001seen and it's um kind of fitting for tonight because as we parents influence our children uh the school our community i just think uh you know to hear her her thoughts on what uh it you know it is for her so this papers um what makes me multi-cultural by elizabeth dwyer when i think of multi-culturalism i think of someone that has a different background than your typical american i do not have much of a culture background but when i think about my family we are unique we all look like your typical american but we each have a story which makes us who we are we have learned to grow and accept everyone for who they are and who they want to become i always thought you had to look different to have a culture i
002was wrong my parents have taken my brother and i on some amazing trip we have learned i'm reading off my email we have learned more about other countries cultures by going to their country then learning it in a book i am not typical multicultural person but i like to think i can learn and grow to learn more about other cultures my family is unique in many ways my brother has down syndrome he is my best friend and he has taught me so much about accepting people the way they are and not judging we are only 15 months apart so everyone always thinks we're twins but sadly we're not through him i've learned not to judge or put limits on people i remember in middle school we had to watch a video about an african girl
003who had an african girl coming to a school in the united states and people ask her what her tribal music sounded like and she played some beyonce i myself was shocked too because we were led to believe people from africa had instrument tribal music we also thought they were poor and they did not have any water but after that video i remembered what people always thought about special needs kids the stereotypes never fit my brother mostly because we raised him to be a normal kid we put him in normal classes he had a ta and his schoolwork was modified but he still completed high school not with a ged or a certificate of completion but with a core 40 school diploma and he is the first down syndrome student that i know in our school
004district to receive receive one having a brother with special needs let me see into the special needs culture instead of the typical normal culture and i am forever grateful and proud what i have learned my brother is not the only reason my family is unique my second cousin troy is gay and he teaches special education he is 54 and when he came out to his family he was about 30 years old his family was not the nicest and most accepting my mom was his best friend and he told her first but she always knew since they were kids his mother knew all along and she was very accepting but his dad was disappointed back then it was not accepting and it was frowned upon especially when his parents were growing up troy was runner-up for
005the florida state educator of the year award his parents came down to watch him receive his award and that's when troy told them he then moved to california and has lived there ever since he is happy and is dating his dad died a couple years ago and before he went his dad made peace with troy about him being gay we all love troy like no other and would not trade him for the world my family may not be your typical cultural family but we have an open mind on all cultures we know all about special education and about the lg lbgtqia community my parents raised my brother and i to accept all and to be kind it's hard to learn about a culture through books or even just google and doing our own research the
006best way to learn is through experiences my parents have taken us on some awesome trips to different countries we have been to dominican republic jamaica mexico and the cayman islands a week or two before we always study their cultures as a family then when we get there we learn even more and we see it firsthand many countries live in poverty and others live wealthy depending on what side of the country you go to we learn about their government and about some of the usual unusual laws that they enforce going into a different country is always a little nerve-wracking because they typically do not speak english and you never want to offend them on their land we were always told we are guests and we must treat them with respect and kindness my dad always felt
007uneasy going but my mom always loved to love pushing us outside our comfort zones sometimes it would bite us in the butt but other times it would be so worth it in the end of our trip my family isn't your typical culture family but we can learn and accept anyone for who they are we love to meet new people and learn about them and their story it's always us to be more educated and understanding at the end of the day thank you thank you so much for sharing that with us kathy we do appreciate learning more and i'm i know that class that she's taking so good for her um if those who are able if you'd like to stand and join us for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance under god indivisible with
008liberty and justice for the world all right we are all here as board members that makes it an official forum and i'll call this meeting to order we have posted on our screen that everyone can see our mission and vision that which leads and directs the decisions that we make here each evening and listed behind us and also on the screen are our high expectations which also kind of guide our decision making as we go forward so i'm going to hurry because this is one of the better parts so um we have the opportunity to uh award a new member to our education hall of fame so i'm going to turn to dr roberts and miss dayhof dwyer for this excitement very good dr shed thank you it will be the best part i think
009of our evening although we do have some students to celebrate a little bit later as well um susan scott assistant principal columbus north high school is going to receive an award tonight so this is our 2021 education hall of fame award presentation this is a very prestigious award perhaps the most prestigious award for bcsc and we do provide two plaques to the winner one for susan to do whatever she chooses and the other one to place in a bcsc facility unfortunately due to the many restrictions that have been caused by covet 19 this year we did have to dial back a little bit and we're not able to have our typical recognition reception before tonight's school board meeting however we have been able to put together a video susan that includes some key people helping
010us celebrate this special event and susan's legacy to bcsc so to recognize susan and to get things started we will hear from first hear from a school board member kathy dayhof dwyer kathy chairs our selection committee for this and so uh miss daltoya are you still on the on the call yes i am all right kathy take it over thank you thank you dr robert fellow board members cabinet and community i am honored to have the opportunity to serve on the education hall of fame committee again this year each year it never gets easier and i am thankful for the caliber members that serve with me they are larry perkinson jenny detmer al degner and patricia divaldi thank you for your assistance this year i have the pleasure in awarding this year's recipient to another
011one of my high school teachers who taught my british masters class at columbus north high school excuse me every senior was required to take this course and many dreaded it however i was always a poor challenge and hope for the best to be or not to be that is the question spoken by hamlet from hamlet by william shakespeare we often think about people who come into our lives and how one day that may change our lives in certain ways we were required to memorize hamlet's soliloquy and for our final test write it out we studied writers that we as teenagers felt we would never use this information in real life william shakespeare a very talented and interesting writer what is the purpose of this we have goodness whether his nobler in the mind does to
012suffer the slings in arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a speed of troubles and by opposing in them i certainly took pride in working very hard to memorize to recite hamlet soliloquy for my final to die to sleep no more and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to i fell in love with shakespeare in all his writings back then miss spinky gave me a new interest and the youth youth useless hamlet soliloquy oh pray tell very useful and challenging my family to recite it i win every time mrs scott your fellow colleagues and friends wrote amazing letters of recommendations for you i am very happy i had one of the best english teachers while i attended columbus north high school
013if i may i will share just a few quotes from several a heart for helping people has high expectations for herself and others susan's recognition of the variable variability of students in her conscious commitment to the teaching and learning of all students a gifted facilitator a pioneer for went for female administrators susan creates a positive dynamic learning environment for students lastly in education we strive to be student centered and there is no one who embodies this principle better than our education hall of fame recipient for this year this is susan finke scott congratulations [Laughter] as soon as we're going to have you come up in just a second to say a few words before we do that we do have a video for you [Laughter] when larry perkinson is put in charge of something susan
014yeah normally this room would be packed by now no it would be overflowing it never fails that it's standing room only on the evening that the bartholomew consolidated school corporation announces and awards its education hall of fame but that just can't happen now during this pandemic tonight we're going to celebrate our 43rd hall of fame inductee it's an honor for me to acknowledge my friend and colleague the columbus north assistant principal susan finke scott as this year's recipient susan your family and all the people that you've worked with over the years and helped extend their congratulations and a lot of thank yous you ought to just for a moment close your eyes and imagine who might like to be here with you mr scott and and i because i know that we've got at least
015to be kind 40 years of work in education and we've seen lots of changes and what a great thing that can be sometimes tough at the moment but a great thing new facilities an emphasis on diversity and how do we honor that chances to add technology each and every moment we can and yet as good as changes are as difficult as there are there are some changes that we just don't want and one of those is that we don't ever want to have a moment when we don't have people working with our kids who've lost sight of why we're here and it's to do what's best for them and that's why susan's here to get this award mrs scott i i'm going to tell you a couple of things i want to acknowledge two things
016this evening yet one is that you have memorized more articles on education than anyone i've ever known it's hard to tell you something about it let's say i would say i really like that teaching strategy it's hard to say that to you without you telling me whether it was based on piaget or bloom or sesame street you know you know and you love explaining it as much as anyone i've ever met the other thing that i'd like to add and this won't surprise anyone here is that i made a mistake i once told mrs scott that her room was in a terrible location when anyone came into the main office she was the only one they could see i said to her how are you getting any work done with everyone and i mean everyone
017coming into your room well i was wrong her availability her open door invitation was exactly what made her service so impactful it allowed her to mentor to listen to see with those special eyes that you develop over the years and to respond with the needs of others she was sitting right where she was supposed to be susan on a personal level i want you to know that i ran into some difficulties thinking about what to say so i used a lifeline and i phoned a friend i called your brother john and i said john did susan like playing teacher when she was little he didn't hesitate a bit he said to me no i don't remember that but she liked being a dean and your sister cindy seemed to find that that was the right
018answer your dad however added from a little girl on all she wanted to do was take care of people just like the tv series of old and your youth father finky knows best he knows that you made a difference if the crowd were here in this room tonight if they could pack it up fill the hallways they'd be smiling and telling stories and sharing compliments about mrs scott's contributions that's an important enough part of any celebration that we've decided to bring those voices to this meeting let's enjoy hearing from a few of the many who have appreciated the efforts of susan finke scott thank you susan hi i'm mimi bingham and i'm honored to be here to talk to you about my friend susan finke scott when i think of susan i think of one
019word that pops in my mind is warrior and being the true english teacher i thought of looking it up and i found three definitions one a fighter a soldier two showing bravery and three a yoga position so the first one about a fighter and a soldier susan fights for the underdog she fights for the neediest student in the school she fights and is in your corner for the teacher the staff member who is in crisis this is the person you want in your corner this is the person you want fighting for you fighting for your cause the second definition is one of being brave and susan is definitely brave because she embraces every new curriculum method coming down from the indiana state department she embraces it to the point that she then shows us the
020staff and we somehow are persuaded to embrace this new curriculum the third thing is the yoga position and you may think um that's sort of strange but if you look at the warrior position in yoga you will know that the arms are reaching out and that is definitely susan she reaches out with a generous heart and a kind kind personality you want susan in your corner and i am honored to have nominated susan for this hall of fame award i am pleased to speak in support of one of the most extraordinary educators that i have ever known susan finke scott as i have worked in multiple school corporations in multiple states i've had the opportunity to work with many wonderful educators susan is without question among the best of the best susan began her teaching
021career at hauser junior senior high school in 1974 after five years of teaching latin and english she came to bcsc in august of 1979 here she taught 10 years as an english teacher before becoming a dean she was a dean for four years and then became an assistant principal a role she has served in for 28 years she has been at bcsc for 42 years and been an educator for 47 years i cannot tell you the number of times in the course of a conversation with a counselor a teacher or a dean i've heard her say but tell me about the student or quit thinking about it this way and think about how it impacts or is good for the child she has determined that our youth are our future and spends her time finding
022ways to allow students every opportunity to succeed in her current work she has gone above and beyond in leading both bcsc and community members in work around developmental assets and developmental relationships listen to what those who have worked with her have to say about her influence as an educator true champion for at-risk kids north high school staff development leader she works tirelessly to figure it out each year susan improved the quality of my life i always knew that when i went to her that i would get good and honest advice she just listened which is what i needed susan has been a teacher a dean and an assistant principal whose life work has been to improve and enhance the lives of those around her yet as she has done this she has never lost her
023educational anchor the child being born raised and educated in bertholme county susan finke scott has devoted her life to educating the local young people but education is not her passion people are when she was a teacher at hauser she took time before prom to teach the students how to behave at a formal dinner she set the table with all the fancy forks and knives and taught them how to use the silverware and what etiquette was required so when they went to prom they were comfortable in a new situation susan looks beyond the curriculum to see what students really need their emotional needs their physical needs their social needs and their academic needs at cnhs susan has a heart for the at-risk student she is an advocate for them in the community working with law enforcement
024the courts and other agencies she sees the student as a whole person because she understands the local culture keeping up with the curriculum susan proves that she's a lifelong learner because she reads the books that are read in the literature classes at the high school and as an administrator susan still loves teaching she just teaches staff now and spends hours learning new methods and innovations that she then translates to professional development to help both students and teachers susan understands her staff as people too she provides the encouragement and support that teachers need especially during times of change and stress susan's ties to the community has served her well in bcsc well hello susan i've only known you now for what 30 years and i must admit it's been a very delightful uh experience both in
025a professional and personal uh way uh you and i have went through some things together that's the best way i can put it i was i was always impressed with you even back in 91 when i first met you about i thought your curiosity and your and your ability to want to learn new things and see what's out there no sky i was always impressed by that you and i were always friendly rivals at east and north and of course obviously east was always better as we both know and i'm sure you'll have a rejoinder to that one but you and i worked very well together and it was kind of nice the way we kind of bridged that golf there for a while when there was probably what i'd call probably an intense rivalry
026and you and i were certainly able to work together on a lot of common projects so i was always impressed with that i was always impressed with your ability to work with a variety of kids and a variety of teachers and staff and it always made me feel good to know that there was somebody at north that i could call and talk with about various um positive pieces that you at the two schools could collaborate on so i always put it together as you and i were good collaborators and uh i think that's always a good piece and obviously you've collaborated well everywhere else you're going into the hall of fame so you must be doing something right but i would say that basically uh it's been a really great opportunity to work and of
027course you've helped me to grow in a lot of my areas and give me different perspectives on things and i remember the old days when we used to make we on our friendly rivalries we would make bets on a variety of different educational things and for some reason i was lost i'm not quite sure how that happened and i finally got tired of buying you dinner all the time you know and having you sit there and being polite but smug knowing once again you won and so if i got to the point where i just decided that you know rather than just being with this friendly rivalry let's just continue to work on a friendly collaboration piece and so uh i came over as they say and uh you and i worked on several different
028uh projects together several presentations and of course i always liked our presentation approach you did all the work and i did all the talking so that always worked out really well made me look good and i think you felt good about it and so i don't know what else to say but i do remember you would put together all those slides and you get everything and you'd say what do you think and i'd say i think that's just fine and smile and then away we'd go and we did two or three of those deals and it went well it went well for us and i always thought we were a great team working on those kinds of things so that was always a good thing um i remember when i retired from uh bcsc back
029in the in 2014 and the summer that uh how that had kind of your reaction to it i was quite i was quite moved by that in the sense of you know i knew you're going to miss me you know so that made me feel good but once again like a bad penny we just keep turning up so once again when the counseling counts uh opportunity presented itself and i was uh fortunate enough to be moved into the position of project manager on that uh one of the first people i thought about was you and i thought about you because you have a way to get things done and i was always impressed by that no matter what the circumstances might be so we got your counseling counts and gave you basically the whole piece
030on the development of assets for secondary school kids and where you went and you were a committee of one sometimes and lots of times then you collaborated with other members in the school corporation and so as we look at the success that counseling council has had and it continues to have you are a vital part of that and uh once again it shows again about you know it's you know somebody says what is counseling counsel i said it's a system of people and you're one of those people and you're one of the kind of people that make things go for us in such a way that we continue to uh do good things even despite the environment that we're all laboring in and but yet you still seem to be able to get things done
031and so uh i really look forward to that continuing no matter what our circumstances are over the next few years and i'm still going to be counting on you so it's kind of like a lot of things you just never go away just always kind of it's like i'm like the virus i'm still around somewhere i'm in a new strain you know so watch out i'll be chasing you down so uh good luck and congratulations and very much congratulations on the the nomination uh for the hall of fame it's well deserved and i just want you to know that it's all because of me thank you susan and i were colleagues for over 30 years and as you might expect in in three plus decades we had lots of conversations on different topics some of
032them were those terse the situation demands and immediate resolution conversations but also in that time we had a chance to have the conversations that friends have long winding conversations that include some difficult ideas to process as well as much laughter from our many conversations i'll always remember a couple things one is that susan loves she's a connoisseur of literature and poetry and she was always on a mission to get students to love it also but also to love the relevance it had to their lives the other topic i always remember is another one of her missions susan has always had our neediest students at heart the kids that have the most difficult time in school and in life and she's always been a strong advocate for finding ways to make their world better as long
033time educators sometimes we also talked about retirement and susan's contention was that once an educator retires their influence is only felt for three more years the amount of time it takes for the last group of students to work their way through a building and i learned a long time ago not to argue with susan on many things so i'll add an amendment to this i think actually you know an educator's legacy doesn't just last for three years it's not with the students the legacy is actually with the educators that remain behind and have learned the lesson so on this really special occasion that honors susan's years of excellence as an educator i'd like to challenge the other educators to to take up the same mission that susan has one teach students to love your subject
034matter and also to see the relevance to their own lives and the other is recognize and let's take care of our neediest kids susan supports others by believing in them finding and building on strengths and recognizing areas for growth she is consistent with honest feedback and ideas for improvement i had the privilege of working with susan north for 26 years and from day one she was extremely supportive she has continued to inspire me to be better and is still a go-to person for me in my new role i've been extremely fortunate to be able to call susan a mentor colleague and a friend and i can't think of anyone who is more deserving of this honor okay so if you could come up to the microphone there i'm just going to read this plaque that
035we are providing to susan i'll have susan say a few words and i'll step up and and present the product to her the plaque is the 2021 education hall of fame award presented to susan scott pioneer for women administrators humble compassionate with a heart for helping lifetime learner ever ready to tackle and teach new pedagogy consummate educator and friend great mentor believed rules are tools not change her intelligence is book smart idea smart and people smart congratulations susan thank you well that's pretty overwhelming [Laughter] but tonight i really feel blessed and thankful and i'm really blessed and thankful for having a supportive family over here who taught me the value of education and work ethic and how to improve and i'm blessed and thankful for all of the students i've had for their parents educators
036i've worked with for the school board members i've worked with some of you for a long time community members who've interacted with me great relationships and 47 years of great relationships my job has been many things but it's never never been dull i'm lucky i've always found challenge and change and joy in everything i've done teachers both formal and informal and my friends my family have offered great support and wonderful models for me and since this award was announced a lot of people have made contact and celebrated with me and that's been a joyful thing as well i heard from students i had my first 10 years of teaching you heard one tonight and there's a lot of them are now grandparents and some of them great grandparents and that's really fun for me because
037when they come in it's great to see how they've contributed to the world but maybe my favorite note that i received was from my first grade teacher miss stridelmeier and that's pretty special i think so we're still friends all these years later and yes i can see some of you doing math in your heads right now [Music] if a person works in the same place long enough they become a historian of that place by default and so that's kind of how i feel tonight co-workers have asked me lots of questions uh recently nick did as as a matter of fact and so one of the things i love about education is the change every year new students walk through the door and they're frightened and excited and four years later they walk out with pride
038and belonging when i started teaching there were no computers and now we can't think about education without them we took attendance by hand we did grades on machines with paper tapes and we walked down the hall to talk to people instead of sending an email or text or zoom meeting technology was a film strip and a hand crank copy machine teachers were divided into two camps those that used the smoking lounge and those that didn't i taught at cnhs for six period day a seven period day then eight and now a block schedule and one of my first jobs as a new administrator was to find the substitute teachers every morning so i became very adept at using the phone while brushing my teeth i was here before the first istep test and yes there
039was a time when there were no high-stakes tests and i promise you students still learned i've always worked with wonderful administrators david clarke and john green being among the very best caring and thoughtful and talented mr ho is also here from school tonight and he shares my interest in students who need special support i'm thankful he's here over the years i've been blessed to participate in many firsts and work with great leaders and partners who allowed me to learn from them and you can still see a lot of my mentors and partners in this room some of the educators are gone now though and i'm in debt to each of them so let me share just a few examples phil weissmuth invited me to help write the first bcse crisis plan if you can believe
040that doug moore who is the co-chair of the original senior project committee debbie thomas we worked on the first esl program at north female mentors like shirley leister i'm so happy she could be here tonight she was my english department head and when we were named to the national center of excellence when she was the leader i was also mentored by dr sue pifer i would have i helped her write curriculum in the summers and then we'd go to her pool afterwards and she would talk to me and help me make learning a lot of fun glenn keller edna house jim powell jim majors all coached me on how to work with students and families in crisis leroy nelson made me chairman of the first community-based and teacher-led school improvement committee mike popper trusted me
041to be the interim principal columbus north for a few months and larry perkinson who shares with me not only my love of literature but also love for the service of this community and many many many more too many to mention in case you haven't noticed from my list i love working with partners and teams especially those who share my passion for students most recently my passion has been with counseling counts a team led by bill jensen and doug moore and they've been doing great work so many changes and challenges in bcsc we've looked at all kinds of ways to improve i was here when we looked at site-based management from the bottom up then we did baldrige from the top down and now we're doing a stakeholder engagement wheel and i think we're getting closer
042brain research moved us from teaching from the gut to teaching through the science iboe iep l-e-p m-e-u-d-l-p-i-s-s-e-l-b-a-d-r some days i'm just glad there are only 26 letters in the alphabet as a result i've probably read more articles and attended and presented more workshops than most of you can even imagine i've always loved it that my job paid me to learn and to learn and study how other people learn i cannot even guess the number of wonderful teachers i've worked with people that were young in their practice and experienced material teachers who were talented helping them to stretch and share they shared their professional victories and their personal challenges and their sharing was the power of the work and the students during my career i have played many roles in student activities and play is the
043opera operative word coach cheerleaders chaperoned trips to europe and student government conventions coached a speech team directed plays refereed volleyball sponsored student government chaperone winter dances and proms 43 proms by my count and supervised literally hundreds of ball games and cross country and track and swimming meets all joyful work i joyfully rolled down in the hills in jennings county after the cross country team won the sectional and i was thrown into a pool and i in that a natatorium in indianapolis by the men's swimming team when they went state by the way i hadn't brought a change of clothes and it was january and during this challenging year i'm proud to help set up the advisory system and thrilled we're again openly and clearly addressing not just academic needs for children but the whole child
044i have led senior parades through the halls of cnhs had held graduation practice and picnics for literally thousands of children and this year a new task daily greeting hundreds of students as they walk in the door to take their temperatures challenging ever changing joyful educators do these kinds of tests every day and i have played hard and well and i think i've learned just a few things people can only meet high expectations if first you set high expectations and then support them as they journey to meet them if you risk enough mistakes are inevitable and they're great opportunities to improve each student deserves a team of caring adults who see their potential instead of their flaws and their opportunities instead of their limitations even strong resilient people need kindness and support from time to time
045we all get a turn at a struggle and finally i believe schools should not only be judged by their high performers but just as much by how they treat and support the most vulnerable members of their school community so i'm proud to call bcsc home and proud of our educators and the work they do tonight i feel blessed and thankful to have been a part of bcsc all these years and invited here for this honor so from the bottom of my heart i thank you all for the opportunity [Laughter] yes here we come go looks great [Laughter] i know you can't tell but we are all beaming behind these masks for you but congratulations susan can we just take a breath sure and just appreciate i'm standing as we're waiting for everything to kick back
046on fire back up thanks to so many people who made this a special night thank you congratulations susan you're at the legacy you're i've left with bcsc with all of your work the thousands literally thousands of students staff members community members you've impacted thank you thanks to to josh for his work on the video and pulling a bunch of people together perk for your organization everybody who is in the video i just again appreciate everybody's effort and those who are here tonight i will indicate to those who have come for susan's presentation we still have quite a few things to cover you are more than free uh to to to stay or to exit at this point in time if you if you would like certainly certainly up to you as what you wish to
047do at this point in time but thank you for being here this evening congratulations again susan congratulations congratulations okay i'm going to jump into the cove 19. information and i keep saying this is going to get shorter each time and i think that's the case uh this evening you promised so many jan is listening closer closely i think as to whether this is the case or not currently we are in five days of in-person learning for students in grades k through eight as well as we are in a hybrid model for our grades nine through twelve students we do have students in grades through nine nine through 12 scheduled to return to five days of in-person instruction on monday march 22nd so right now we're not waiting on a next day or another time to
048try to make that decision looking at the data and so forth we're believing that things are heading in the right direction and we are able to bring our students back on the 22nd so coming back from spring break we should have all students grades k through 12 in five days of in-person learning with that said we want to remind you that we do have many students who are still choosing our e-learning option our all e-learning option and coming out of spring break at least by our current count we'll have approximately 1500 students still participating in an e-learning option during quarter four this is information that's our most recent data and this comes from today which always reflects the day before as a reminder so if we look back at yesterday february the 28th uh we're
049down to a 16.5 per capita number so continue to decrease and our last board meeting which would have been february the 8th we're at 31.4 so basically i've cut that in half that is continuing to decrease the percent positive test rate is down to 24.1 percent um also continuing to to decrease uh the test turnaround time at 1.7 i don't think we were able to get that information updated for today just said not come back to us uh and then covet hospitalizations for crh are down to nine which is a green number we haven't seen many green numbers um over the last few months a time or two here and there so that is the information in terms of our local data trending in the right direction from a state standpoint this was last week's
050information so last wednesday's county designation and you see that bartholomew county was a 1.5 remaining in the yellow we're starting to be an outlier a little bit there's i think more yellow last time than there were blue but that blue is starting to uh increase the number of counties and and looking at the data that chad gathers for us on a daily basis and having conversations around that we're expecting more counties to be in blue i don't know that we'll get there on wednesday probably still yellow but at least that is still a better place than we had been previously so just a reminder in terms of our positive cases since august the 10th our first student day we've had 568 positive test cases that 568 includes 345 students 156 support staff members and 67
051teachers if we take those populations that would represent three percent of our students 13 of our support staff members and eight percent of our certified staff members and then in terms of those covet 19 related decisions i shouldn't say remaining because i'm sure there are more than this but the two that are uh probably being asked the most at this point in time there's always these series of emails topics that will start rolling in and those emails now are starting to accumulate in regards to prom and graduation and so we are weighing all options in regards to those two situations how can we have an in-person event i'm not sure if you can have a problem without doing it in person but at graduation we found a way to do it virtually last year we
052would like to again be in person one way or another we're looking at all the options in regards to that and we have to obviously pay attention to event restrictions if we were to try to roll something out today i think that an event in bartholomew county uh the highest number that can participate is 100 so that wouldn't allow us to do a whole lot at this point in time but hopefully over the next couple of months we'll be able to figure out a way those those restrictions will lessen and we'll have some opportunities to do prom and graduation again in one form or another but no decisions on those uh two things at this point in time continuing to to dialogue with our principles at the high school level mr jensen as the director
053of secondary education and working to figure that out so that is my information as of today on covet 19. questions yes anyone have questions about all right you're down for the record as the shortest one so far this has dominated our conversation needs to go in that direction right yeah hopefully that is the case um next on our agenda is the opportunity for individuals to comment on issues before us or comments that they'd like to make no one has signed in so now we get to celebrate more so we've been celebrating the wonders of our teaching staff here in bcsc and now we have the opportunity to celebrate about some of our students so i will turn to dr roberts to speak about our maverick challenge winner we do have a few students tonight that
054we're going to recognize and we'll start with trey trey is is on the zoom call so i'm going to exit from the screen here in just a second so i can pull trey up but trey uh formed a business called the aspire group uh he is a student at columbus north high school and he won the local competition of the maverick challenge this is typically an event that the chamber of commerce celebrates and gets to bring the student on stage and celebrate with them again we've had some different situations this year so having to adjust everything as we go but trey uh in in winning the local competition then was able to participate in a regional final and finished second winning a thousand dollars and there were i believe about 300 students participating in this
055year's competition so quite a few people the maverick challenge is a business entrepreneurship uh competition where students take a business idea from concept to a developed plan and then pitch those plans to judges his business trey's business the aspire group is a full service real estate media company that provides professional photography video drone and 3d tours for real estate agents so congratulations trey i think today we have you on our screen i'm going to stop sharing maybe actually i'll just pull you up here hey trey can you unmute yes can you hear me okay we can yes congratulations trey yeah thank you yeah i want to thank the maverick challenge for providing me this opportunity i think it's pretty i think it's pretty rare in schools that you get to experience kind of going on
056on an entrepreneurial journey so this has been really good for me and being able to start my business and get a lot of connections in my community very good tell us a little about this business trey i give a quick highlight but tell us a little bit more yeah so i started this business right right about when school started i started taking the principles of business management class at columbus north high school so i decided to start this business because i have a passion for for photography and video and drones so i was thinking how can i use those skills to um you know help some people in columbus so i thought of real estate agents so um i was looking on uh zillow one day and i just thought i was looking through the
057pictures and i was like well hey i could probably do better than that so uh so i actually i then began reaching out to some to a couple real estate agents and i was able to do um their photos video drone a lot of that kind of stuff and i was able to get a lot of referral business and we're just keeping on growing from here tremendous trade with with that particular business seems like a great idea to me a lot of competition for you in the community uh actually no i'm the only full service real estate media company in the columbus indiana area okay outstanding doctor board members other questions other questions for trey all right congratulations good for you [Applause] trey again congratulations and thank you for your patience i know you were
058on at the very beginning and and hopefully you had the opportunity to see a great presentation of of a staff member in your building with mrs scott so congratulations again thanks all right all right we'll move to the next item uh we do have two wrestling state finalists from columbus east uh columbus seas continues to bring home medals and wrestling as two more were gained at this year's ihs double-a state finals sam mortal in cave law finished second third respectively in their weight classes mr hughes here this evening there he is mr hughes i'll bring you up to the podium thank you dr roberts uh board members and cabinet members uh again i'm going to try not to sta steal any of coach cooper's thunder but uh it's hard not to want to come up
059here and brag about these two young men and and what fine citizens they are and if if you were to ask me tonight you wanted me to bring two athletes to this board meeting that would represent the type of young men that we want to develop these would be two guys we'd bring regardless of them their medals and uh they come from great homes great families again the sacrifices that their parents make they travel literally all over the united states florida michigan pennsylvania to get to these tournaments to put themselves at the top and then coach cooper again just does an outstanding job keeping east at the top of wrestling in the states so at this time i'm going to introduce coach chris cooper so he can talk about our two young men thank you
060yeah like uh mr hughes said it's pretty easy to talk about these two guys uh when i think about you know the kind of uh product we want to develop at columbus east i mean these these guys rise to the top they do everything we ask uh like like mr hughes said you know we travel all over the place to prepare for uh the state tournament and these guys just did a fantastic job the term battle tested doesn't even do these guys justice i was looking at the bracket before i came and you know realized that you know each of these guys had won uh beat eight to ten guys that were in their their weight class at state so you know that was just going into the tournament um cade law's a junior second
061time to state this year placed third he um had four losses on the season was 36 and four and uh he lost once to the state champ twice to the runner-up and then he was two and one against the fourth place finisher so just had a fantastic season uh no doubt in my mind gonna compete for a state title next year um and uh sam morrill 38-2 on the year uh you know made it to the state championship match wrestled under the lights which is is unbelievable for any high school athlete he started wrestling in seventh grade which i mean making it to the state finals is almost absolutely unheard of when many of these kids have wrestled their entire lives sam had had one loss to the state champ and then uh avenged uh
062one of his previous losses in the season in the semifinals so uh just really proud of these two guys i mean they you know beyond wrestling they stand for like everything that we want our program to stand for just outstanding young men they help with our youth club that they do all the extra little things that uh you know make it easy for me as a coach sam also is a senior this year and uh going to attend university of indianapolis next year and and wrestle for them so it's uh going to be exciting to see his career continue uh there's no doubt in my mind both of these guys their their best wrestling is still ahead of them so thank you thank you mr cooper we're going to have your kids stay up here
063yeah we're going to get a picture chris of you and then the wrestlers in front of the bcsc piece here if we could chris congratulations to you certainly outstanding program you have going on columbus season kids congratulations you got one shot earlier nick there you go sorry congratulations again [Laughter] all right so we're just going to keep all the good news going here next on our agenda are our board commendations so i'll turn to my colleagues for accommodations they'd like to share i've got a few here dr shad that'd be great thank you mr graham i will start um just by continuing on with the uh good news about students the first one i have here is from mindy summers at central recognized several students for their writing accomplishments and i'll go through some of
064them by name ritvik narula won the indiana women's education foundation super power essay contest um quite a mouthful um let's see yashiki mehta and molly burbrink were top three in a playwright contest sponsored by irt had the opportunity to work with some professional playwrights and actors two students from central also won the joseph hart chapter of the dar boston massacre essay contest seventh grader ahim rahman and eighth grader sanvi anakindi and their essays will actually represent our district at the state level and then ms summers also wanted to pass on congratulations to 11 other students team adventure students whose work will be published in a oh letters about literature anthology for the indiana state library along with 800 other other entries from the state so congratulations to those young writers at central [Music] also just
065congratulate coach chitty the varsity basket boys basketball coach at east receiving a an exemplary behavior report from the ihsaa uh for east's february 12th game at jennings county officials have the opportunity to send in letters of exemplary behavior from players coaches across the state that they see and coach chitty received this from official just justin jackson for essentially official jackson was incredibly um appreciative of coach kitty's respectfulness throughout the entirety of the game and especially his helpfulness when an east player started getting upset and when i when i told coach chitty or asked his permission for to say a few nice words tonight he was quick to uh dismiss it and say it was actually the official that did a great job the entire night and was also very complementary of his player for for
066being very coachable and like he said heaven forbid get a little upset in the heat of the moment so yeah and then lastly um just to thank you to the leadership of the columbus educators association in collaboration with the bartholomew county retired teachers association who organized a third house session with representative lauer and senator walker this past saturday morning that focused solely on education issues to give people in education a chance to participate in the third house session so and um it was reported that 119 people actually viewed the virtual meeting and it will soon be made available for others to watch as well so congratulations and thank you to all those people absolutely thank you for that are there others i have two reports dr shed oh please no come sorry scratch that i'm
067ahead of myself all right meetings are you kidding me all right i just wanted to briefly mention and give a shout out to two of our candidates who are i'm sorry that's iu world to two of our students um who uh won a brown music competition awards so to min young kim playing the violin from a senior at columbus north high school won the award for instrumental excellence and to reagan likens a senior at columbus east high school for winning the anna newell brown awards for vocal excellence so to all of the talents of our learners i wanted to share those so now we have school board reports and i'm going to guess dr bills has something she'd like to do why would you think that no one i have two reports dr shed all
068right um the first one is from the trust fund so it was my first meeting and it was um quite interesting i learned a lot i'm just going to report that we're starting the strategic planning process and the this year we're focused on improving communication and being vigilant about mitigating rising health care costs because that's the never-ending story right there is rising health care costs um the second report i want to give is on the diversity council and i just want to give a shout out to kimberly easton she's tireless in her work for the diversity council it amazes me how much she puts together for all these different meetings we have the main diversity council and then we have underrepresented teacher committee and then we have diverse curriculum committee then we have a social
069justice committee it's it's just amazing to me the work she puts into all those committees and um and really um this time we had some some great speakers um kind of this theme on windows mirrors and sliding glass doors and blake manual did a really nice presentation on some literature and things they did at central middle school in the library that was really interesting and then kim went over some highlights oh yeah the other committee is family academic achievement network so there are several committees that she oversees and and some great teams to work with um charles edwards is awesome he's our kind of chair of the diversity council main group and then he talked about some uh some video series and some events going on in columbus on diversity and things like that so
070it's um they just really do a lot of work in trying to recognize implicit biases to try to work on curriculum in the school to to recognize diversity and those kind of things so i i just enjoy being on both those committees and they all do a lot of really good work on both trust fund and the trust fund is i'm going to get used to that i'm sure yeah i'll figure that out eventually so thank you for all the work you do on that too and bill thanks for your work on diversity council too i know he's back there somewhere that's what i thought can't hide thank you that's it all right thank you well the health trust has driven us many years so i'm glad you're enjoying that work um and that it
071it will get better um all right are there other reports i just have i'm sorry go ahead no you i've got two quick ones good um this is uh mrs bruin would like for me to report that the school foundation's trivia night on saturday february 13th was a success 23 23 teams were involved the event made over 6 dollars and she wanted me to pass on her gratefulness to the community because enough donations came in so that each school could have a table if they so chose and that she also wanted me to share about the positive impact that the partnership with donors choose has had and is having in classrooms today 72 grants have been matched by the school foundation since last september with a total of 6 600 kids being impacted by those
072by those grants and matching dollars and then lastly mrs wilden and i continue to participate in the new board member academy put on by isba and i i know i can't speak for her but i am anxious for tomorrow night's topic which is managing disagreement and effective communication [Laughter] you'll never have to worry about that i'll kick all over that um wonderful thank you so much for sharing that i just wanted to share that the business advisory committee met on february 19th we had a great presentation on the echo network and the c4 community partnerships and just as a summary of what i learned we have three major echo networks our manufacturing and education partnership our it network and our healthcare network and the manufacturing and education partnership does a great job and and we
073got to see samples of this of classroom presentations and on-site tours really helping to demystify and to change myths about manufacturing our healthcare network as you can imagine does a lot on patient care but tries very hard to emphasize that there is more to health care than just working with patients and then we had a more in-depth presentation on our it network and our partnership at csa new tech which is our partnership with ivy tech and the opportunity for those learners to eventually complete eight different ivy tech classes through the coursework being offered collaboratively at csa new tech and ivy tech and if i have this right the first cohort is sophomores in this program so we got to meet several of them and have them talk about their class but that we will see
074eventually how they do in the remaining three two years of the program and i appreciated the reminder that our freshmen have the opportunity for these presentations in their of course we talk in alphabet soup pcc classes they're preparing for college and career classes which is a one semester freshman class for those of us who've been around the block that is the former keystone at east and cars class at north so then i went oh i know what that is okay um so it was a wonderful presentation and it is very it's just very enriching and exciting to see how many of our community partners how many of the industries and businesses are such an integral part of the education programs that we offer in bcsc so it's a very special place to be all right
075cabinet reports is next on the agenda and we do have a cabinet report dr pleek good evening again i just want to say how inspiring it is tonight when we get to recognize an amazing educator such as susan scott and an amazing student and student athlete so great meeting to attend and i'll get to telling great part of you hearing about cares 2.0 um susan did mention her speech about how all the different acronyms that we do use in education and so when i put up the cares i thought i'd better put what it means and it's the coronavirus aid relief and economic security act that was passed by congress first in march and again in december and in part of that fund as part of a stimulus package a relief fund across everything to
076help many businesses schools people across the country there is an esser fund built in and the sr is elementary and secondary school emergency relief so we did get our first allocation in april and then in december they now have approved cares 2.0 a lot of time in our world we keep saying cares money cares dollars but the doe will be calling it s or two with the roman numeral two just so you know so either cares 2.0 or esser the roman numeral too so as we go on i wanted to give you an update this evening to share with you an update of how it's going to look in the next couple of months because i will be coming back to you again with a more detailed budget the basic information in february we received
077a planning allocation for our part of the cares funds and the amount of 5.9 million dollars for vcsc and in that time we expect in the next week or two to get our final allocation and it'll probably be slightly different but not not greatly and they base all of that off a proportional share of title one funding and they are telling us that the grant application is going to be released in march it is march 1. and i'm sure it will be released in march and it will be due in april and the time frame to spend the money is march 13th 2020 so you can go back and have to encumber all phones by september 30th of 2023 so we're really excited about this new funding opportunity because the original cares you have until
078september 30th 22 this gives us until september 30 of 23 so it gives us two years of full implementation to try to make the greatest impact for our students and staff at bcsc they have told us they are allowable uses a lot of words and a big list of like 15 items and that's shortening down but i the four priority areas just so you know addressing learning loss and you're probably hearing a lot of about that right now currently in the news across all news media channels newspapers about the addressing learning loss and this really is putting a focus on including special populations of students the second priority is supporting educators the third is sustainable innovation and the fourth is updating technology and other infrastructure and the one thing that this one does not include
079that the first one did and it's key to always know this because it tells you about the amount of work that we have but this amount of funding does not include equitable share requirement which does not which means we don't have to divvy this money up with our non-public schools in our area in our service area they will be getting their own emergency assistance for non-public schools and they have already received their planning allocation as well so in our process so far i want to make sure it was clear it doesn't mean we just heard this in february and i'm just coming to you tonight and not a lot of work has been done there have been a lot of meetings a lot of conversations a lot of emails being shared but early on in
080the process mr phillips had a conversation with amy london cea president saying that conversations were beginning and we would get input from cea and cea leadership surveyed their members to come up with a priority list of things they would like us to consider when using the cares dollars and within mr phillips and i did meet with amy london virtually and had the discussions she shared the list and we had a great conversation about some things we were considering as well that aligned very well with what they were considering as well so at that point then i think the following week bcsc leadership cea was part of their discussions of what was going on and as well as um first met with mr phillips and then the next thing when we were looking at operations we
081had to bring in dr bozeman because a lot of our money first round went to operations technology and so we brought him in and then i met with the other cabinet members and met with some of them more than once met with other program directors that were part of the allowable uses to get their input and i have had discussions with our ido specialist and the director at the state level which is new currently and also you know when you're doing your best planning you need to reach out to your peers across the state and see what other things they are considering to spend their money on which led us to all of that in the meantime this isn't separate this is in combination with the process the one thing that we kept bringing it
082back to is what will have the greatest impact on students for the next 360 days of instruction over the next two years because in doing that you can spend money a lot of ways and maybe not always see the greatest impact and when we're doing this we keep bringing it back to what has the greatest impact on the most students and so in that our answer always came back to teacher-serving students we do know the greatest impact on students and their achievement is the quality of a teacher we also know the greatest impact on closing the achievement gap for any students whether it's for learning loss or not is high quality teachers year after year so with this funding we are going to strive to hire as many teachers as possible currently we're looking at
08334 teachers for the next two years in some high need areas and content areas k to 12 actually 1-12 that we are going to help meet the needs now someone may come and say now wait a minute that is only two years what happens after two years but in going back to this we had to take our forefront in our next two years with the students that are coming in our buildings each and every day what is it we can do to make the greatest impact on them and it is providing more teachers more high quality and then that end it allows some teachers to provide more focus on fewer students so we feel like yes this is only two years but we hope a lot of this will be addressed through natural attrition through
084retirements resignations because all these positions we're going for currently are some of our highest need areas anyway and we continue to hire for them year after year so it's a great way to bring in new teachers provide training provide support and help our students other priorities for the funding is preparing for a virtual pathway as you all know and i think there will be some discussion we have many students that are completely virtual and some that are virtual and in person we know that this is a way of the future that things are going to continue to look like this so we need to be prepared to be on the forefront because as vcsc we are district of choice we also look at professional development ideas to help our teachers expand skills in whether technology
085virtual or in classroom content areas mr williams keeps reminding me of all the technology needs that we have met with him a few times and then operation needs as well miss dr bozeman but to let you know we do expect additional funding to come in this funding is being discussed right now currently with the body administration and congress so we do expect another round to come there's some discussions for some things at state we'll see if that comes to fruition or not but right now we are planning on cares 2.0 so what i wanted to inform you is tomorrow and the rest this week depending this is a lot of tasks our hr ladies do in short amount of time we will be posting 34 teaching positions for the next school year we will be
086seeking approval of the sr2 detailed board report that i typically give you with all of my grants at the april 5th meeting i'll submit the final allocation for the final application to the indiana department of education and we really hope we're doing a lot of virtual affairs i know ms heine and her team are planning on virtual affairs but bcsc is also going to be hosting their own virtual affair on april 7th and so let's get the word out let's get some amazing candidates for our students any questions i think she's surprised i stopped talking go ahead okay so 34 teacher positions does that um include any assistance or aids or any or is that just teachers 34 teachers 34 teachers is what we were looking at obviously just so you know with any grant
087funds we always have the opportunities to amend if we ever deem necessary if there comes a difficulty of hiring 34 teachers we can look at other strategies as well but right now we're going to go with 34 teachers all right thank you i have a question what is your typical attrition in one year in your teaching staff good question dr roberts it depends certified staff we would retain 90 of our staff 10 would be 10 is approximately how many teachers 70 and then and then of the um where would you deploy the 34 teachers can you just say the top two or three areas where you think we are looking at 10 teachers primary grades at the elementary schools we are looking at 14 at the secondary schools in the subject areas testing areas of
088english and math and we are looking at i believe eight special education positions and two el positions and i believe that's 34. it is thank you and i do want to thank everybody that has taken time to meet with me considerably so that's great i appreciate it dr dr roberts i've seen some promotional materials that we're going to be using to try and diversify our teaching workforce and is that effort coordinated with the extra 34 positions through the or two yes any hiring of staff will it will be tied into that effort it's it's across the board so replacing the 70 that we might lose through nutrition as long as as well as these 34 right yes so really when you think about certified staff there's like three buckets of hiring here to think about
089one is we have attrition annually right so if it's 70 again we have to fill those 70 positions just to maintain the number of teachers we have and then next we have maybe there are additions we were looking at putting in place anyway we needed extra staff for some other program besides the concentrated ones maybe the doctor please focus on and then this third bucket is the new ones based upon this funding to be provided from the federal government of additional 34 additional teachers to have specifically directed toward our most at-risk situations or most from subject area math language arts and so forth so those three areas across the board if we hire that many people whatever that number ends up being we will be dedicating the same same service do we have in regards
090to diversity do we have every year goals that we'd like to you know increase this kind of diversity by this number or look for folks in this category in that number yes so so hard to look at in terms of a short-term piece mr center our goal is to each year move closer to representing our student body so so our student population is 68 white and the other 32 percent is a is a mixture of races and ethnicities and we were striving to get to where that's the case we're nowhere near right at this point so um we were at 90 teresa's 94 plus certified staff would be would be white so you know comparing that to the 68 of our students so that that's our target and then uh third question the referendum allowed
091us to increase teacher salaries are we able to promote that is that a plus as we're recruiting across the state that our citizens have decided to do this very very much so mr stenner so you know i think the tagline for that referendum was was recruiting and retaining high quality teachers and and we're hoping that that will be the case and we'll certainly be a part of the recruitment efforts too and the the new levels of compensation that we set for teachers applied to these i'm sorry apply to these 34 folks as well they do there's there's nothing special about a different rate because of a different funding source or thank you they'll come in on our teacher contract other questions can you elaborate a little bit on the thinking about elementary 10 and we
092have i forget how many buildings yeah so and looking at this and having the conversations with dr hack one thing that we had to make sure is wherever we are adding buildings so there are adding teachers that we actually have space in those buildings for those teachers is one criteria and dr hack would clearly advocate that primary grades is the priority especially when we're looking at the reading foundational skills of our students and the needs and we're looking at how the pandemic has impacted them during this time and when looking at that the first consideration that we asked her to consider were the title one schools first and looking at those and seeing what we can do to try to our best no guarantee and not in every situation but try to get our average
093close to 20 in the primary grades across the corporation for next year and does the priority for space and being title one align having available space does that make sense yes okay yeah i mean the first thing was title one was our first thing and then when she presented me with the ten i said now do these buildings actually have space to make sure that they can um suit that and so she had to make sure in that looking at that as well and we'd still have some unknowns with all of this with our virtual students and how many are going to go virtual and and how many are not and defining our staffing for next year i know you don't have a crystal ball and i don't i don't mean to assume that but
094i'm sensitive to i know we will continue to have these teachers because of our national our natural attrition but i'm i'm sensitive to that we can the positions for the lower class size right so so so do we so do we have a sense of that because we're all going to get used to it and all of a sudden to say oh sorry you can't have 20 you're going to have 25 like me so i so i'm curious about that thought process dr pleek do you have a response well my immediate response after then i'll defer to dr roberts is again we're looking at something with the most impact we can have for students over two years and i know we do get used to those things but it doesn't mean it's not worth doing
095it anyway yeah i think that that's where we are dr shedd is that we we would anticipate after two years if we've had these lower classroom numbers of can continue to want to to maintain that uh we're committing to two and we'll see what we can accomplish after okay just want to remember you're going to ask us to approve these positions after two years so just okay any other you've seen that trend before yes i've been here um okay any other questions people have yes dr shed you've made me think of another question i mean with the next round of funding will there be opportunities to extend these extra positions beyond two years i mean are there rumors out there about what the funding will support in the next round i have not heard an
096amount i don't know if mr phillips has and i haven't heard um when the end date would be as far as the year would be so we were really excited when it came out 2023 for this round of funding because i was fearful it was going to be 2022. and um so now we're waiting for congress and for them to do their work and then once they make their announcement then we'll get to work i have to say i agree with dr sheds thought and as a person that works in business i've been fighting staffing losses for eight to nine months now so so we call play the float where i come from but anytime you get an opportunity to get a head of attrition and get people in that know the work know the
097school system know the students i mean that's a smart play right because you you do reap the benefits of that for for years to come so and i'm i'm all about fighting the battle that's right in front of me two years down the road there's all kinds of things that can change so i understand in two years we might feel differently but but having having teachers available that that know our students is obviously important so i understand the thought process great points thank you thanks thank you thank you mr flick is trying to sneak away is she okay to do so thank you dr fleet thank you so much dr hackey good place to a document i think in front of all board members do you want to just address that quickly so any places
098there is a document about bridge and and what we're looking at for fourth quarter absolutely thank you very much for letting me talk about the opportunity that we've given to our students especially at the elementary level called bridge so back in the summer we were given the challenge to think about opportunities for our youngest of students who want to stay home for family reasons maybe due to coving maybe other other concerns and so we created the bridge pathway and that bridge pathway has been very successful as you can see from the document that i have shared with you tonight that we do still have in our bridge pathway 715 students who started in august and who will continue moving into quarter four in this pathway so we have taken the needs of our families taken
099the needs of our students and really replicated the best we could what happens in a traditional classroom and then put that in an online setting we've had opportunities for asynchronous learning for synchronous learning and career curated learning and all those things wrapped up together have made an incredible opportunity for our students i'm very proud of the work that we have done in this pathway and i'm very proud to work with wendy foster who has tirelessly put together this pathway and the needs of our students and families first so a big shout out to wendy to make to make this happen as well as dr roberts for presenting us with this challenge and then having us rise to that challenge to make a great thing happen for our students and families so again you can see
100that our numbers have decreased over time and we feel that that is because families are feeling more comfortable sending their children back especially quarter four but still having 700 plus in this online pathway for quarter four is is a big accomplishment and a big task so again we've taken the challenge that was presented to us and made made that opportunity for our teachers made that opportunity for our families and made that opportunity for our students so that is where we are with bridge moving into the last quarter rounding the turn and heading there are home people have about bridge just to put that 715 number into perspective that's not too far away from being a full grade level so just the number of students we have in a grade in our system we're over 800
101in every grade k through 6 but 715 is is approaching about 85 percent of what a grade level might be so a considerable amount of students have stayed in that program from day one through it will be fourth quarter and i was thinking in terms of bill this would be like our third largest building if we thought of it for 715 would be let's see south side and then schmidt south side parkside schmidt so it's around there it is right there yeah it's right there absolutely wow okay yeah if that was k-6 and spread out yeah i do have a question dr hack sure so the k through six bridge teachers k through six enrollment so as the students go back to school of course then do you switch the teachers around like to go
102back to the classroom that is that is correct so again that challenge that was given to us at the beginning was taking the current number of students and moving them into the online pathway we have then teachers that we also need to teach then in an online pathway bcsc teachers stepped up and we we had conversations principals had hard conversations with teachers because they saw the strength of certain teachers in the spring of last year and their ability to teach online and then as well as ms heine presented us with with teachers who could not come into the building for health reasons so we merged those things together and we really found those people who were skilled at teaching online and then they made needed to stay home for for whatever reason so again we
103have continued to to massage that we've continued to work with that and every quarter as students have moved back into the traditional classroom we've also lowered our number of bridge teachers and then moved those back into the classroom has that been easy it's not it's not been easy and our teachers have felt some of that but they've all been very gracious when we've had those conversations they all went into teaching because they love love students and they're willing to step up and step into whatever they need to and i think that that's been evident with our bridge teachers are there other questions you all have thank you for sharing this it's nice to have it in perspective absolutely everything that we're doing and i'm sure we'll have bridge in 2122 as well thank you dr
104hack so is that like the segway that we could ever imagine for the next perfect segway by the way miss heine i'll turn it to you yes it was a very good segway i'm going to kind of do this a little differently we're out of order and so i'm going to request for approval of the human resource recommendations as presented and you have an extra one at your places this evening so there's two human resource recommendations and i'll ask for approval of that and then i'll go to the second part all right you have a motion for approval of the human resource recommendations presented to us so moved thank you dr bills in a second thank you mr brian um any particular questions about these opportunities before we i've got a one question yes um
105the the director's position for the k-12 virtual pathway is there and i apologize if i have missed something but is there what is the rough anticipated enrollment for virtual pathways next year well we really don't know that completely yet but you saw dr hack's numbers so right there is a school and then we add the secondary numbers to it early numbers uh if we combine secondary and elementary be around 300 students we think at least with with some forecasts of students would stay in that area based on the programming we're going to be offering and so forth so okay that's uh i get a rough rough number but yeah and that will be reevaluated on a yearly basis the necessity of yes so talk to me a little bit about the director of k-12 virtual
106pathway um what are their resp like what are some main responsibilities of that position sure it's it's keeping track of the students and are they staying caught up with where they should be along the pathway we have teachers that will teach those courses but this is like the principle over the whole k-12 pathway so it's the monitoring it's helping with assessment we still have to give these kids the state tests so that's part of the job um just everything a principal does dr biltz for this year and with with putting this in together quickly as we all know how we had to adapt for the start of the school year we ended up with a few people dedicated to trying to make this work um wendy foster was mentioned by dr hackendywinky helped us out
107a ton of the high school so we had a lot of people helping out k through 12 just to get everything organized and to go so that we can get we can stabilize that move into the future knowing that we are going to from here on out have at least more than 100 students and i use that number because the state right now says if you have one more than 100 students enrolled in a an online school for more than 50 of the time that you have a new school you give it a school number and so forth i don't know if that's going to still be required but thinking of it in that way and all the reporting requirements and all the other things are now going to this new school that maybe again
108if we start with 300 students we felt like we needed an administrator to be able to manage the recruiting of that their curriculum the the hiring of teachers placing them in the right places because it is also our teachers that are directing those courses for for k through 12. so um that's a part of all the things that the individual will be doing well i and so for this year there were all those responsibilities were shared by some of the people with endless probably the principles of our yes yeah a variety of people in a variety of roles stepping in to address this for the number of kids you know you saw obviously a very significant number of people but at one time we had nearly 3 200 students online and now we're going into
109fourth quarter about 1500 but still significant significant number will they also be responsible for the cvp or is that something yes yes yeah whatever as we organize dr hack has mentioned bridge cvp is a columbus virtual pathway that's what we had in place before this year and stayed in place the secondary students were participating i guess we had students across the board k-6 k-12 doing both so we're looking at more the cvp piece to begin with from a management standpoint and then we'll evolve as we need to from there but yes columbus virtual pathway is probably the best way to look at it i guess thanks so just one more question and i apologize this this isn't necessarily you know in relation to the position of director but the virtual pathway from a curriculum standpoint
110will what role will ingenuity play in the virtual pathway yeah with that without having um i guess sign i don't know where we are exactly contract wise somebody addressed that for but but ingenuity is is a key piece of that still okay that'll be the driving force of the curriculum of that of the virtual pathway yeah yeah that please dr hacker mr jensen if there's anything to add to that but that's where we're starting for this pathway again with any evolution that's necessary uh will will continue to happen but um yeah that that's where we are and and with what we've done this year mr grimes is uh with the cvp or ingenuity piece of that it still had teachers that were monitoring groups of kids to to keep them on track with their courses
111so different than bridge and bridge looked a certain way and that ingenuity or cvp piece looked differently but we'll be looking at the cvp side of that as we as we go forward for a variety of reasons number of staff members and and whatnot that it takes to to keep us moving great questions thank you very much so with all the questions i've got a motion in a second all those um in favor of the human resource recommendations presented to us if you'd signify by saying i i any opposed oh thank you i was going to make sure we had kathy thanks kathy uh any opposed all right miss heine they've passed unanimously thank you then i would like to introduce you to our new director of k the k-12 virtual pathway josh gable and
112i'm going to invite him up here and josh comes to us from csa new tech as a pupil service teacher so for something similar uh good evening everyone i guess i want to start by thanking you all for giving me the opportunity to lead this initiative and lead this pathway as teresa said i i spent the last 11 years at csa new tech and i couldn't have imagined a better place to start my career i came down here from wisconsin after graduating with matt ed degree and looking for an adventure and i was looking for a fit for what i wanted to do in the classroom and that was to make meaningful and lasting relationships and ultimately make meaning of mathematics in the way that a lot of the teachers in my life did and
113so fortunately i found myself at csa new tech and i got to not only just learn from a lot of great educators but i was given an opportunity to lead early on and so in my work at csa new tech i started to become a certified new tech network trainer and that working with adult learners never kind of left me and so as i grew more experience in that i found myself in a position where i wanted to continue learning i got my master's degree in math secondary ed and business administration from ball state and i knew that i wanted to lead adult learners and so as i see this position in front of me i got really excited about the possibilities that we have to develop a pathway that's going to not only be
114for our students who need to be at home for various reasons but really be a pathway that can be modeled after or be an exemplar for people in the state i really see this as an opportunity to grow from an experience that maybe we weren't all expecting a year ago and use that to kind of leverage some changes that can be lasting and ultimately revolutionize the way that we look at education and so i'm really eager to start this work i know it's going to be a challenge um it's going to be a challenge to continue to build that enrollment and and make sure that it's sustainable but i'm really excited to see kind of where we can take this and work to personalize learning for all of our students in a way that so
115fortunately we've been able to do in bcsc for several years so thank you all for that opportunity and i'm really eager to get work on on the virtual pathway great congratulations josh josh come back up here we're going to grab a picture of you thank you so as we're getting a picture of josh uh one of the conversations we've had with him was really making sure that this was again he's the word exemplar for the state of indiana so making sure that if people are looking for a choice that we have whatever pathway they're looking for and that that if they we know that people are looking for online options and that we have a high quality one uh with with excellent teachers involved in that we're confident josh's ability to lead that pathway forward
116congratulations josh thank you congratulations i think he's getting a workout this evening how much will he yes that's a good question mr stenner nick did you hear that question how much would a modem or not remote motor motor motor cost and a remote all right [Laughter] next time pat all right next on our agenda um under our how is a request for approval and dr roberts we have a through i before us okay all right so i'll run through my approvals several here starting with the minutes of the regular school board meeting from february the 8th that was our last one a list of supplemental contracts that you had in your packet also we had no field trips professionally but you did have some school fundraisers in your packets too then we had claims in
117payroll you always receive several pages of those claims dated today march 1st uh total nearly 900 000. we had a pre-run from february 1st through february 28th that were over 3.6 million dollars payroll for february 12th was a little over 2.8 million dollars that payroll was for the dates of january 18th through january 29th was a regular payroll i don't think we had really too much or anything additional in there and then we are asking for a resolution to transfer operating funds to the rainy day fund that is a few years ago we moved some dollars from the rainy day fund to help pay for an initial payroll check to move the payroll up in the contract is something that needed to to be done that cost about 1.4 million dollars so we have had
118the opportunity now to put the 1.4 million dollars back so we're just restoring dollars that we had removed from the rating day fund a few years ago additionally this is a celebration all the celebrations we've had tonight the mark and wendy elwood foundation has donated money we had a great conversation uh with mark and wendy back in december talked about opportunities where they might be able to help us with our social emotional learning efforts and after that conversation mark reached back out and committed one hundred thousand dollars with that amount we need to have you approve that so please do but that one hundred thousand dollars would be over two years fifty thousand dollars a year for each of two years and it does again help sustain the many things we're trying to do with
119social emotional learning and in particular helping fund our project prevent coordinator position uh sarah fraser has currently been serving in that position has been that for a few years and gets into all first and fourth grade classrooms as well as a number of other other things so thank you to mark and wendy elwood for that commitment of dollars additionally we have a resolution to continue leave related to the family's first coronavirus response act ffcra back in january we asked for you to extend that leave the federal government had stopped we said let's extend it to at least spring break into the third quarter hoping that code was behind us and we would have to worry about it and of course that is not the case so we're simply asking you to extend that to the
120end of the year so basically if somebody is suffering from symptoms related to covet 19 or or quarantined because of being in close contact or actually has tested positive and has to be home isolated quarantine this act would kick in and and we would not be taking their paid time off necessarily is just continuing to pay for those days out up to 10 days now if a person has already had five let's say they'd have five left it does not extend or add days uh for a person who's maybe already had to miss school because of something related to covent 19 but it does add that situation back for people who have not had had to have those days uh taken and then additionally we have a resolution opposing uh the establishment of education scholarship
121accounts and the expansion of the indiana school choice scholarship program so there were two documents in your packet one was simply a letter that's already out it's not in a resolution but just put that with this resolution so you could see something that i had signed in conjunction with other superintendents in southeastern indiana including the southeastern career center which is kind of its own entity there in versailles indiana and then the resolution that we had we we tried to and thanks to mr phillips for drafting this language we tried to get to the issues in in the law not just saying we're opposed to vouchers or opposed to to to esa's but but the reasons why because saying that we're going to offer or make school choice available is one thing but then getting into
122a situation where a person might be able to accumulate twenty six thousand dollars toward a college uh situation that that's getting beyond uh school choice and and that with eligible students in hv 1005 which has been passed by by the house in that bill with those eligible students that is the possibility they can accumulate up to two thousand dollars per year two thousand times thirteen years is twenty six thousand dollars so we try to highlight those kinds of things is not just we're against vouchers we're against school choice but here's the reason we think these this is bad legislation so that's in the resolution that you had in front of you tonight and i think doctor said those are my items yes you've made it through i do have this bucket up here just it's
123kind of a leaky bucket that i think i'd share with you is from the indiana coalition of or for public education it just shows that when somebody says hey we're increasing the amount of money that we're spending on on k-12 school is true and every year that's probably going to be a true statement um the next time we have uh two years from now when legislation then the next budget is set they can probably say the same thing we're spending more on k-12 education we'll ever have and that is true but there are also a lot of places that that dollar those dollars are now going to that they weren't 10 years ago so the the amount you're spending on public education traditional public education plus all these other places charter schools virtual charter schools
124choice scholarships proposed education savings accounts the esas i've referenced here other scholarship granting organizations dollars are going to those too so that adds to that k-12 spend making it the most that we've ever spent on education so just a visual there for you for that consideration of that resolution thank you so first i need a motion for approval of items five a through i as has been presented to us so moved thank you mr grimes is there a second second thank you miss wilden are there questions for any item a through i yay well i'm not going to sit here forever and wait for one if there are no questions i'll all those in favor of items 5a through i is presented to us if you'd signify by saying aye [Music] why thank you kathy
125um any opposed they all passed unanimously thank you so much thank you um i will say thank you for the effort to put that resolution together and and i'm pleased that we were very unanimous about that and didn't have any conversation all right this is the opportunity for board input final comments about just about anything mr bryant all right dr bills i have a little comment i felt like tonight's board meeting was kind of a breath of fresh air for me i don't know about how the rest of you feel but we recognized our hall of fame winners and some students and you know learned about the elwood donation and it's nice to start getting back into those habits really to start recognizing students again and bringing them in i missed that and i missed
126you know recognizing teachers and and just it was just very nice this evening the board meeting and i can't wait till it's regular you know it's a regular part of our board meeting again to start seeing our students again and having them here so that's all i wanted to share with you great thank you mr stenner a couple of things just as we were beginning our meeting the u.s senate confirmed a new secretary of education who started his career as a fourth grade teacher awesome and it's it's nice to have that position filled by someone with teaching experience again um i appreciated kathy's reflections tonight thank you kathy for offering those and uh congratulations uh not just to susan finke scott for her award but for as julie said we had the opportunity to see
127and hear about so many educators and coaches and mentors tonight who are making a difference in the lives of our students and as dr pleek said you know it's the teachers that are closest to the students and those are the folks that i am so happy to be able to thank and support uh teachers and then as you've got focused in this picture here the coffee cup is right right in the very front [Laughter] my daughter made me give up coffee for lent so how many days left uh too many too many is all i can say is as uh as you think about joshua josh joshua yeah um in your new position i you know i um i work in an industry where they say that someday when we get back to some new
128normal they think about a third of us will be working fully virtually a third of us will have a hybrid and a third of us we'll be in the office every day and you think about our responsibility to prepare people for what life is going to look like it's a big job right a third of the students who who leave our high schools may be working from home at some point in their life and there are some skills to that i can tell you from i have a husband who works virtually and he he struggles right there's a knack there and it's it's a change for people so it's really important job so congratulations you have you have a big job in front of you thank you good thoughts uh two two quick thanks she's
129not still here but congratulations again to miss scott if i did my math correctly as a student at north i had miss scott uh 37 years ago so and i fall under the category of being one of her former students that's now grandparent as well [Laughter] and then also thanks to you dr roberts and the 22 other area superintendents that were willing to draft a letter and attach it along with the resolution in opposition to the uh the house bill and the two senate bills that that divert lots and lots of money from public funds the public bucket if you will yes so thank you thank you mr grabs thank you kathy is there anything you'd like to add i just uh again um congratulate mrs scott on education hall of fame tonight and just
130apologize so i couldn't be there in person i'm sure that when she mentioned about all the different letters and congratulatory you know letters and things that i'm sure she has touched so many uh live students and families and we are certainly blessed to have her in our district that's all i have thank you thank you very much so i'm glad that it felt like kind of a normal meeting and i appreciate just all the very diverse ways we are able to celebrate what we do and that we're also very innovative and proactive i do appreciate all the work that's already gone into our cares to planning so thank you very much for that my one thought and this is kind of my other hat i appreciated what susan emphasized about being a teacher and there
131are elements of that that i would love to be a part of recruitment as to why it is just so awesome to be a teacher how how much how rich it is and how fulfilling so that was very nice all right we have meetings well first we have spring break coming up and i'm imagining everyone's so excited about yes um and i hope it's enjoyable please please please be safe come back healthy because we are all in school on monday march 22nd i will also mention that we have a strategic planning session on our calendars for march 26th at 9 00 a.m and our next school board meeting is over a month away it will be april 5th 35 days but who's counting i can't imagine april 5th 6 30 here so with that thank
132everyone for a very rich meeting