001all right you ready yeah here we go he gave me a thumbs up so good afternoon late afternoon evening it is good to see all of you we appreciate your being a part of our conversations and our meetings um this is the regular meeting of the school board of the follow me consolidated school corporation we have not met for about a month so i've already said if i get rusty with all my protocol i apologize ahead of time we do start our meetings with reflections from individual board members i'm sorry and i have that opportunity this evening so i'll start off i thought i would take this opportunity to reflect on what we've learned from this extraordinary challenging year i had my own ideas but i conducted some google research a new term in our
002world to see what others have noted as lessons from the past year and those articles are endless i certainly could have gotten lost reading them all so i offer to you a compilation of my own thoughts with themes from articles that i have read that have been written along with the words from one of our own eighth graders a rising freshman so first we have learned to use technology more creatively theater music concerts politics meetings interactions with friends and family were different and available to us with new expansive use of technology here in bcsc we offered online instruction in new ways learn from the experiences and now have an expanded virtual pathway to offer for the coming school year flexibility and resilience are new key words for all of us our ability and a willingness
003to change to adapt to think differently now are increasingly important qualities to instill and to nurture in our children and our students more importantly in my mind we have learned the importance the value of interdependency as family members community members citizens of this country and the world it is not enough only to take care of oneself to follow guidelines selectively or as we choose we continue to deal with a highly infectious virus out of respect and care for others not just for ourselves following public health guidelines has been and continues to be important we must care for others people did rise to the occasion responding to the needs of others and reflecting the extraordinary power of giving and widening the circle of our concern the number of heroes we have relied on has been endless
004we can't thank them enough the value and importance of relationships human interactions of community be it in one's family neighborhood school or church have been made so clear each of us in some way has realized how important human caring connections are to our own well-being i will close using words from one of our eighth graders jessica kang a student of mindy summers at central middle school jessica's essay from which i've selected these words will be a part of a special podcast and published by cincinnati public radio it was submitted to the democracy and me student voices competition jessica wrote changes can happen at any time and anywhere to weather the storm you have to keep moving forward and looking toward the future staying flexible calm and working together as a group is important to overcoming
005obstacles she writes further i believe there's always a solution to a problem we are all holding on to something which is each other staying connected during the darkest moments who knows what will come next but one thing i am sure of is that every little or big change is a break in our glow stick to shine on for the future after all a glow stick needs to break to glow i believe this is all a metamorphosis for the better so thank you jessica and thank you if you are able you're welcome to join us in standing for the pledge of allegiance nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all how fun we are all here together so we certainly have a quorum i will call this meeting to order we share here on
006the screen it is also listed behind us the mission and vision of our school corporation as well as our high expectation objectives which guide all the decisions that we make during these meetings i love this one so it is um a regular now in our meeting for about a year that we get an update on our coven 19 plans um our plan of action now soon to be for 2122 at our next meeting i would guess i would guess so yes thank you dr shed i will get into the government 19 update we have been covering this topic unfortunately i guess since march of 2020 i don't know how many exactly school school board meetings that is but it's been obviously quite a few so i'll run through just a couple of pieces of information
007here as we enter the school year so first of all in regards to the 2021 school year we were able to end the school year relatively successfully giving the student the month of may allowed us to do several student oriented things that were not we were not able to do just a year ago so for example even though we ended the school year last year at around the same time it was supposed to it was in a virtual way and even done differently in in that we did not complete 180 student instructional days we were actually in the 160s and just as an fyi state statute indicates that we are supposed to have 180 student instructional days and a waiver was given for last school year so we did indeed complete 180 student instructional days
008additionally we were able to have prom that was on may 1st at northside middle school and then we also had three graduations csa new tech graduated its students on thursday may the 27th and we had columbus east and columbus north in order respectively on saturday may 29th it was a little cold on saturday morning the 29th but we got them got them through this is just always data we're keeping you up on in terms of the communities metrics and so this does come from bartholomew county they continue to keep this information and you can see that it's now been several days we've been in the green on all those measures the per capita rate down to 1.5 that's as low as it's been since the the data has been tracked by at least this as
009a community um the percent positive test rate below five at four point seven percent again a low water mark in terms of where we've been since we've been tracking this uh test turnaround time just a day and covet hospitalization is down at three it's been around that one two three number now for for a while in terms of the state the state of indiana also came out with a set of metrics and this is uh the map for the state of indiana as of last week so you can see where bartholomew county is that's the lowest score i guess you could have a zero technically but blue is the lowest color 0.5 there's where we are since monday august the 10th the first student day for this past school year we have ended the school
010year since we're not counting cases for the school year any longer 665 positive test cases that is 431 students 162 support staff members and 72 teachers in terms of the population representation of our students 431 would be 4 percent of our student population for our support staff members which equals about 1200 people uh 162 would be about 14 of our support staff members and then of our teachers which is about 800 when we had administrators to that group that's nine percent of our certified staff members during the course of the year we also had 4042 closed contacts as well as had done work i guess in terms of tracking information down on 2562 symptomatic or pending tests so probably a good time just to take a moment and thank uh kelly thompson our director of
011health services and the nurses in each of our buildings they have plenty of work to do every year and to add this quantity of stuff uh to their plate this year uh quite amazing just when you look at those numbers and so certainly appreciate the work kelly's back at the exit side appreciate the work of kelly and her team uh this year as opposed as in regard to the 21-22 school year which will be here before we know it i just dropped a quote in here from the department of health the indiana department of health has released some guidance some preliminary information but still recognizing that until june 30th the governor has an executive order in place for schools but after july 1st you as a local school board will have the responsibility for implementing
012whatever measures and restrictions are deemed necessary to address covet 19 and that it does include our buildings facilities grounds it says including transportation right here but that is a little bit interesting in that in other guidance the the department of health has transportation still cited under the centers for disease control because the cdc is indicating from a public transportation standpoint that mask for example are still required and they're including school buses under that uh information so that's they'll be interesting to see you as we get to the end of june and into july where uh the state will be at least on that particular piece um in terms of our next steps so as we look at 2122 you have another school board meeting regular one scheduled for july 19th so a little over a
013month away we will continue to review the guidance that is put in front of us with the department of health and the centers for disease control additionally as we did all year as we'll consult with dr nibalski and his team with the bartholomew county health department as well as our columbus regional health representatives we'll discuss with our columbus educators association and just work through that as we get uh ready for the school year and then we'll also solicit stakeholder feedback and i as i pass the sheet past me i know we have plenty of people here tonight to maybe comment on this topic if it's a another topic i'm not yet aware what that might be but figured we would have some responses or information input regarding cover 19 mass and those kinds of things
014so that's a part of the soliciting stakeholder feedback but also getting something out electronically so people can fill that out send us back some information and we'll have that on hand for you to help make a decision in terms of communicating publicly our initial recommendation we made publicly the week of monday july 5th so if we look at that timing uh july 4th is a sunday monday is july 5th so that week and then that following week the week of monday july 12th we would communicate publicly again as we did last year we released information once a lot of feedback made some tweaks to that recommendation release it again got some feedback made some tweaks to that brought that recommendation to the board and then continue making tweaks hopefully it won't be as complicated as
015it was a year ago based on what we what we now know uh both from the data that i just shared as well as other information we've compiled during the course of the year but that second bullet point again just outlines formally what we would see as a community and as a board in terms of recommendations and stair stepping through that to get toward the recommendation the formal recommendation for you to consider at the monday july 19th meeting i am aware that other school corporations have released some information already about how they intend to approach mass for example um and that's that's that's good that they've done that uh the guidance again is that as of july 1st is when boards would be responsible for making that decision and so we'll just follow that that
016timeline in terms of information so that is the update that i have board members i would take any entertain any questions that you might have in regards to this school year or thoughts about next school year at this point in time all right colleagues do you have any particular questions at this point in time dr roberts have you um communicated or or uh spoke with any other school districts on i'm sure everybody's in the same boat daily yeah yeah so that's that is something we as we interact with our colleagues that's a regular conversation that's a topic that's that's out there and uh the conversation about masks is the most pressing one i think and so just just a reminder in terms of the vast piece um that was an executive order from the governor
017that even though things have loosened up throughout our community throughout the state uh schools at least inside we're still required to to have mass so we've continued to follow that and we'll through june 30th and then we'll look at what is appropriate i did put in front of you just a summary of the department of health so this is available on on their website the indiana department of health but just how they've uh couched that in terms of their recommendations today but i don't think we'll get any more recommendations from the department of health for a few weeks as they have the governor's order expire and then come back to the table with any any further recommendations so that is at least from a masks quarantining social distancing those kinds of things and if if
018you recall just a few meetings ago we did change our social distancing to three feet in terms of identifying close contacts that is consistent with a new recommendation or new bus recommendations from the department of health in a classroom is to use three feet versus six feet but they're again things that that apply there vaccinated or not when it comes to quarantining or identifying somebody as a close contact so an example of the close contact if we do have a positive test case which we still have one and we identify close contacts a person who is vaccinated would not be considered a close contact the person who is not then we would have that same process that we went through in past years large number of close contacts we have you're welcome other questions dr
019roberts i'm sorry do we have summer school or any activities in the summer that we will be tracking for anything yeah sure yes so we have kids in our building today um last week two weeks ago and well through this month so as of today we'll continue to follow what we have in place already from a school corporation standpoint and we'll need to look at the month of july here uh to to see how we handle that with with students in the building um and other activities you know whether it's band or or athletics whatever the case might be thank you i know it's hard to predict the future but would you anticipate that it sounds like we're moving towards some kind of a voter decision at the july meeting would you anticipate that that's
020the last time we'll deal with this or as new information comes in are we open and able to make changes yes so i i would love mr stinner for it to be the last time we we deal with this topic it has obviously consumed a lot of people's time and and it's just a challenging situation we've made made the decisions and and moved on uh so i hope uh when you vote on the recommendation on july 19th that'll be the last time you have to make a vote on that and maybe things will remain as as they are and continue to decrease and have numbers like those and that's the case but um yeah we will see if that's the case and i wanted to check too are we down to the point now where
021we're just talking about masks or are we also talking about uh distance between students uh screens uh yeah yeah offices so right we've kind of got a whole uh set of bullet points we do and so there are certain mitigation strategies that i think we'll continue to just be better at whether it's washing hands after certain things like playing on the playground when maybe we didn't necessarily do that before um so so there'll be mitigation strategies i i can see us continuing to deploy the physical distancing piece uh is is the guidance from the department of health is three feet physical distancing if there are if there are mass six feats if there are no math so we would we would have to make some decisions whether we follow the department of health's guideline uh
022because there's a difference between just trying to practice physical distancing and then identifying people from a close contact standpoint and we saw that this year right we tried to have a certain physical distancing amount but regardless of what we were trying to do once we had a positive case we had to go back and see who was within a certain amount of feet and work through that so whether it's at least trying to maintain some spacing trying to cut down on um opportunity uh and i think what's interesting and kelly could attest to this from a other situation i gave the numbers from kova 19 what's interesting is that we had very little other things other other typical nurse visits decreased drastically and cases the flu for example were reduced to almost zero uh some
023cases but very very minimal number of cases of flu so mass or not what other things can we be doing just to keep kids us staff healthy and in the buildings more often so try to capitalize on some learnings there and and manage those thank you you're welcome great questions for clarification so thank you i think i just have to say this just as a reminder to all of us we we have a nurse in every school building that is not true in many many school corporations so i am proud that we have made that decision that we persistently find the money to do that in harder fiscal times so thank you kelly and all your colleagues it has made a world of difference for all of us all right this is the opportunity for
024public comment i do appreciate we all appreciate those who are here we have 15 individuals who have signed up there's uh one topic that seems to be a priority we respect that we want to hear them all um but there but there are more than just mask mandates listed on here so i would ask that as we proceed through this evening if you are late i literally am just going to go down the way you signed in if you've heard your comments already said we still note your name we appreciate that you're here but we ask that you share new information with us so as you heard we are able to make an informed decision in july rather than just repeat the same information so with that i'm going to go with the first person
025who's listed here it is christy stackhouse if you come up just as a reminder we have it written here but we also like it recorded your address a reminder that we're at three minutes for everyone who'll be speaking tonight so thank you for being here thank you yes you do okay my name is christy stackhouse and my address is on the record there i am so happy to be here and have this opportunity to speak and to see all of your smiling faces looking back at me wait i can't because your faces are covered a smile can change a mood and sometimes a school is the only place that a child gets to have that positive experience of a happy face as of june 10th 2021 the columbus bartholomew county covid 19 community task force
026reported a positive test rate down 4.3 percent with a two per capita positive rate yes there was time when we needed to mask up for safety because that was our only option for protection from the virus but that's no longer the case options are available if a parent is concerned that their child will be exposed to or infected with the cova 19 virus that child's parents has the right to vaccinate or mask their child for his or her own protection parents also have the option of online school according to psychology today children's emotional well-being depends in part on neurological development which comes from watching faces and recognizing emotions lack of neurological development will likely consequently lead to academic deficits thus short and long-term effects on our children's future while families make the choice on how
027to protect their children's physical health i'm asking that the board to protect the children's mental health by removing the mandatory mask mandate thank you mr next on our list is mila dempsey you said it right well good thank you um hi my name is mila dempsey i have a student attending bcsc school and i'm a former bcse student miss heine was my fifth and sixth grade teacher so we go way back not gonna tell you how many years first i want to thank dr roberts and the board for your timeless effort during this challenging period all your hard work does not go unnoticed or unappreciated however i am truly concerned about parents voices slowly being removed from the decision making within bcsc do parents have input on bcs when bcsc chooses new curriculum to ensure
028that it's free from biased and it's non-partisan do parents have a voice when bcsc is developing new policies and programs that directly affect bcsc students does bcsc have a robust system for parents to have an ongoing dialogue with school board members in my experience most school board members do not respond to emails submitted by parents with legitimate questions or concerns when members of the community and parents decide to be bold and speak up at a school board meeting why is there no interaction with the school board for the bcsc policy manual under the philosophy of the board section it states and i quote the board declares and thereby reaffirms its intent to maintain two-way communication with the citizens of the corporation and act as a truly representative representative body for citizens in all matters related
029to programs and operations end of quote i have yet to witness any outstanding examples of two-way communications between the board and the citizens of this community i also like to share my thoughts about the mass policy for the upcoming school year i am asking for a math policy that allows parents to choose the right to send their children mask or unmask a policy in favor of parents rights to determine what is best for their children for the cdc children are the least at risk of covid with a survival rate of 99 99.998 percent why then should we have such restrictive policies for our children resulting in long-lasting developmental interruptions i have seen these developmental interruptions firsthand as my bcsc student has struggled with language and social development and i believe that last year's mass policy
030was a contributing factor in conclusion i would like to see parents voices playing a larger role in decision making within bcsc and bcsc truly putting children first thank you thank you megan johnson good evening my name is megan johnson um i just wanted to i know that you all have a a copy of the guidelines in front of you but to make maybe other people that aren't aware of what those guidelines are from the indie the indiana health department what we're looking at is grades kindergarten through sixth grade i'm i'm including teachers and staff both vaccinated if you're vaccinated there's no mask to be required if you're unvaccinated [Music] you are to be wearing masks indoors at all times as well as outside in certain situations and these are our babies right these are our
031young babies i mean they're it's it's sad they're babies and then you move to uh grades seven through 12 if you're vaccinated no mask required if you're not vaccinated they're recommending masks indoors and outdoors i strongly feel that these are medical decisions that should be decided by a family member not a board member i understand there's a lot of stuff to look at a lot of stuff going on i think the only way to accommodate an entire population would be to give them the freedom to choose i i don't discriminate i believe that if if you feel like masking your kids is the right thing to do than it is for your kids uh if it's not um then by all means it's your right um i think at the point that we're at now
032i think it's safe to say that we should have the freedom to choose um i wrote all this stuff at and i'm not even saying what i had planned to say what i'm asking for uh westfield washington schools is a school that's on the northeastern side of indianapolis they just came out with an update for their schools and reading it to you what it states is that uh update for 2021-22 all uh 9 k-12 schools will go back to a full five days a week mass being optional the superintendent also adds i don't think it's the school's role to encourage or discourage covet vaccinations it's a parent's choice it is it's a medical decision right i hope that we can we can follow this this school i think it i think it would accommodate everyone
033um you know the one thing that i've noticed uh with these babies our kids are babies is that a high level of fear the anxiety the depression and the language barrier that they're suffering uh i dropped my my grandbaby off to her first day of school this year she goes to first christian and you know i i couldn't help but to think about all the scary things going on in her mind and with without being able to communicate with her teacher left me really sad i figured we'd get through the rest of the year and make make decisions based on what we decide here together um the vaccine mandates i've noticed that there's there seems to be a lot of uh a lot of push for those vaccines and and and it's i work in
034the medical field so in some ways i get it and others i don't i was contacted by the health department a letter was sent to my daughter my 16 year old minor daughter addressed to her not to me not to her parents but to my minor daughter and telling her how safe and effective the vaccine was my daughter has had seizures from vaccinations she's she's exempt but i guess i was sad to uh that i that i couldn't figure out why a minor child was getting male there was no there was no warning on there about myocarditis any side effect any anything that i would want my daughter to know that i would teach her myself uh just a letter to my minor daughter that it was safe that she should get it and i
035and i think about the clinics that were in the high schools you know there was a survey that came out to ask us how he felt about them being there uh two days later it was gone it disappeared it was completely gone i'm not sure anyone i think i think i think there was a plan to move it into the high school whether we felt like it was the right thing to do or not but my thing with that is with the pharmacies and and walmart and the doctors and every place that is offering this vaccination right now there's a place to get it i don't feel that it belongs in the school um i'm also a graduate of north my my my parents uh both graduated my son graduated went on to graduate from
036iu and i am in a position right now where i'm trying to decide what's best for my daughter i i've told her she's working now she just turned 16. she had she has one she had one thing to do this summer that was to find a job and to find a job where she could be free-faced okay she found one i'm anxiously awaiting what we can all decide together here you know if if vaccines and mass cannot be a personal choice if we cannot decide as parents what's best for our children we are we will just consider moving to private school or home school um a lot of people feel that way i mean a lot of people are over it but i mean we're looking at statistics now and statistics are saying that uh
037that uh you know masks really haven't haven't worked they're not they're not doing what they thought they would so um miss johnson i don't mean to be rude but could you summarize what you need to say we have a dozen other people from whom to speak okay i also want to encourage parents to look into the bcsc website at bcscschools.org i want you to get familiar with a new curriculum that's being introduced in the upcoming school year and decide whether you think it's best for your children i believe we need to come together as a whole body and do what's best for all of our children which is keep medical decisions in the home and eliminate mass check into that for me and i appreciate the time thank you very much kelly whaler hi hi
038there kelly wheeler my address is on the sign in sheet or you can google it um thank you school board members thank you for representing the community its citizens and students you are the community's voice and we have elected you as a governing body to hear our voice and speak upon our behalf but we as caregivers and parents are also our children's voice we are their biggest advocate and they are our responsibility i advocate for my son 24 7 he has special needs he's 10 he has down syndrome nobody is more aware of what it takes than a parent with a child that has special needs our children's health safety and education is ultimately our responsibility and you are our means by which to communicate their needs to the schools seven hours a day five
039days a week 180 days a year governor holcomb's last emergency order declared that decisions on mass for the upcoming year would be left to the school boards i need to know who is going to make the decision for the upcoming year whose input will the school school board take into account will the science documenting the necessity necessity and safety of masking children along with the other covid guidelines be provided to parents and caregivers and let me just state for the record i did not make my son wear a mask all of the school year i refused it's my choice he's my child he does what i say not a school board not a task force my husband and i chose that for him he didn't get coved we didn't get coveted we're covid free all
040of us everybody in my family that wore a mask religiously all got coveted so there you go i do not feel the um the correct answer to any of the questions is we are just following orders our children deserve better than that they just do as megan stated center grove and westfield have already announced that mask wearing will be up to the individual a choice given to the parents and caregivers of these children nationwide parents and caregivers have been voicing their concerns over the beginning of another school year with mass mandates for children bcsc students especially k-6 deserve to have their parents and caregivers make their health choices for them nobody else nobody made health decisions for your kids when they were in the third grade a faceless task force or teachers union should not
041be making health decisions for my child that again is my job please do not relinquish or fail to exercise the authority that has been assigned through statute to be the representative body for citizens and all matters related to programs and operations do not default this important decision to an appointed committee or doctor please represent us the citizens the community and put our children first now i will say taking temperatures has been a blessing too many parents send their kids to school sick my child's in the doctor's office every eight to 12 weeks because too many kids are at school sick he has a compromised immune system so am i crazy for sending him to school without a mask i don't think so it's the chance i'm willing to take i'm his mom now everybody else
042that sends their kids to school sick guess what everybody suddenly cares about everybody's health and it's all of our duties to worry about everybody else well it is that people don't they just don't we all know we've all sent a kid to school a little sniffly maybe a fever of 99 and all of a sudden everybody cares it's my responsibility to make sure everybody feels safe and protected and it's really not my job is to make sure my son and his needs are being met that's all i got thanks thank you sarah huff my name is sarah huff my address is on the sign in sheet there i'm here because i am the mother of three wonderful little boys who go to bcsc i reiterate what parents have said i am responsible for my children
043they are my responsibility their health their safety their education and their emotional well-being is my responsibility but in order for me to do what i think is best for them i have to have a freedom of choice i have to have a freedom of choice to send them on a mask or not for the upcoming school year but in order for me to have that choice i believe that the school board needs to assure me that you have all the pertinent information before you make that decision so with that i want to talk about the sr3 grant and what conditions come with that funding i know there's an agenda item tonight to vote on this grant for 13.8 million dollars over the next three years which equates to about four hundred dollars per student per
044year so the elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund is designed to tackle learning loss and achieve operational efficiencies but it comes with conditions according to the sr-3 overview presentation found on the indiana department of education's website local educational agencies must include how it meets cdc guidance to the extent practicable regarding the following universal and correct mask wearing physical distancing and contact tracing along with other qualifications so the cdc and the idh have both put out other guidelines and somebody's already spoke about that the vaccination flow what that will do is it will create a segregated environment in our schools and your vaccination status will be apparent to everybody else if you're wearing a mask or if you're not and our children under 12 have no option none they'll be required until the vaccine is
045released for them if it's safe enough so i think it's i think it's ironic that we're seeking funding to close a learning gap that was caused by health policies that we will continue to be subject to if we accept the sr3 grant funding policies those policies have been proven and multiple studies to be ineffective for stopping or slowing the spread of covet 19. so i understand that the department of education held a meeting on friday june 4th to start communicating the requirements of the sr3 school grants to the school so i need to know for full transparency did bcse participate was the board present for that meeting does the board fully understand the implications of bcse accepting the sr3 grant and how it might restrict your ability to make decisions regarding in-person learning for the
046next three years will all of that be explained in today's presentation on the grant which is up for approval i do believe i so i am asking you to delay voting or approval proving anything on that grant until after the school board makes their decision and they can take all the information into account so school board after july 1st whatever we've heard it's your responsibility for implementing measures and restrictions deemed necessary and prudent with regards to in-person learning so is per student worth giving up that responsibility of the decision to do what's best for our students for the next three years so i just asked that you would give families the freedom to choose what is best for their children by making an informed decision and if all of that's really hard to remember just
047remember don't get in a pickle for a couple of nickels so for clarification i can't decide if this person crossed their name out or not jessica manuel okay thank you um tracy west board thank you for letting me speak today my name is tracy like you said um i have three sons two of which attend a bcsc school and i will say that we love our school we love our school so much the teachers are amazing if it wasn't for excuse me getting emotional if it wasn't for all the extra effort that the teachers had put into this school year we would not be here we would not be part of the bcsc program um with that being said there are two things i want to talk about tonight the first being that i am
048here for parent choice i think it's i think it's very important that the parents have a choice in what goes on in the school we are the parents and that is the first thing when it comes to the mask i think we should be able to decide the second reason i'm here is for my son um he right now is playing uh in a semi-final baseball game that's why i'm wearing this shirt he is obsessed with baseball he loves baseball he wants to do everything baseball play every night practice play video games watch it on tv you get the point he loves baseball so i talked to him and was letting him know i have a hard decision to make um i can come to the bcsc board and tell them you know i want
049to have a choice you know to whether or not mask my child i he and he understands that he gets it or i can come to your game which will probably be your last game of the year and he said mom i want you to go to that school board and look them look in the night and tell them i don't want to wear a mask next year i don't want to do it and i said you're right you're right i'm going to go to the board and i'm going to tell them that you don't want to wear a mask i am up here sorry about this i am up here for all the parents who are too scared to get up here as you can tell i am a little bit i'm up here
050for the students who can't speak out they can't they can't come up here and do this i'm here for the rights of the parents so they should be able to decide what is best for their families and each family is different we all know that i'm here because i want to make mass optional going forward thank you thank you ian mcgiffin did i do that right that's great awesome hello um my name is ian mcgiffin from hartsville area i've been here working for cummins since 2009. i'm speaking as a father of three children a daughter age four whose birthday is actually today yet my wife and i are here also two boys ages six and nine that attend rock creek elementary and is an uncle of three nephews and four nieces who are also in
051the bartholomew county school district um a little bit of educational background is i'm a mechanical engineer so the science and statistics of the pandemic are something that interests me and something that i've studied fairly extensively both the lab studies for mask materials for example as well as real world studies on whether masks work for past studies like the flu and that sort of thing in a real world setting where you have lots and lots of noise factors that are not controlled um so i'll just get to the chase and give you my conclusion is that masks do not work as controlling an airborne virus we're not talking it's it's not a bacteria particle that's 10 times larger than a virus we are talking about a virus here and so the filter media does matter and
052therefore the cloth masks that most of our children are wearing are as effectively equivalent to trying to catch mosquitoes with a fence a chain-link fence the cdc states that viruses such as the flu or they finally came around on covet 19 are primarily transmitted via airborne transmission these are also called aerosol droplets and basically are water particles that are so small that they stay in the air for hours and are inhaled and then infect said person so like i said whether you're a mechanic or a teacher we all know that we have to have the right tool for the job right and cloth masks especially are not the right tool for the job if you want the numbers looking at lab studies of filter efficiencies for various mass materials that don't even consider the leak
053large leak paths around the top of your mask that you are you can put your finger in probably the mask that you're wearing if not considering that passing all the air through the filter media cloth masks filter less than 10 of particles three times larger than a virus particle a virus particle is roughly 0.1 microns and the smallest that they measure mass materials at from a filter media standpoint are 0.3 microns and a cloth mask will catch less than 10 of those particles so what you might say well what's the downside of wearing a mask it can't hurt right well actually it can prolong mask wearing my biggest concern is bacterial growth inside the mask my youngest son six-year-old kindergarten would come home with a wet mask because he would lick it and stick it
054in his mouth and chew holes through it literally and so what is that doing that's that is a warm moist environment perfect for bacterial growth what about and how often are these masks being washed my wife does a great job wash them every day right but are all kids subjected to that i would say not um some of the side effects that studies have done on masks are irritability headache difficulty concentrating reluctance to go to school impaired learning drowsiness fatigue that was from a university in germany another one of my bigger concerns that have already been mentioned is verbal and non-verbal communication we're impeding the learning of those skills early in there in a child's development and then now that the indiana mask mandate has been removed for a couple months now you have kids
055out family get-togethers playing with other children going to church services where masks are no longer mandated going to restaurants maybe shopping so what message are we sending to our children if they're doing all those things outside of school and we send them to school and tell them hey you have to wear a mask are they are they going to think that school is no longer a safe place especially kindergarteners right who are already scared and now you tell them go to school and when you go to school you have to wear a mask even though you don't do it any other time so i guess the other question i tried to answer is who are we trying to protect coven 19 prevent presents a very low risk to our children the survival rate is 99.97
056of children that have been infected that live through that infection children 5 to 14 years old per a study from the timeline of march to july of looked at the death rate between covet and the flu and children in this five to 14 year old age group were three and a half times more likely to die from the flu think about that march to july time frame that was a peak time in the pandemic and that's not even a peak time for the flu virus so let's say that we're afraid of kids spreading it to adults at school so maybe there's been some rumors that bc is considering uh mandating mass based on the percent of residents vaccinated which as of june 13th in bartholomew county was 47 so my thought to that is the
057adults who want to be vaccinated have had ample time or we still have two months until school starts so they have ample time to become vaccinated if that is something that they're worried about we shouldn't be penalizing our students to basically try to meet metrics of percent vaccinated in bartholomew county metrics aren't important what's important is our children let's say we would go down that path though and that you would say well we're going to mandate masks until we get to x percentage vaccinated well what is that percentage and what is the science behind whatever number you would come up with the answer is there would be no science and maybe somebody would say well we're trying to get to a percentage for herd immunity well my question to that would be yes we have
05847 percent vaccinated but what percent do we have naturally immune because they have had the virus that would not be included in your metric that you're trying to get to to allow us to remove masks from our children so in conclusion i believe that masks are not an effective control measure against controlling the spread of an airborne virus such as coven 19 or the flu i know that it's my opinion and others may feel differently therefore all i'm requesting is that you allow the parents the freedom to choose whether our true children are required to wear a mask for the upcoming school year or not thank you misty hunter hello my name is misty hunter thank you for hearing us tonight um can i ask you to do do it a little bit closer than
059that okay can you hear me for me to say but i'm not good at it but yes so we could hear you better okay thank you i will preface this with my family and i just flew in at noon today after an all-night flight so i'm not as prepared as i'd like to with my comments so i'll just take a minute and let other parents that are but i thought my husband and i think it's important to be here because there's nothing more important to us than the well-being of our children we have four three who have been through vcsc and one who currently is still here and i think it's important that you know from her perspective what she experienced with the mass this past year it was a struggle for her she's a
060straight av student and it got to the point where every day when she came home we had advil and water in the car when we picked her up because she had daily headaches from it some of her grades dropped and i think that is in part because of the mask and the focus and the physical effects that it had on her and i think that's something you should take into consideration if you are thinking about what's best for our children in our educational environment thank you thank you amy menifee hello i'm amy minnifee i'm here today to both thank the board for the thoughtful decisions made during the 2019-2020 school year that prioritize parental choice for their child's education and to ask the board to apply the same consideration of parental choice concerning mask use
061and vaccination decisions i asked that the board only require optional mask use for all bcsc students for the upcoming school year i felt the need to speak today after seeing the recent isdh recommendations the recommendation to mass based on vaccine status is not only discriminatory but it can also be interpreted as an intimidation tactic to pressure parents to vaccinate their children these recommendations by isdh are highly questionable given that the vaccine has only recently been authorized by the fda for emergency use only in ages over 12. we also have the knowledge now that the risk of having serious illness are complications from covid and all school-aged children is extremely low what we do not have any knowledge of or data collected about is the long-term or even short-term risk of the cova 19 vaccine in
062children as parents we should not be forced coerced or pressured to give our children an untested or briefly tested experimental vaccine mask requirements based on vaccination status will create a bullying environment for the children in our schools having an optional face mask policy will allow for all to do what they feel most comfortable doing for their child our society is opening back up and mass are being born less and less and all other areas of our children's lives to enforce stricter mass policies in their schools than any other public place is not only unreasonable it is also unscientific it is time to acknowledge the facts and to change course from all the fear we had over the last year before we had the knowledge of how dangerous this disease could be for our children i
063ask you when you consider the plans for the next year that you make parent choice for their child the guideline to follow thank you thank you devon hunter i'll just be real quick first of all i want to thank the board for all the work that you guys do but uh every comment that i was going to make has been made tonight with the exception of thanking all the people for being here tonight your comments were you know extraordinary so thank you very much thank you william reed so yeah my name is william reed elizabethtown indiana i'd actually planned on two topics this evening but i don't think i need to on the first one so largely agree with everything that i've heard i'm over the fear fear is not not one of my values
064it's not american value we don't need that um so we'll get into subject too which hopefully won't take too long here raising kids well and educating them is a responsibility that comes with the job of parenthood to facilitate that education parents and parent communities work together to provide education options locally we have very successful home schools private schools and public schools personally my kids attend rock creek ian go bulldogs and i've been very happy with the collaboration that we have with the teachers in the administration there in my family we teach our children that they're accountable for their actions and their outcomes to be respectful of others especially their teachers and we expect them to create more in life than they consume late in the school year my kids came home with a sheet about
065social and emotional learning it contained a very general overview and asked them to wear green on a particular day in support of sel i had not heard of sel and was put back that my kids would be asked to support something that i wasn't aware of or knew if my wife and i would support as we educated ourselves it didn't take long to realize that sel delves into areas that are the sole property of families to decide morals and beliefs are not things to be impressed on youngsters by a government agency or non-government organization sel organizations clearly state their goals in rewriting norms right and wrong so-called equity and revising our moral beliefs further reading on scl led me to its tie into critical race theory crt is a politically motivated idea and one of
066the ugliest and most divisive concepts i've learned of it serves to propagate racism classism and division america is not a place for any of that and it should have no place in our public schools in conclusion my wife and i are opposed to sel and crt i'm very interested to hear from the board on how you plan to keep our taxpayer-funded classrooms clear of this political re-education thank you for your time thank you mr hunter or mr reed sorry sorry sorry um christian schofner good evening i'm kirsten schaffner that was a nice breath of fresh air not talking about masks pun intended but um sorry good to go back to that um one year ago my heart sank along with many others as we got the news that our children would have to be masked
067for the 2021 school year i was forced to make an uncomfortable decision just like everybody else i either can keep my kids home mask free or i send them in a mask hoping it won't last a full school year well it did i was often confused and frustrated when my kids would tell me that they were to keep masks on the entire day besides at recess this confused me since recess is where more classrooms are all together in one area breathing heavily on each other while playing games don't get me wrong i was happy that they were unmasked outside but didn't it just undo everything they just did inside while being masked at their seats i was also very upset as i saw my two kids get off the bus with sweat spots on their
068clothes bright red cheeks and were both fatigued from the heat and lack of oxygen being on a bus with no air conditioning for an hour is bad enough but then with a mask on it is unacceptable there have been private schools across the country who did not mandate masks and gave the option to the parents these schools have similar statistics as the schools who mandated masks this is great news in my opinion as of now people have had the chance to get the vaccine if they choose to therefore teachers and staff members are not being forced in a dangerous situation by working at a bcsc facility this means we should be able to feel comfortable about leaving the masks as a choice for parents if parents are not comfortable sending their kids to school with
069children not masked then they also have the choice to online school please allow the parents who love their children more than anyone else to choose what's best for them thank you thank you sharon brubaker do you mind sharing your address you did not put it on here thank you 12 30 south 850 west thank you okay hello my name is sharon brubaker and um i'm actually here on behalf of my daughter she wanted to be here tonight to make a speech but couldn't make it she and her husband both would have liked to have been here um i also though i have five grandchildren that attend bcsc school so i'm kind of speaking on their behalf as well um she sent me a message that she had a little speech prepared so i'm just gonna
070simply read what she had to say she said hello i have two children who attend schools in bcsc and i'm also an employee of bcsc based on what i have seen and heard from my fellow employees and parents i am fairly certain that the majority of bcsc students will spend their summers unmask playing playing with friends participating in sports going to family gatherings the majority of bcsc students will not get sick this summer but if they do their parents will make a decision on how to handle the sickness parents don't turn to the school board when deciding if they need to take their children to the doctor parents don't turn to the school board when deciding if a trip to the er is necessary and parents don't turn to the school board to make any
071medical decisions for their children this is no different the school board should not be dictating our children's health needs if you have provided accommodate accommodations and options for those students and families who are not comfortable sending their children back to an in-person learning a decision that these individuals made or will be making because they feel that is what is right for them it is time you provide the rest of us with options as well the options to unmask our children and allow us as parents to decide what is in the best interest and health of our children thanks thank you eric streetville hello thank you for allowing me to speak um all the comments and everything that i had prepared myself to speak about tonight i found about out about this meeting a short notice
072so i thought i had been well prepared but it has been far better articulated by these ladies and gentlemen as i'm one of the last speakers i'm i'm fortunate and able to benefit from that one thing i guess i would like to comment on is uh what i noticed in the opening remarks i believe it was dr shedd that made them as we've gone through all this with covet in the masks one thing we do tend to forget is your remarks were based upon collectivism the group how we've all come together i feel like the individual liberties and rights of the parents and or the children that we're speaking of have been lost in that i i'm not a scientist my degree is in history and i've as you go through history you see the
073very same tactics of separating people okay we're gonna we're gonna as one person put shame one group into doing what we want by marking them making them wear a mask or a star of david or a yellow armband whatever it takes i think what i'm trying to say here is that chairman mao would be very proud of how things are being done oh and also with the curriculum that this gentleman was speaking of i've had my head in the sand like a lot of parents have for a long time our eyes are starting to open on this stuff this is my first school board meeting i've got four kids in the system two of them are through it i've got two left but it will not be my last thank you amy streeville yes we're
074married and we didn't we didn't talk a lot beforehand so we have different remarks um i'm very much in support of dropping a mask mandate these are now for show they've been for show for the last two years they don't a car a year and a half they don't accomplish anything and we those who have looked at the cdc and dr fauci and those remarks realize that their stance on mask has flip-flopped thousands a hundred times and there has been no consistency and in the end they're not effective i we have four children we have one that's still at south side we love south side the teachers are fabulous and we're so excited to have andrew return for another year this past year andrew lost 20 in-person school days 20 to close contact reporting okay
075the second time he was quarantined he had apparently been in contact with a student on or a teacher one or the other on tuesday he attended school the remainder of the week he went to piano lessons he went to a class party at urban air in franklin on saturday with all those same people he went back to school on monday we got him all up and ready and then on monday morning he was sent home does anybody follow that logic now i understand that there's testing and testing takes time but we need to rethink this process we really need to rethink this process these kids are in contact with one another first of all they're not as somebody said what are we protecting them from if he was exposed to someone with kovid i i'd
076be more concerned if he was exposed to someone with the flu because kofit presents very little risk to him at all for all i know because his symptoms could have been very mild he may have already had it so we don't really know i just that is one of my concerns going forward is that we revisit this quarantine process um i am just going to quickly review um make sure that there's nothing that i wanted to say that hasn't already i did want to point out as well the other thing that um when we talk about the vaccine versus not vaccinated if we were to separate people on that basis we do know that vaccinated people are still getting coveted right do we every time you look at the news you open it up and
077says five people that were vaccinated are now positive the um the vaccine wasn't intended to eliminate people from being able to get infected it was to reduce the severity of symptoms so breaking people up according to this criteria really makes no sense at all so um just if you would keep those things in mind and the very last comment i want to make i already touched on once is the school board in general using the cdc and the indiana department of health i know we've turned to these organizations as the knowledge base for how we make decisions but i think a lot of americans and a lot of people in this community realize that they have they've been a disappointment to many throughout this pandemic have not provided clear guidance and it seems that at
078times they've had ulterior motives [Laughter] and eric and i are the same address did we give that to you no you didn't 39 39.97 jonathan ridge okay thank you very much columbus 47201 thank you school board and dr robertson thank you i appreciate it that does end the list of individuals who've signed up for comments i can i think i'll speak for my colleagues i appreciate the time that you took to be here the time and research that you did and the comments that you've shared as we have alluded to already we've got a lot of thinking to do from now until july and all of your input has been very very important and helpful to us so thank you very much for taking the time we will move on to the rest of our
079agenda thank you the next item is board commendations i think yes it is so i know mr grimes has some so we'll let him start all right okay so i have a uh i have a handful of accommodations here and i'll try to go uh fairly quickly but uh first off uh congratulations to columbus north uh student hannah franklin for earning a scholarship from the indiana commission of higher education seventy five hundred dollars a year up to a total benefit of thirty thousand she is part of the fifth class of next generation hoosier educators uh secondly um c4 continues to do just seems like all kinds of great things and was just recently presented award by the indiana governor's workforce cabinet for their excellence in business community partnerships and about 900 bcsc students um each
080year have a chance to tour local businesses to learn more about various careers in conjunction with a course that they take called preparing for college and careers next one has to do with students um just kind of out of my own curiosity on may 19th i had the opportunity to go to columbus east and witness some senior project presentations and i'll i'll just mention real quickly the three students from east whose presentations that i that i saw that were um very impressive and um i i think it's probably safe to say my kind of preconceived notions of senior projects and what all they entailed changed significantly as a result of my visit but the first one i heard tj barkheimer who is working on his private pilot's license i think tj took his first lessons
081in greenwood at the 1st of october and made his first solo flight from greenwood to terre haute by the middle of february and tj plans to go to indiana state and wants to be a cargo pilot at some point another one i heard ethan glade ethan who plans to go to the iu kelly school of business and study accounting was the online editor of east's student newspaper the oracle and came up with all kinds of creative ways during this last year to help continue raising funds to to support that publication and then lastly um shaylee derringer who plans to go to school to become a psychologist and she organized a cleaning fundraising for for the crump which yeah all very all very impressive and enlightening the last two i want to share have to do
082with teachers um csa lincoln teacher uh mrs brittany mahoney who well it's not brand new anymore but through the heritage fund was a 2021 recipient of the bill and sally henley excellence in teaching award mrs mahoney only a fourth year teacher i mean she i get the impression she does anything and everything under the sun to peak kids interests in education from you know setting up a jurassic park type atmosphere to coming dressed as a storm trooper to teach new oh math concepts all kinds of things and mrs mahoney commented that going above and beyond is simply the csa lincoln way yeah and then lastly um mrs peggy myers a special ed teacher at columbus east who just received the 2021 edna folger outstanding teacher award that goes to any bartholomew county teacher k through
08312 elementary secondary public private parochial and mrs meyers not only teaches her students run the coffee card at columbus east she founded the best buddies program at east as a unified track coach at east and then she was actually nominated by a former east student who was inspired by seeing her in action who is currently at ball state and plans to major in special ed as as you know what she witnessed um from her days at ease seeing mrs meyers in action that concludes mine awesome awesome thank you very much are there other commendations to be shared i have one thank you dr bills so congratulations to columbus north high school band it's a recipient of the indiana state school music association all music award for the 2021 school year the indiana state school music
084association may have already presented the band with a special banner to display in recognition of these outstanding achievements so congratulations to the band the musicians the music staff and everyone who is part of this great award thank you dr bill so there are others all right i'll move on to school board member reports yeah i've got two quick ones all right um on may 25th um i met with the high ability broad-based planning committee focused on a few things one the blinded identification of students for the program that began in school year 1920 um is alive and well and is is a process that the committee continues or plans to continue they talked about updating their website to include testimonials about about the program looking you know continuing to look for ways to create more
085uniform information going out to schools to create more consistency in an effort to be as transparent as possible and then lastly there was continued discussion on how to best meet the needs of high ability learners that remain in general education classrooms and then lastly on june 1st the school foundation had a strategic planning session where we looked at tonight or at the 2021 budget proposal and first quarter financial activity and started discussion um in terms of setting some strategic objectives to focus on over the next few years with a particular emphasis on ways to increase community awareness of the school foundation in an attempt to broaden and grow its revenue base for continued sustainability awesome thank you am i reading my reading eyes well enough nikki did you have a comment i'll just say from
086the redevelopment commission um you know there's so much work looking at revitalizing downtown which is really exciting i will say the garage has reopened under new leadership so you know at times like this we are dependent on each other and those businesses need your your patronage so so try to try to support them also say some may have read sarah cannon has passed away she led the redevelopment commission a great loss for our community she served in in many many ways i think there's a celebration of life this week to recognize her so please keep keep everyone in thoughts and prayers that's it thank you for that are there others we did have a diversity council meeting in may and it was also strategic planning meeting much like here's mr grimes and um trying to
087determine really kind of go back and determine the purpose the vision of the diversity council do we want to be an advisory board do we want to be an action board what do we want to do and of course we did go over the groups that are part of the diversity council such as the underrepresented teacher and family academic achievement and the different groups so our um we're going to continue to look at that look at our plan and hopefully figure out a direction that we want the diversity council to go into whether that's advisory whether that's action or something else or a little of both but um the diversity council has been around for a really long time which i wasn't really aware of around like 20 years or something so but we you
088know it's always good to re-look at purpose and mission and values and those kind of things every once in a while to figure out are we still on the right path do we need to switch do we take a different path what do we need to do so that was what our diversity council consisted of in may dr shed all right thank you so much i will just share with you um my colleagues i participated in the exit report meeting that we had this afternoon from our the audit of our state board of accounts the meeting went well you as board members will get a little more information and then that final report will be public at the end of july on the board of accounts website so we can share more information as it
089becomes more public all right cabinet reports and mr phillips you're first on the list thank you dr shedd good evening this is the semi-annual extracurricular account report this is just a school by school accounting of the beginning balance for this last semester the receipts expenditures and ending balance big picture as you would expect we continue to both receipt and spend less money in this last semester due to covid restrictions um about 50 reduction over the prior year of 50 less receipts and 50 percent less expenditures but basically the same balance then since both expenditures and receipts were offset by about 50 happy to answer any questions you might have all right do individuals have questions okay you're good to go there's a proposal or comment report on support staff pay good evening this um mr
090phillips and i will be presenting a plan for some addressing the support pay adjustments because that will go into effect july 1st and when we're looking at the support staff we're looking at any support staff members that fall on our matrix system of the different grades of employees and who will this impact it'll impact over 900 support staff employees and i do want to be clear that this does not include administrators teachers or special contract employees we will begin our formal contract uh collective bargaining with our teachers in september they'll conclude by november and at that time we'll see that outcome and then come back to you with decisions made for administrators and special contract employees following those decisions so at this time we'll turn it over and tell you why we want to address
091the support staff matrix thank you so the last time you you may remember is 2016. i'm in charge of this there we go in was the last time we addressed other than just basically small 2 percent cost of living increases for the support staff pay that was the last time we looked at the entire schedule and said looked at compared ourselves to other districts each position compared to other districts across the state this last spring we got invited to participate in a study across the entire state we submitted data as long as you submitted data you got access to the metadata from all the districts in the state that participated and there were about uh 240 or so of the 290 districts that participated so good feedback good information the information gleaned from that generally
092said we lag behind both our local districts around us and peer districts in our support staff pay hourly pay that in addition to the current labor market that we're experiencing that that you're probably read about if you're not experiencing in your own professional life um and that classified staff survey is what i just referenced uh the the that we participated in this last spring and then our opportunity the reason why the other reason we're able to do this now is thanks to the increase in per pupil support from the state during this last budgetary session that increase in state per-pupil state support hits starting july 15th so the reason why now is because we can starting july 1 because that's when our increase starts customarily we we increase support staff pay after we finish with
093the collective bargaining process with teachers association but because of the information we had in front of us the labor market and the fact that we're staffing up for this fall we decided it was prudent to do this as soon as possible get in place to start hiring folks for this this falls school session so the what what we're proposing is to change adjust the entire scale in 2016 we went after specific positions in in certain positions we're behind compared to our peers and across the state generally looking at our entire scale every position has lagged behind just a little bit and then as years go by you know that that tends to grow if you don't keep up with increases so our proposal is to increase the entire scale nine percent so every hourly support
094staff person um would see an increase of nine percent plus on july one is when they move up on experience so there's a if you're familiar with our support staff grid there are there are positions that are the rows and columns that are your years of experience so if you if you're a support staff employee who is above the scale meaning they have more than ten years of experience with us they would see just the nine percent increase not a uh an increase for experience plus nine percent um so if we implement this on july 1 future increases will be guided by the increase from collective bargaining this fall that just wouldn't happen until next july one and so we wouldn't we would do two increases within a few months of one another we would
095kind of jump start our support staff by implementing an increase here on july 1 and then using the collective bargaining average increase that would guide our decisions around the support staff increases for july 1 of 2022 and this has no impact on referendum increases remember all support staff permanent support staff have a dollar increase per hour from the referendum and bus drivers two dollars per hour increase from the referendum this is what that scale looks like that i just described before this is the current scale right now we the the lowest paid employees are on grade three and i think there's only it might be food service substitutes are the only ones that are even on that row everyone else starting below that so this is the current state um starting at basically 980 at
096the lowest end and then 24.87 at the highest end and again reminding you that there are a lot of support staff members some of our most loyal and and long-lasting employees with us are above that ten and so they would have received you know two three two and a half percent increases over the years that are beyond this scale this is the proposed new scale again it's just every line item um times 1.09 for the nine percent but it moves that uh line four to 1068 from the bottom from 980 and then the the top end goes from 2487 to 27 11. we have employees on every single cell that you see here so plus those off of it so it's a wide range of how it might affect each individual employee and dr palik
097will go over some examples here in just a moment here is the estimated cost annual cost of implementing this from a fiscal year perspective from july through june of next year the total cost about 1.8 million but um you know you're you're used to because i present and emphasize so much about the education fund and that's where the majority of our expenditures do come from but when it comes to support staff they're really funded from lots of different sources so the impact on the education fund is about 650 000 per year but the operations from the education fund again we do those transfers now it's about 360. so the total impact on the education fund is about 1 million dollars per year operations fund 340 and then food service is a big portion of that
098um at about 150 000 but she nancy milspall is one of the folks in our our administrative group who's most adamant that we need to address this to address her staffing for this fall and then other funds that includes all those grant funds and and all kinds of uh from special ed to title one to title four to um you know all the other funds that support our support staff so there's the the total cost we are able to uh accomplish this without affecting the money that's on the table for collective bargaining or sacrificing any other initiatives that we plan as a district as a matter of fact as we enter the strategic planning you know that we participating up to this point and through this summer doing this now basically says we value this
099as much so much that we're taking this and allocating it before we finish the collector or the uh the strategic planning process so we know we take care of this this issue that we know is is important for us and as always we know you're always very interested in the impact it has on individual groups and individuals chad showed you the overall support staff matrix all the line items and plus we have people beyond the matrix and with that we just want to show you the examples the stories of the impact of a few employee groups so this is an example for of three positions special education ta administrative assistant and bus driver and the impact it would be and as you'll see below the little disclaimer there and the examples based on zero years
100of experience for the 2020 21 school year and then with one year of experience going into this school year so if they came with us last year they're returning for this year what the increase will be within nine percent so um you notice special education ta 11.77 cents that is counting a one dollar referendum increase to this year with the nine percent increase 12.96 cents an hour and that still includes the one dollar referendum administrative assistant 15 and 20 cents which includes one dollar referendum pay and then it will go up to 16.79 again one dollar referendum that referendum dollar matters and then the bus driver go from 1967 they do have two dollars on the hour based on referendum pay and that'll move them up to 21.62 with a nine percent increase in the
101two dollars referendum pay so overall the impact there for special education ta for a year is over thirteen hundred dollars of income that will be coming home to them and their families administrative assistant a little over twenty seven hundred dollars and a bus driver a little over fourteen hundred dollars a year and that's all based on their days hours worked and things like that there could be some exclusions if their days and hours may be slightly different than other groups but that is a base generality of the experience so we did want to give you a brief overview of the why why we seek this is going to be important for us to be competitive in our market give our students the best people to be able to recruit and retain the best employees we're
102excited for this opportunity we're excited we have the funding to be able to support this and we believe our employees deserve it and i thank you for your time thank you are there questions that colleagues might have while we have mr phillips and dr please i do i do have a question can you go back to the matrix please and this is just me learning the classifications rules can you can you sort of give me on a population basis how many people are at the top versus middle low is it pretty even or is there some you know concentricity in one part of that matrix um there is certainly some concentricity the the um basically five to seven range is going to be the largest group and that's on teaching assistance across we have a
103wide variety of types of teaching assistants but generally they're going to be in that that five to seven range then there are probably the i said largest group and it could still be but very close to that throughout the middle is going to be administrative assistants custodians um teresa you can yell one out if i'm if i'm missing uh building technology specialists at the at the the beginning level what'd you say uh miss heine [Music] yeah so school nurses that are non-rnc lpns so they're going to be in the middle section and then they're the fewest people in the upper section and those are going to be skilled trades rns building technology folks that are in more specialized positions than the general tech hr supports right the the um the 260-day support payroll folks in
104this building that work 260 days doing financial and hr work are going to be in that bus drivers are that 16b line so that's a pretty good uh group of people as well 100 or so folks good that help yep it does it does one one more question do you guys feel like you understand how we got you know so far behind maybe what what some other districts were were at was it something in our processes or it seemed like in the original statement that maybe we fell a little bit behind in in some of our pay i couldn't tell you exactly why other than the fact that some districts around us are faster growing and so faster growing districts are going to you know basically the amount of money we we receive from the
105state is the number of kids times the formula amount and so a district that that increases in enrollment by six percent in a year is going to experience a lot of increase in revenue and be able to allocate that of course there's increased demand on staff but usually if you're big enough there's economies of scale with that that adding a few in a place doesn't necessarily add a position and so you're allowed to increase we're thankful that we are a very stable enrollment school and have been for gosh over over a decade that our growth is is slow but steady and we very rarely experience any declines or or rapid increases that we have to react to probably the reason we don't build schools often here like other districts have to westfield washington has mentioned
106often here that's a district that would be exploding with growth building schools hiring staff and competing in the indianapolis market not necessarily things that we've had to do and so a combination of those things very low growth in revenues very low growth in the number of students yeah that's that's a summary where i would say we are just kind of follow up on miss wieldon's questions um can you looking back can you identify a point in time when we started to realize i mean what initiated the study were we already having hiring issues when we started the study in 2016 it was really one of dr quick's outgoing you know he wanted to as he left he wanted to take care of as many things as he could and it was one of the things
107he said let's address any issues we have support with support staff and let me take care of that before i leave and and that was great and it reset and got us to at least where we were very competitive in most of our positions in between that time basically if you if you think about 2016 today and how the the soon after 2016 is when you started seeing some of the uh you know 350 signing bonus at taco bell and sixty thousand dollar pay here those things just started to grow in the market we didn't initiate participation in this study the the group that organized it recognized the issue for all districts in the state and said we will put this together and as long as you participate and send us your data on each
108position and what you pay them we will give you all the data back so that you can use it to evaluate where you are so it was it was not until receiving that we realized how uh we knew we had some difficulty hiring in specific positions but didn't really have the realization that we were um we were lagging in you know broadly across all position types from a support staff perspective and do you have any reason to believe we won't with these changes we won't be in good shape come to fall certainly can't guarantee anything but i did ask dr bozeman to check with his folks and and um and ms heine to say if we were to do nine percent do your hiring managers feel like it's significant enough to make a difference in
109hiring folks because if it's not let's look at it and make some changes and uh their response was we think it's it's adequate enough that it makes a significant enough difference not only to hire but to retain our folks that are saying you know what i i think one of the quotes i got is we have people leaving for a nickel i will leave this position go somewhere else for a for a nickel on the on the hour and this helps us you know compete with in the market today but you know depending on what happens with the market we could be in a better position a month from now that we are now and we could be in a worse position thank you are there other comments questions thank you all very much okay
110dr roberts we got four a through l yeah we have quite the list of uh requests for approval for you so i'll run through those you can choose how to approach them so we start with just the regular school board meeting the minutes of from may 10th so that was the one prior to this one a list of supplemental contracts provided to you as well as field trips and professional leaves school fundraisers a part of your packet just a couple of those i believe from claims and payroll standpoint we do have two sets of claims one dated today and then a pre-run docket from the month of may so june 14th a little over 1.6 million dollars the month of may about 7.8 million dollars in claims for your approval additionally we have a few
111payrolls there from march 29th change that date at the top to let's see through the june 4th pay actually so it says eight for eleventh i need to change that to june 4th that total is about 10 million dollars you look at may 7th covers work days 4 12 to 4 23 normal payroll may 21st 426 to 57 normal payroll may 27th summer payoff option for 50 individuals we do have individuals who choose to take the summer pay in one chunk versus having it spread out over the course of the summer it's 44 teachers and six retirees um then we have june 4th covers work days may 10th may 21st it does include some covert stipends that you approved as well as a half day pay for teachers when they work that extra time to
112end and finish the school year when we had moved their final day to the beginning of the school year to start on august the 10th instead of august 6th i believe and then we also have our stipends from the spring that are appendices in our collective bargaining agreement from coaching and other other responsibilities and duties so a lot of different things covered in those payrolls so the claims of payroll is a part of the request additionally we have a dual language grant application it's an annual application that we complete through the indiana department of education it helps us with our legato spanish immersion academy at clifty creek elementary school sr3 has been referenced already tonight so the sr3 grant application is up for your approval we have a resolution for additional administrator days due to
113covet 19. so as we have asked you throughout the course this year for stipends for whether b support staff or for our certified staff members there are two days requested for the additional time that has been put in from our administrator standpoint just asking for that approval to acknowledge that that effort and then a resolution authorizing performance-based accreditation waiver so that is a waiver that the state of indiana has given us the option to pursue specifically we're asking for time when it comes to that waiver so your approval through a resolution is necessary for us to file the waiver with the state board of education and in filing that waiver with the state board of education we are pursuing flexibility and counting time i reference 180 instructional days for example earlier that's a part of
114statute but if we can count those days with hours and minutes versus just i came to school 180 times it gives us some flexibility in terms of how we can approach whether we professional develop for a staff learning time early late whatever that case might be and how it might change or impact the calendar we would like for that flexibility and again would it be something that we would have to actually file the application with the state board of education excuse me the state board yeah state board of education we have not yet done that tonight we need your approval for a resolution we also have an edition of a pre-k classroom adele francis smith elementary school the department of education requires us if we change great configuration in a building to have you first
115approve that so smith elementary school for example right now is a k through six building to make it a pre-k through six building add a classroom there we need your approval to then uh submit that great configuration change we also had some elementary course fees and secondary course fees in your packet for 21 and 22. just some tweaks that were necessary following the textbook adoption and going through all the fees that we have that we request i believe that is all before we jump into human resources recommendations um dr pleek where are you i might have you come up to the microphone here real quick just based upon the so3 questions that were raised earlier just i thought it'd be helpful for dr fleet to provide you some additional information on the expenditures or requests
116for expenditures we would have under that application anything about that application as it ties to the reopening of school dr please the grant is due the sr3 grant at this time is due june 25th the application opened up last week and um all air all funds have to be uncovered by september 2024 and all has all funds have to be expended by december of 24. so we're like three years out we're trying to predict the needs at this time we all know that needs may change things may arise and at any time but then we decide to go different direction with any of the funding as always with any other grant you can do an amendment and amend the funds to be spent differently and in the what the parent mentioned tonight about this cdc
117guidance and things like that as mentioned in the presentation that was very accurate information and the phrase that i go on and all of that is to the extent practicable um is something that is mentioned and the whole basis between all of this funding that the government is wanting to make sure is we return to in-person learning and so that is the biggest thing that they are focusing on is the reopening schools return to in-person learning and to follow the cdc guidance to the extent practical which governor holcomb has at this point everything he does expires june 30th and the schools will begin formulating july what we will be doing with our reopening so i believe in our application what we will put is we will follow the the reopening guidance provided and adopted by
118the school board again i'll use that phrase to the extent practical and all that we do and just another reference i know the first two grants that you approved on this we called the cares one and cares two and it was essential one s or two there is a little bit difference here with the change in administration this is called the american rescue plan and it is sr3 so there's a lot of confusing there the other the big requirement is 20 needs to be spent on learning loss i can tell you none of us like the phrase of learning loss so we're looking at accelerated learning and opportunities we can provide additional supports to our students during this time with this extra funding and are there any specific questions that you have about what is
119laid out before you in the budget request a recommendation for approval doctor plea yes so and i just i you know just want to just clarify so let's say uh at the july board meeting the board do does decide to go optional on the mask and with the vaccination you know just hypothetically throwing that out there you know would that have any effect on this grant i can't determine the decisions that the ido will make at that time what we are is to be truthful and honest with what our plan is what we think the best is for the reopening of our students so um and i think there with that is the cdc may continue to change guidance the last guidance was like april 23rd there are some additions from the state board of
120health recently on recommendations but again that may change and it may change by july may change by august it may change um so at that time we just submit to what our plan is and we'd adjust as necessary okay so we could go ahead and submit for the grant now since it's due in 25th 11 days so and then that way as we move forward then whatever decisions that we make locally within our community then at which point we would just send those adjustments per the grant up to them and say we need to amend our grant because of the direction that we have decided to go in yeah the the main thing that the the federal government is looking for is just every six months we give an update of what our current reopening
121plan is and if we are still in person instruction with film that is what they want to keep in place and the other thing is to make sure that we are not reducing employees and that's been a part of every grant so far cares one cares two and the american rescue plan okay yeah thank you thank you i think one of the keys about this particular grant application and maybe goes back to sr102 as well it is the focus on in-person learning which seems a little interesting for us because we've been in person for much of the year that is not true for many places in the country some did not go back this entire year so we have a grant application that is general in terms of focusing people on getting back to in
122person we are already there so we can state that we are already in person and that we will then follow the uh plan adopted by the board and if then it's not accepted we'll have that issue to deal with but doctor plea did ask those specific questions and conversations to see how we could phrase the the application given our circumstances and timing and the fact that we're already in person that's cool great thank you you're welcome other questions for dr please all right thank you so much you sorry dr shed i just realized this has got dr fleet's name next to it too it's a new topic uh the classroom at uh smith how will parents find out and is that that's for this august um will we have enough kids to make it worthwhile
123it is a priority that we have enough kids to make it worthwhile um we believe in the expansion of pre-k and we know many parents desire it to be at their elementary school and when it becomes feasible and manageable we tried to do that and this year they had enough applicants that we make it feel like it's worthwhile to expand and once parents know it is there and to stay then they're much likely to commit but parents have been informed through emails letters and website and presentations by by mr yates the directors pre-k about the addition and the change thank you thank you okay you better sit down not that you don't take all of our questions we appreciate it all right if i followed robert rules we were first to motion the approval of
124four a through l as they've been presented to us so moved thank you mister hoftwire is there a second all right thank you mr bryant miss wilson um are there additional questions regarding these items i've got one quick one how many elementaries have pre-k classrooms doctor pleak what is it now it gives us i'm sorry [Laughter] guys count back yep dr van horn is counting in his head back there too so it's eight buildings now that we would have yeah good question thank you any other questions before we vote on these items all right all of those who have pro approve items for a through alice they've been presented to us and clarified during this meeting if you'd signify by saying i any opposed all right dr roberts those have been approved thank you do
125i have to miss heine this is our last time that we get to ask ms heine for your recommendations for human resources thank you dr shet i'm requesting approval of the human resource recommendations as presented this evening thank you do i have a motion for approval of those items as presented to us thank you mr brian is there a second second thank you dr bills any particular questions for miss heine not about these recommendations in particular but just in general how's the recruitment and hiring process going it's going well really has since the start i think we're up around 92 maybe a few more yet this week new hires and that includes the cares again a certified staff member we just had to support staff conversation earlier so yeah over 90 certified staff members hired
126awesome we will have a great new school year any other questions for miss heine all right all of um those who approve the human resources recommendations as presented to us if you'd signify by saying i i any opposed all right miss heine thank you very much we always try to end our meetings with opportunities for individual members to make comments given the course of our meeting so i'll ask mr bryant i just want to thank the people for coming out and voicing their opinion reference to the mask i too am part of this thing but uh it is something that i think is worthwhile right now at this particular time so but thank you for voicing your opinion and uh we'll take it under consideration at least i will anyway thank you very much dr
127bills yeah i agree with mr bryant i received your emails those of you are still here and also emailed us and and i i really understand the last year well gosh it's been over a year now it's been crazy and you know we go back and forth and about what is good for everyone you know and but also trying to balance that with rights and responsibilities and it's it's a you know it's not an easy decision about when you're talking about making decisions for you know entire school district but i really do appreciate all of your emails and all your comments this evening and i i will take it under consideration and definitely look i'm a i'm kind of a research sort of data kind of freak person so i look at stuff like that
128all the time the science and and those kind of things so that definitely is going to be part of it as uh i consider you know what what will happen in july so again thanks so much for coming out and uh and for you the emails expressing your interests parents you're you are important to the school corporation and you're part of this school corporation and and this and you should have a say in in um many of things we do in this district so thanks again mr stenner yeah i'd also like to thank the parents for coming out tonight and all the communication that we got in advance of this meeting i'm convinced that we'll make better decisions uh the more we hear from our stakeholders so i appreciate your voices thank you mr hoffman
129first i'd like to thank uh miss heine for her years of service with us tonight is kind of her last deal with us as she as dr quick would say right off into the sunset and so i wish her the best it's been a pleasure working with her and she has taught i know myself and i'm sure many a lot of things about you know the hiring and human resource and just bouncing things off off you know your your mind and stuff so i appreciate all of that secondly i do want to thank everyone that is here and the correspondence that you have given it is an important topic i do feel the same way i had four kids go through bcsc and my two graduated in 2019 so they were not in school during
130the pandemic but they were in technical schools and and college so but i also had granddaughters and you know nieces and nephews dealing with this i also have some with special needs and do understand the concerns as far as those decisions are the parents so i appreciate your your um coming this evening and the correspondence because that is something that i feel very strongly with as well and together i think and when i say together it's not just this board this administration it's this community which involved the parents and the students and our staff and everyone we will certainly hopefully make the best decision for you know everyone but sometimes it's you know we always have the few that it may not be the best for so thank you thank you miss wilden uh i
131i just like to commend um the human resources and the whole administration for being able to hire 92 teachers that is really remarkable and i'm jealous okay as a perfect person in the private sector i'm jealous and i i need to learn from you also congratulations that took a ton of work um so i won't belabor the point it was great hearing from everybody i'm going to pick on my daughter over there gabriella can you raise your hand right now so she she is a student at north side i i speak about her sometimes she had practice today and i said i think you should come tonight and there's a lot of really important topics for us to discuss and i thought all the information was very well presented i appreciate the research that went
132into it i appreciated the care the emotion for some people i thought that was really good i refer back to dr shed's comments at the beginning on what it takes for us to be successful as community in it stay flexible stay calm and stay focused and i felt like today was all of those things were exhibited so i'm just i'm excited to move forward i think we've got all the right people and information in front of us to make a good decision so thank you thank you mr grimes uh yes um yeah i'd like to also thank all the parents community members that are here this evening for your thoughtful input and providing a lot of important information and opinions for us as a board to consider as we move forward and yeah and in
133the many emails that were received i know personally guilty of not responding to many but i can assure you they were all read over the course of the last two or three weeks so thank you very much um also would like to say thanks to dr pleek and mr phillips and anybody else that was involved in the work to help support staff um you know which are vital to our schools secure more competitive wages moving forward and then lastly congrats to ms heine on your retirement i'm sure it's a bit bittersweet but i'm sure you'll enjoy it so congrats thank you all very much you can tell i hope that we have i have a very thoughtful colleagues i will not repeat all the great things that they had to say but i hope you
134will leave this meeting knowing that your everything was heard we have a lot to reflect on and we will ask your input as we continue to make decisions in the best interest of over ten thousand students that's our responsibility so thank you so very much you've heard we have great colleagues thank you to all of you who are working this summer writing grants with two and a half weeks notice and again we are extremely thankful for miss heine she's done wonders for the school corporation [Laughter] was there something you'd like to no just uh okay we'll just be uh mindful our next school board meeting is not until july 19th it'll be 6 30. we'll continue to be meeting here as well as taking advantage of our youtube we as a board will also be
135having a strategic planning session on july 30th so thank you all very much i hope it's way cooler out there now that the sun is starting to go down and the people have