the students and staff that have been part of the exhibit columbus that opened up over the weekend it's very exciting indeed thank you dr bills sure i also appreciated the comments from everyone at the board meeting um tonight and two weeks ago i've actually gotten a lot of emails some of them to be some people being disappointed some people thanking me so you know we have we do try to represent our districts and our people and i and i wanted to just say that um some of the information you know we are not medical experts so you know we look at data i look at research but we also have to listen to um
110medical professionals and people who have seen children so um there's no really i mean all of i think people could show data obviously those of you spoke tonight and last time on one side and others can show data and research on the other side you know so i think i voted because of the high number of children you know that were came into school in the very beginning and it was a very high number you know i voted because of the medical professionals and our mission is to keep all children safe that's part of the board mission so your feelings and thoughts those of you who are disappointed with the vote a couple weeks ago are understandable and i want to let you know that i voted with my conscience and as the facts that
111i understand them and it's the same reason about a year ago i voted not to open school because i thought that the school that the rates were too high to open it was the same situation for me i vote my conscience and i vote what i think is right you know covet has been really unpredictable believe me i'm tired of wearing a mask just as much as anybody else so but we also want our children in school as stated by somebody tonight in my opinion and i i still feel even tonight that we've done that we've tried to do our best to do that so i'm you know for those of you who are who emailed me and said thank you you're welcome for those of you who emailed me and said you're disappointed i'm
112sorry but i hope this gives you a little bit more input on you know kind of why i voted the way i did a couple weeks ago and i did email some people back excuse me excuse me no excuse so thank you for speaking at the board at the meeting tonight and whether you agree with me tonight or not you're always welcome to email me and speak at a board meeting so that's my that's my input thank you mr brian all right thank you very much i do appreciate everyone that has come and your thought you've obviously put a great deal of research and thought into all of your comments we have your notes i have all my notes of things that were said we do continue to listen to all the advice that we're
113given both your opinions the advice that we're getting from our community task force from our health care community as well as the state and the and the federal government we do our very best and it truly is for your children that we are trying very hard to stay in school rather than even think about going into e-learning again so thank you all very much for being here this evening