001founding fathers believe that education is critical to democracy a chief reason for public education cited by Jefferson and other early leaders was the need to produce citizens who would understand political and social issues participate in Civic life vote wisely protect their freedoms and rights and keep the nation secure from inside and outside threats the role that we have as a school corpor ation plays in the education of our students as to the rights responsibilities and processes of our American democracy is essential our responsibility to provide informative and meaningful civic education seems to be increasingly important as well as our duty to address racism and systemic bias also our responsibility to develop and to Dem and to model for our students the ways in which to manage and to respond to diverse opinions and to disagreements
002is significant our current work on students developmental assets has a renewed focus and purpose for me and the recent announcement of our serving as a pilot for international efforts to enhance Youth Development is important promising news I often have wondered how history books will depict events in my life how I will answer questions from my grandchildren today thinking about my answer regarding January 6 is tough yet our work in providing meaningful Civics education in striving to address racism and systemic bias and in preparing our students with the strengths and skills the assets to manage disagreements and to respond to adverse experiences is one invaluable response thank you thank you Dr shed if you can stand if you are able uh we'll recite the Pledge of Allegiance IED the AL to the flag of the United
003States of America and to the Republic for which stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all thank you and again in this kind of interesting meeting as it's the first one of the year and uh I'm starting uh as the person leading it uh from a determination of a quorum standpoint we do have a quorum we have the four school board members who uh have been already sworn into office after their elections and we have three additional ones uh Mr Bryant uh Nikki Wen and Todd Grimes who will have take take Oaths of office here in just a moment so we do have a determination of qu so I will now call this meeting to order all right as we always do we take a quick look at our mission and vision
004it is on the screen as well as on the uh boards behind me we also have our high expectation objectives to which we try to pay close attention as we do the best that we can uh for our students we'll move to at this time then Oaths of office and Mr Chrisman our Schoolboard attorney if you could help me out with that Mr Manu right I'm not sure Josh will rearrange have a microphone right there Mr Monroe we could have you grab that thank you good okay all right um I'll need Nikki and Todd and Pat to come on up please and Josh is there a particular place you want her to be is this good that camera yeah that camera there Mr mon bring him back toward me y it' be great thank you
005does that work okay it's kind of like a wedding you have okay if you'd all please raise your right hands and then repeat after me I do solemnly swear Solly swear that I will support that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Indiana constitution of the state of Indiana and that I will faithfully and I will faithfully impartially impartially and diligently and diligently discharge the duties discharge the duties of the office of the off of Bartholomew Consolidated School Board District U let's see three five and seven School Board okay of the county of Bartholomew Indiana IND according to the law ACC to the and to the best of my ability best of ability okay you're good I welcome back to the board Mr Ry and welcome
006to the board uh Mr Grimes and Mrs Wen we're looking forward to having you serve in your positions and uh looking forward to um having better 2021 than maybe we had in in 2020 and again doing doing right by our students so appreciate your service to us and uh welcome you to the to the school board all right I'm going to start moving to to forward so that we can get things taken care of in in regards to the election of officers Roberts yes I do have a motion very good Mr St you ready for that I am ready for that uh on the agenda we have a slate of three offices the office of President the office of vice president and the office of secretary I'd like to move that for President we elect
007Dr shed for vice president Dr Bill and for secretary Mr Bryant thank you okay so we have a motion on the table do we have a second second all right Mrs de dwire has the second so from what I understand the motion is for president Dr shed vice president Dr btz and for secretary Pat Bryant correct that is correct okay so we have the motion and a second for those officers any discussion I'm assuming that each of those individuals are accepting of their role sure are there any additional nominations always do have to allow for somebody to raise their hand if they like to be added to that list to be considered all right seeing no additional volunteers for those positions and having motion the second for the president vice president and secretary that we've
008had and I'll call the um motion [Music] [Laughter] get the microphone back here beginning November the 9th Monday November the 9th and through Tuesday November the 24th which then took us into Thanksgiving week uh coming out of Thanksgiving week we made the decision to go back IND e learning and so continued that from Monday November 30th and through winter break once we came out of winter break we did make the decision to go to bring some students back 5 days of inperson learning for our elementary students and a hybrid model for our secondary students for those wondering what that means for our secondary students here's a model of of the hybrid so grades 7 through 12 for us our middle schools and our high schools have students coming in in this way that students with
009the last name of a through K or who's last name begins with the letter A through K are in person on Mondays and Tuesdays and the rest of the students are doing e-learning all of our students the secondary level are doing e-learning on Wednesdays then on Thursday and Friday the second half of the alphabet or students whose last names begin with the letters l through z uh come in person and those a through K are doing e-learning so that's what the hybrid model looks like and in essence what happens is we have half the students in the building and that benefits us from a physical distancing standpoint and we have certainly seen that after getting our students back in school last week and and then of course today um the benefit of a hybrid model
010is uh we were able to spread our students out appropriately and and I believe we're probably operating at 100% uh efficiency or Effectiveness from a physical distancing standpoint with our with our students I always bring up the most recent um uh chart for you this is a chart of the indicators that we created developed locally before the state had anything in place we put together our own metrics to measure the the community spread of covid-19 and so our most upto-date numbers are up here these reflect um uh yesterday so Sunday January the 10th I'm going to move this out of my way we go so if we look at yesterday's number which is a per capita number of 65.6 that is certainly a high enough number one that we like to see decreasing here sooner
011rather than later if we take that 3 weeks back and just a reminder that anytime you see this chart which it is on the co9 community task force website it is renewed or updated every Monday and Thursday but it always goes back about 3 weeks I think there are 22 days of data that's on here if we look at that 3 weeks back and we look at the 20th of December so a few days before Christmas the per capita rate was 67.9 uh 3 weeks later after some ups and downs it's a 65.6 so have not went in too bad a direction in terms of of going higher than that if we look at the positive percent positive test rate at on December the 20th we were at 37.4% and then a few days ago
012and I say it that way because this is a lagging data piece for us we're always catching up uh with the data on the percent positive test rate about 3 to four days behind but at last stre it was 39.3% so it did take up a couple of percent the test turnaround time was at 2.2 then on December the 20th uh just went back up to 2.3 it had been at 1.8 for several days and then from a co hospitalizations co related hospitalizations is it was at 40 at CR on the 20th of December is at 46 on the 10th of January so just um comparing numbers as to what we have now the most updated numbers to what we would have had 3 weeks ago um beginning to get into the the end of
013the first semester and into the winter break time frame so those are our local indicators and just a reminder that the flowchart of community spread and school closures that we put together at the beginning of the school year so this actually goes back to Monday July 20th uh we talked about spread might mean and what moderate spread might mean and minimal or no spread and that if we got into the red and we are indeed into the red with those three um numbers the test turnaround time the only one staying in in a in a better color green uh that we would have to look at things like an e-learning environment and as you're all well aware we did go to an e-learning environment prior to Thanksgiving after Thanksgiving and and then did do something
014uh different now and that doing something different now is is hinged upon uh the state also getting involved in keeping track of metrics and they came out with a county color designation right now you can see the arrow pointing to our County uh we're at 2.5 and so we are orange um most counties if we count the number out of 992 there are 92 counties in Indiana we count the number that are red the majority are red so we are I guess fortunate to be in the orange but the entire state of Indiana has a pretty high case rate right now of covid-19 but when in the orange in October we passed uh our school board uh approved this operating model considerations and again the word considerations being important we don't automatically jump to something
015we're having a lot of conversations digging into the Daya trying to understand the situation um but with orange it says from structal Model Elementary Schools may continue full-time in person option so we coming out of witer break decided to bring our students back for an in-person option at the elementary level um it says middle and high schools may consider a hybrid learning model we decided to go with the hybrid learning model at the secondary schools again very specifically for the sake of getting physical distancing accomplished it is hard to do when we have all of our students in the building particularly at the secondary level and so it was an effort to do that so this again is based upon recommendations from the state of Indiana that the board approved in October so as as
016we look forward and we think about the data as I've just shared and then we look more internally at bcsc since Monday August the 10th our first student day we've had 420 positive test cases and that's not including today uh this would have been at the end of the week and what was reported publicly on Friday even though I think Kelly that number was 417 on Friday so like right after that we had three other ones that we had to record had to record so we're at 420 250 of those are students 127 are support staff members and by definition that would be employees who are do not require a certification to have their position and then the other 43 are teachers or administrators other certificated individuals in our school corporation so if we put
017that into another perspective look at the percent because of the number of students we have the large number of students we have in our School Corporation 250 represents about 2% of our students uh from a support staff member standpoint realizing we have about 2,000 staff members overall about 1,200 of those would be support staff that would represent around 11% of our support staff members and then of our teachers or certificated staff uh 43 would represent about 5% of our certified staff members so that's sometimes a question that comes is what percent would that be um and again we have a lot of people that are in our organization about 13,500 people and so out of that 13,500 we have 420 positive test cases since August the 10th we saw an interesting thing happen in that
018as we started school August the 10th and we got through the first eight weeks of of school we only had 29 positive test cases going into fall break so I felt really good about that obviously had been able to keep our students in school in the buildings we came out of fall break and we got to the end of the month Friday October 30th uh we had 82 cases by that time so went from 29 to 82 since October 30th we're now at 338 we've had 338 positive test cases since then that's an average per week of 34 fortunately that average per week has actually dropped from 37 right before Christmas so over the last few weeks the the the numbers of cases coming in um have dropped a little bit and so at least
019there's some some movement we hope in a positive direction as we go through the next couple of weeks but I say that recognizing that when a break a lot of people were together and and we might have more cases that will pop up um our simple math simple analysis of the data that we've had if we go back to Memorial Day Weekend July 4th weekend Labor Day weekend the beginning of fall break the beginning of Thanksgiving break and now the beginning of winter break if we extrapolate out positive test cases we have seen between 35 and 37 days we get to kind of a a peak or a high number coming out of those breaks when people have a chance to be together if that would hold true for winter break and looking at when
020we started winter break back on December the 22nd it' be around January 27th so that's still a couple of weeks out from from us maybe feeling like we've gotten on the outside or in in the best place with positive test cases so we'll continue to monitor that and pay close attention to what's going on both within our community as a whole and within our school corporation so as we look at over the next couple of weeks the things that we have to think about are all right what do we do from a from the inst structional model standpoint you know with with our our red numbers locally with our metrics the the orange color designation we have from the county uh will continue to look at um whether our students could should be in school
021and and we we believe that right now we're we're very much okay with our elementary students being here and things going going okay there our secondary students are the ones in a hybrid model again because of physical distancing reasons so when might we able to when might we be able to bring back our secondary students into the buildings for 5 days of inperson instruction the first determination of that will be at the end of this week we had indicated that we would at least for two weeks get into this model see what happens coming out of winter break and so we'll have some conversations this week with our local medical professionals talk with our Teachers Association review all the information that we have and then come up with a determination and so we would plan
022to do that by the end of the day uh on on Thursday January the 14th and then if we decide that we need to stay with the hybrid model which our numbers right now would indicate to me that it's likely we would do that and again saying that gosh we still may have a couple of weeks where numbers are are going to be at least where they are now if not ticking up a little bit then our next opportunity to review putting it two weeks out would be Thursday January the 28th if on Thursday the Janu if on Thursday January 28th we said that we need to bring students or can bring students back into the building that ends up being Monday February the 1st so as we look out right now we will look
023at information this week have conversations make a decision communicate that out and then if we stay with the hybrid two weeks from then we will do that again and uh Monday February the 1st would be the next opportunity really for our students to come back to inperson instruction full-time at the secondary level Dr Roberts if I may so then are we going to this information will be kind of pushed out just so parents can have a couple weeks to start thinking that you know they need to be prepared in the event that we flip that switch to bring all the kids back they indeed Will C yes yeah um so right now with our with our secondary students um they're in the building two out of five days right and so all of a sudden
024that switches to five out of five days just making sure that's the case we do think it's easier to go to that and can kind of pivot from what we're doing to that versus going the other way of of of e-learning and going back where everybody's at home all day all the time but but yeah we will be openly communicating thank thank you for that question thank you uh from an extra cricketer standpoint that continues to be a question okay school when we were e-learning we decided to allow for extra cricketers but we we did tighten some things down knowing that we did to have them but we're not going to a red County nor are we going to host a team from a red County and we stuck with that all through winter break
025all through the beginning of January as we have gotten students back now and reevaluated that situation we have done some uh We've made some changes for example we have reopened our facilities to begin being allowed to be used by external groups approved external groups they are groups that use us all the time they are familiar with our our facilities but we we shut them down first semester just said we're not having anybody else in here we've started to allow that to occur again again on a very controlled basis elementary basketball league resumes we had shut down elementary basketball we had allowed secondary schools to to continue but elementary basketball league I think right now we probably have a basketball game going on at Richards and Schmidt are those two teams playing I think so that
026is is going going at it again and then uh regardless of the county designation meaning regardless of that red designation we have said that we're going to make sure our athletes have the opportunity to compete for a conference or sectional regional semi-state state championship that we're not going to if if a county is hosting a tournament that's in a red County which means schools schools are coming in from a variety of counties that we're going to to allow our students kids to continue to participate in those and then any other situation outside of conference or ihsaa tournament would be on a a caseby case basis based upon the circumstances based upon what we know so for example we might have a game scheduled in a red County next week that's not conference it's not ihsaa
027and and that that County just went from Orange to red and they're red because they have 15% last week they were at 14.7% do we say that because we flipped the switch to red in 15 that we're not playing uh this week we're not being as automatic with that decision as we were November and December with the Red County designation we will Analyze That situation determine the appropriateness of going ahead and and competing in that event and then and then moving that forward so we are making allowances for our extra cricketers to to uh continue and hopefully to be able to complete this winter season uh successfully we had great luck during the fall we didn't have to make any really any tough decisions we've had to make a lot of them here in the
028winter time including having teams quarantined for extended periods of time and or not being able to play some relatively important games based upon the circumstances based as as we've as we tried to move forward through this Dr Robert yes can I ask for clarification because I just got an email about this before I came in today are you saying so one way of reading this sentence is only Championship events a different way of reading it is any event that is conference or tournament related so like a conference game yes versus a conference Championship game great clarification clarification question Dr shed um it would be a conference game too so if there's a Tuesday night conference game scheduled for girls basketball next week we would we would allow that game to to continue um have to
029review of the circumstances and situation but we'll allow that game to continue the interestingly enough with winter sports the conference turn the basically all sports I guess three out of five three out of four um are tournament related in that wrestling swimming and gymnastics um are are more of a tournament or or a day a meet a match and then basketball girls and boys are the individual games where you accumulate the games and you see who has the best record so it's really basketball we talk about when we look at that individual situation or individual game but similar to allowing Columbus East for example this past weekend on a Saturday uh did go down to Madison which is in Jefferson County which just turned red uh they went down won the conference Championship um if
030if our girls basketball team from East would have to go to Madison and play a game uh for a conference game we would also allow that occur hey Dr Robert yes I have a question more on the first um bullet you looked at Community metrics but I know Staffing of support staff and certified staff was a major player in our decisions earlier in the year how do we monitor that and would that be a consideration for moving forward in either of those circumstan great question Nikki appreciate that let me see if I through in my packet here we are blessed to have Kelly Thompson if you not met Kelly Kelly is right here as our director of health services and Kelly and her team the nurses in each of our buildings monitor that information for
031us so we are maintaining a spreadsheet of of Staff members and students who are who are have first tested positive and therefore aren't here um who are symptomatic and therefore aren't here and uh and or are close contact and therefore aren't here and and looking at those as unique numbers your close contact or your symptomatic or your your a positive test we then accumulate that number to see what we have and so um and and I'm not going I'm not going to be citing numbers I get them wrong but we were in the hundreds the high hundreds in the at the beginning of November when we made the decision to go to e-learning because we had a lot of students out and then um about 225 I think staff members out at that time um
032since that time and being in e-learning obviously we we've reduced and and and gotten that lower uh right now uh staff members we'd be looking at about 56 that are out of the building for one of those three reasons um so manageable um and and again based upon the sheer number is one thing right and then the job that those numbers do are are another thing and so if if those 56 are in a lot of positions that maybe could work from home office positions other things that could do that then that can be manageable if 56 teachers or heaven forbid 56 bus drivers um then that begins to be a real challenge because the operational piece of that but right now uh looking at the numbers we had and we had a quick meeting
033this afternoon just to catch up with where we are Staffing coming from last week to this week in pretty good shape in terms of who is out and how can we cover that or manage that to remain operational thank you you're welcome anything to add to that Kelly or Teresa okay Mr St to kind of follow up on Miss weldon's question do we have I'm assuming that we have but let us know if we don't have access to the right uh PPE sanitizing equipment so that the staff members that are responsible for external groups using our facility are able to make it ready for the external group and then also make it ready for school the next day yeah we will certainly reach out for help as we need that but Dr bosan is is
034uh on top of that and I I I believe in very good shape um in in regards to the groups coming in making sure they have what their need and the time that we need to turn it around and be clean for the next day we appreciate that question Mr St I the pp piece I would only add is that we continue to work on a on a way to get in 95 masks for some of our most vulnerable situations um teachers or other staff members that are that are working with um um situations that may put them in a again a more precarious situation I guess as as a way to put that that's not easy to come come by um with the numbers that we have and the my understanding of the 95
035masks and how you have to replace those every so often as well so still working on that puzzle U to make sure we can protect people as well as possible thank you all right I going to jump to then the third thing so looking at ances we're making for extra cricketers adjustments that have come up and then this snow day one so so I pose this interesting scenario to you um I think most people who know me recognize that I prefer in-person days to e-learning days and and I say that knowing that we recently passed a three-year calendar where we decided after surveying the community and doing all kinds of other work that we would not have two weeks of spring break NE next year next school year uh in the past this year included
036we've had a two weeks of spring break the first week is to be used for makeup days so we decided in the future that we're not going to do that that the first five days uh that we would have of snow days we'd make them up through e learning and then we look at making up other days in person at the end of the school year and we have a gap to do that that's not true this year's calendar we have a week a spring break week an extra one to make up days and right now there are three days sitting there but as we think about and I talked to Dr Bosman for example about the possibility of a snow day around the corner uh which we're now firmly entrenched in January that could
037happen at any time um what would we do because we have a hybrid model going on the secondary schools where half of the students are home already doing e-learning so that number approaches 3,000 kids that are already at home if we would decide tomorrow it's a snow day and we're not going to run our buses so does it beho us and also knowing that on Wednesdays all secondary students are at home so now we're at approaching 6,000 kids doesn't beho us to say that given the circumstances given the instructional models that we are going to do e-learning on a snow day and not use the first week of spring break to make up those days and I could say that we only do that while we're in hybrid but because we may be in hybrid
038for a few more weeks and then all of a sudden we're into February then all of a sudden we're trying to make a different decision in confusing uh parents uh in our in our community I would recommend that we make one determination and we stay with that determination throughout the remainder of this year so I I throw that up for for an open conversation it is a calendar piece and I had not talked to you this prior to this Dr sh but it may be something that based upon just the dialogue and the will of the the uh the board that we could put this as an approval item under my items and and change the calendar and just if if going with this recommendation wipe the the first week of spring break it will
039start on Wednesday March the 10th I think is that date and and that we would be doing e-learning for our our snow days so I pose that uh for your consideration and conversation if you're interested in that being an approved item because it is a calendar one um and you do approve the calendar we could move that as an approval item all right when it comes time so there comments or questions that colleagues have about that opportunity so so I'm going to translate that spring break would automatically be a 10day break or whatever that it's eight days because we're already using the Monday and Tuesday oh I think I'm counting okay yeah yeah yes that's correct so are there comments thoughts that my colleagues have about that I have a quick question um Dr Roberts
040is there a limit on the number of e-learning days that can be used for snow days does the state have a limit on that they do not okay no over the last six years probably that has continued to evolve and and become a lot more open and and now that is that is the case so good question but we we appreciate the question also looking forward it really doesn't well I guess it still could impact this year a little bit um for the next three years of calendar we had said five we would make up e-learning then after that we'd make them up physically and and um could entertain the same idea or concept here in that I I I e-learning days we we we've we've become quite Adept I think at utilizing that time
041engaging students delivering rigorous instruction it's just better when we have our kids in front of us and so we can do that so I I I hate to lean on just an e-learning day anytime with with a with a with no limit so maybe look at five again even this year since we've looked at the calendar for the next three years in that same way reflecting on how many emails we got when we even toyed with the idea of playing with fall break and families wanting to make plans there's a and just giving you know all the stresses and challenges of this school year my initial impression is that everyone would just be so much happier just say what it is and it be what it is and we'll just go that way so if
042we just say specifically it's going to be uh you know eight school day a 10day spring break period yeah I have a feeling a whole lot of people would be so much happier yeah I I would guess that's probably true too and and going back to the original thought of of why we' even proposed this because I think me and my team are on the same page and preferring in-person instruction um but given the fact that we have 3,000 students at home on on a given day that we call snow day already preparing to do e-learning and and then we say oh by the way you're not going to do any learning today I know you're home um we're just going to call this a snow day and you have to come back on Wednesday
043March the 10th seems a little interesting um and so we take take advantage I don't know if that's the right way to State it but given that circumstance stand um we we do e-learning for all and and uh we don't uh make up those days on those three but uh I would say that we we look at five as that is a possibility of e-learning days and then we we may have to add some days onto the end of the year but given our situation is that we would have Spring break start on Wednesday March the 10th I don't have a counter in front of me but I believe that's the that's the the date and um that's when spring break would start And to clarify though if we do call a snow day it's
044all the elementaries are at home when they're not at home right now that that's correct right so really the difference is that if we call snow day everybody's already is going to be at home period right so buses aren't running we're not having school everybody's at home we're not serving lunch we're not doing any of that uh so they're home um if if we adopt this idea and and say that it's going to be learning the differen is you're at home but now you're required to engage in school and um there are a few things we'll have to make sure and work out I know Dr hack we've had conversation already about are the machines at home um because our kids aren't necessarily taking home their devices every day at the elementary level so uh
045we do watch the forecast obviously with great interest uh all throughout the winter and and uh we'll be working to maybe send those devices home a little more often and regular than than we have been doing but um that's one of those things but given that uh we do have procedures in place for allowing for credit so if somebody did not take their device home Andor couldn't access the internet or all the other things that just happened when you're working through and with technology we have three days I believe uh that we extend beyond the actual day itself to turn in any work that was assigned and and still get credit for it so if a student isn't able to complete work that day or even the next day they are given uh an appropriate
046amount of time to get the work done and and completed Mr stenard did you have a question well it's kind of related to what Dr Roberts was talking about thank you the um in October November December we put a lot of infrastructure in place to support e-learning and I guess my question had to do with whether on a dime we can make all of that or most of it hopefully available again for a for a snow day Mr Williams would you care to respond to that I trust Mr Williams and his team that they can do that as Nick is grabbing a microphone um you know as you said Mr ster we we certainly put a lot of effort into both the infrastructure of our school system as well as than what people would be
047able to do at home including um delivering hundreds of hotpots uh to homes that did not have internet access and I believe those hotpots are probably still in place in those homes but yeah so the the devices at elementary don't always go home every night as as we stated the hot spots we have not collected just anticipating some you know we don't know what's going to happen in terms of type of schooling or weather related so those are still out um so and then we can shift staff based on on what needs there are to help with a help center things like that so the the support that we have given for E learning is is a little bit more manageable the way we have it set up currently thank you we have a so
048I'm gonna back up just a little bit because I'm trying to understand the rationale behind why we're doing this I guess um so if let's say on Friday we call it a snow day and okay it's a snow day everybody stays home then then they would do do e-learning that day so we don't I guess I'm trying to so we don't have to make it up later is that what the rationale is or yeah so so right now um based upon this year's calendar and our setting aside makeup days contrary to next year's calendar we're not setting aside those makeup days in in the in spring break uh we would have students on that Friday that you reference if we called no school this Friday everybody stays at home and everybody comes back on Wednesday
049March the 10th or or does whatever right because I don't know what the instructional model will look like right even on March 10th but they would do something on March 10th to get that day back given that we've been bouncing back and forth uh between in person and e-learning and on Friday even we have around 3,000 students that are home doing e-learning that we would just say everybody's at home and everybody's doing e-learning versus making them uh come back or or participate in the day of instruction on March the 10th okay so we just go ahead and use the day um and we came off of what I don't about 30 days of e-learning or so U prior to winter break and and and again have our secondary students doing that three days a week
050now and it seemed in our conversation as a cabinet that given that scenario why would we not go ahead and just do e learning um the the the biggest challenge is on Friday do we get did we get devices home with elementary students um to make sure that we could be as as engaging as we possibly can be with those elementary students so since they're doing the ear learning theoretically on Friday let's say a snow days Friday they'll do the e-learning then they wouldn't do the e-learning because we don't have built-in days this year is that what you're saying but next year we do no so we we have built-in days on we have two weeks of spring break this week this year two of the days have been used already Monday and Tuesday because
051we shifted the beginning of the school year back by two days so we had to make up those days so that's it's Monday and Tuesday of that week right now Wednesday Thursday Friday March 10th 11th and 12th we do not have school it's it's spring break unless we have to make up a day maybe we'll get no snow this year I always pray that that is going to be the case but um if we do and we have a snow day right now without any other decision we would call the snow day everybody stays home would be in school on March the 10th given this scenario what we're indicating is that instead of doing that um we would just take advantage of our e-learning that we've gotten in place uh take advantage of of all
052the work that Nick and his team have done and and and call a school day okay got it I just I I'm going to just you know coming from the perspective of remembering how snow days were as a student that's a good point yes I I I appreciate that we have a snow day oh we have to do e-learning darn but I think it's a I think it's a you know I totally get it it's a we had a conversation about that a couple of us I think too and I get that thank you for bringing that up and you know maybe we have to say you know get out and take an hour or two and throw snowball at each other or something like that and make sure that we understand that there is
053some fun PE is a part of the curriculum isn't it so going out sledding for a little bit or or or throwing a snowball at somebody as long as it's a soft one and doesn't hurt the other person um Can can be okay uh and we just might have to encourage some of that activity during the day and and realize and you know it our staff did a tremendous job uh first semester in bouncing back and forth between instructional models and and being as engaging and rigorous as they they could be given the circumstances to keep moving our kids forward uh that experience has given us um faith belief that if we do an e-learning day that it will be done well and our kids will benefit from it it it it it's the one
054thing um our experience that has shifted me from always having to make up a day to being able to do e-learning so yeah my recommendation given the circumstances and particularly given that such a large number of kids are already at home on the day we call a snow day it seemed like we would just say let's let's do you learning and that's what we're going to do this this winter even though that was not our initial plan thank you you're welcome other comments observations for consideration I mean the one observation I have is that school corporations who have already been doing this this is not like new don't talk about snow days anymore it's just we're announcing an e-learning day so what those of us who are used to all of that are just going
055to have to modify and we just don't use that term because we've had fog days in this community we've had flood days in this community so they're not just they never were just no and what I pledge to you as a board is it's not going to change our decision-making process we are going to call snow day because we have a learning available that that we will continue to to work very hard to get our kids here because whether they're home doing e-learning or not uh the environment that we provide here the safe secure warm in in the wintertime um environment as well as meals breakfast lunch before and after school care uh a host of services uh that we have when we have a day in session so we will be making the decision
056on a snow day wanting them to be here and then the decision if we have to call one to go to e-learning would be the the result so if I understood what you are asking us if you would like to add that on our agenda as what would be 8 H penil in as as an h under my request for approval and it would be what is uh here utilize learning days for up to five snow days this school year right and um yeah and so we'll put that on there and as we go through the meeting if you all have additional questions or concerns we can raise it at that time all right yes thank you aesome all right you done I am can can I ask a related question just because of all
057that we dealt with last semester could you speak a little bit to how um Staffing particularly at the elementary level and what percentage of our Learners are doing bridge and how's that balance of our staffing can um so second can hear just make sure I have everything in front of me um so heading into winter break and and hoping to be able to get back to inperson instruction we worried wondered about if we went to inperson instruction how many families would make the decision to go back to bridge or an online option uh because we had because of how well things went first nine weeks as we got through fall break we had a lot of students come back into the buildings from our remote options hundreds uh we went from about 28% of our
058um students being in an online option prior to fall break to 177% after so that that difference in terms of at least getting um to about 83% of our students being back in the buildings in person but we wondered again given the numbers and circumstances what would happen so we did a survey of of Elementary parents uh had almost 100% participation got those numbers ready to go were prepared to hire a a a decent number of elementary teachers if we had to to provide uh the remote option and and ended up not having to do much there because the and this may be wrong Laura but the the delta or the net change uh of students in a remote option at the elementary I'll cite that one first uh was about about 65 uh plus
05965 and so we we went from a number that we had prior to winner break the number that we had coming out of fall break and starting this uh semester even with the numbers the per capita numbers and everything that we've seen we had a plus 65 move to to um a remote option and that's out of about 700 that that based upon what decision they' made at the beginning of the school year um we thought we might have that same population that same group say it's the decision I made at the beginning of the year because of the numbers now it's the same decision I'm going to make for second semester that didn't happen a plus 65 at the high school level when we think about CVP and Bridge the couple of options that
060they they continue to use uh we had give and take we had students coming back we had students going to that we're looking at maybe a plus 20 uh going into the the remote option is the numbers it looks like at the secondary level it's a little bit different animal because our teachers are are kind of handling both models um at the elementary level we had assigned teachers to remote assigned teachers to in person so just again differently we handled those differently so not an not a significant increase to the number of students going into remote and therefore no large decisions that we had to make from a from a staffing standpoint okay so we we're in good shape with Staffing as we motor through um this quarter okay how's our how's our bus driver
061situation yeah it it I know there was a need for that there is Dr bson it continues to be one and it it it is an area that is challenging for us um however there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel Dr bosan was here I think he would he would State this we we have maybe as many people in training at this moment than we've had since I've been here um so I don't know what the past look like but in terms of number of people getting trained to drive a bus and getting that license and stepping into position the most right now and I would credit many people I start naming people but I know Missy and Josh and and Brett and others who put together uh an ad um
062to look for substitute teachers and bus drivers prior to winter break and we got that out in a lot of different places we had a lot of responses we had about 120 responses for substitute teachers and and uh um a large number of responses for bus drivers I think we have nine that are in training right now a number like that in terms of being becoming a bus driver so anyway uh we're not where we want to be yet but I we're moving in the right direction in terms of having having bench strength in terms of our of our buses awesome all right we'll move on then we will okay public comments and we do not have anybody Dr part of our Organization for starting a new calendar year is to go through our how
063the first thing is reorganization of our business services and I'll turn to Mr Phillips to [Music] elaborate uh good evening Dr shed these are just uh normal annual appointments uh for the calendar year these will come under approvals later um happy to answer any questions you might have about them all right good thank you uh let's let's do go ahead and call those to say the way we've got the agenda set up is we're going to vote on each of these sections as they are presented all right yeah so do you just ask for a motion for numbers three a through D I think would cover all right so do I have a motion from my colleagues to approve items a or three a through D the reorganization or the appointments related to our business
064services as they're presented on our agenda so move thank you Mr Bryant is there a second second thank you Miss aof wire any particular questions about these ra all those uh approve approving uh 3 a through D is presented to us if you'll signify by saying I I I any opposed Tada there you go Mr Phillips um the next thing on our agenda is the establishment of our board meetings remuneration and required notices um our remuneration is set by law no news there um designation of our newspaper is the Republic and then we have gone ahead and set our school board meeting dates and locations for the next to July 31st 2022 oh my goodness all right so um I'm going to propose these anyone to offer a motion for approval of 4 a through
065c as has been presented to us so moved thank you Dr bills is there a second second thank you Miss tof wire there any particular questions about these items I do have one question just about the locations sure um January 25th looks like starting January 25th we'll be going back into the schools again is that correct it should not be correct okay just just from the paper you gave so I wanted to make sure I I yes and I see the one you're looking at so we need to make adjustment the one you have in front is the uh Reflections it should also mirror what we have but yeah one thank you Dr bills appreciate you bringing that bring that up but yes we are going to remain um in this room through this school
066year and hopefully next school year can get back into the individual buildings and start rotating through okay thanks you're welcome thanks for asking that who knows what I would have done to my calendar and where I would have showed up I'm glad Dr BS mentioned that because on the reflection sheet that I gave you that has when you do Reflections we have not adjusted the the locations on that that sheet so it was just a reminder as to when you have Reflections we'll get those locations changed all right awesome so with that clarification um all those who approve for a for a through c as presented to us if you'll signify by saying I I and those opposed there you go we've got that done if I may make a comment just real quick Dr
067shed I know I talked with a couple of you that that some of those strategic plan sessions may may be a challenge sometimes and I think we run into that every year that 9:00 time frame may or may not work as long as we have the ability to from a Time standpoint notify publicly uh our stakeholders when how where and so forth we're going to meet we can make those adjustments so Todd for example a 9:00 meeting for your position may be awfully tough to make right uh given given when those dates are um so we'll look at those strategic planning sessions maybe in particular particular as we get closer to those dates and make any necessary modifications to to date time uh to try to accommodate as many of you as we possibly can
068all right thank you for that so next on our list is um approval of board appointments our bcsc health trusts district and Facilities diversity Leadership Council and our business Advisory Group so I will um entertain a motion to approve items 5 a through d as they are presented to us move thank you Mr Bryan is there a second second thank you Miss day Hof wire are there any particular questions about these proposed Representatives all right so um those who approve of 5 a through D is presented to us if you'd signify by saying I I I any opposed all right we got four down next I am not reading all of these but we have a through o and so for those of you who are watching or wondering what on Earth we're doing um
069our board members are liaison to a variety of um District school corporation and Community advisory boards there are a through o of them and we have proposed our um colleagues to be Representatives so I'll ask for a motion for approval of our members on 6 a through o as they're presented before you so Mo thank you Miss Welden is there a second second second thank you MRE um so are there any questions is anybody not excited about what they're being asked to do Dr shed yes M it was I that made the motion oh thank you you're welcome and Dr bills made this withk wielding listening skills mask is a talent all right thank you for that clarification welcome so um those in favor of the um board Representatives on items 6 a through o
070those in agreement with those presentations if you'd signify by saying I I any opposed yay we got that done um the next item on our list is the recommendations of closures of conflict of interest Mr Monroe would you like to elaborate on this particular item yes am I on you are on all right under Indiana Law public servants are required to disclose conflicts of interest U anyone who deres a financial benefit from their position in our situation Dr bills is required to file one because of her employment in I Tech and I Tech drives some income from bcsc from some students uh we have a number of staff that whose spouses work for bcsc that includes Dr Roberts Laura hack Brett Boseman George Van Horn and Bill Jensen and we also have a a dependent
071Chad Phillips and so all of those persons are required to sign and file a disclosure of a conflict of interest copy will be um kept here at the administration building and also a copy IS F the clerk of cours thank you very much and I know we and our board packets received more detail information so if I may I'll entertain a motion for approval of the recommendations for public disclosures of conflict of interest as presented to us by our board attorney move thank you Mr Bryant is there a second second thank you Mr Grimes are there particular questions of Mr Monroe that you have all right all those in favor of those recommendations if you'd signify by saying I I any opposed there you go Mr Monroe we got that done next on our list
072are um our requests for Dr Roberts they are presented to us as 8 a through G and we have added and H which relates to the calendar revision we spoke about earlier so Dr Roberts if you'd like to elaborate yeah for pretty simple tonight but we do have again the minutes of the regular school board meeting from December 14th our our last meeting the only meeting we had in December supplemental contracts a couple of book studies that we have going on in the in the school corporation and and people who are involved in those no request for field trips or professional leaves this time uh a a small list of school fundraisers uh claims and payroll uh we do have a couple of sets of of claims uh dated one set dated December 1st through
073December 31st that approached $38 million uh that report did include a repayment of tax anticipation warrants as well as our semiannual debt payments so those comeing around in in June and December and then additionally we have a set from today January the 11th or dated today that approaches about $313,000 from a payroll standpoint we did have two sets for you dated December 18th and January 1st that total is about $5.4 million and within those payrolls we did have on the 18th um the dates of November 23rd through December the 4th so was a regular payroll but on January 1st we had the dates of December 7th through December 18th regular payroll but also um an increase because of the referendum pay that became available so again thank you to our to our community for the
074support of that referendum those referendum dollars have now started to become a part of of the staff salaries uh for all employees of our school corporation and then lastly these are goes this goes back to all the reorganization stuff you've been doing tonight is that we do have appointments of Dr Roy good as our school physician and then uh Mr Chris Chris Monroe as your school board attorney so I ask for that additionally I do have then that letter H that we talked about during the covid-19 conversation which is to allow for I'm just going to back space to that language You' like e-learning days for up to five snow days this school year and that is based upon the rationale we provided at that time all right and that will be included in the
075minutes as to yes spring break has changed okay we have sherry on here and she will record that and make sure that that is in the minutes and we will communicate it this week besides any minutes and so forth if you approve this uh we'll communicate that this week through all of our um social media platforms websites Etc all right thank you than you so I'll entertain a motion for approval of 8 a through H as Dr Roberts has presented them to us so moved thank you Miss de hofire is there a second second thank you Miss Welden any particular questions that individuals have about these items all right so if you'll show your approval of 8 a through H as presented to us by signif by saying I I thank you is there anyone
076opposed yay we got those done Dr Roberts I think we are now through all the reorganization stuff with those FG included in there Dr shed so right yeah so now I'll turn to miss heiney resources recommendations thank you Dr shed at your places this evening you had an addition to the human resource recommendations that you received in your Friday packet um so I am requesting approval of both this addition and the human resource recommendations as presented all right thank you very much um I'll entertain a motion for approval of these recommendations so move thank you Miss de Hof dwire is there a second second second thank you Mr Grimes are there any particular questions individuals have of missing all right um those who approve the recommendations as presented if you signify by saying I I
077I any opposed we got that done Miss hiny thank you right so next on our agenda are the what and offer accommodations that you'd like to share are there any ACC commendations all right any school board member reports yes Mr Stenner kind of a a hybrid but I want to make sure to U commend everybody associated with uh Council for Youth Development and the exciting new project that uh the Republic reported on this week that they'll be undertaking in 2021 excellent excellent thank you very much any other Commendation part part board member report yes there you go both there there you go thank you all right we also have cabinet reports on the agenda and Mr Phillips it's all up to you good evening these are just a couple of brief reports that are required
078this is our uh once a semester extracurricular account reporting each building maintains extracurricular accounts um mainly just to collect money from students and families and then turn around and spend those those funds right back on those students and families through field trips and uh extracurricular things like Athletics um this just goes through the the uh July 1 through December 31 uh activity starting balance revenues expenditures and ending balance just uh you know there's nothing exciting about these reports at all but it it is interesting the things that change in a year like this the revenues compared to to a couple of years ago when you look back at the last couple years are down a million dollars now so are the expenditures so the balances are basically exactly the same as they were um two
079years ago but um it is interesting how much reduced flow of activity happens during a time when there are no field trips and there are no trips and there's restrictions on concessions and how many kids are or how many people are in athletic events so it's been a interesting comparison there I'll I'll say too uh while we're on this page I appreciate the attention to accuracy at Johnson Center that's right that's right just write that off they're not heavy users of the extracurricular account that's probably all interest there on something where the four cents came from so that the next uh requirement is in the month of July we're required to have a board of Finance report you as the the Board of Trustees also serve as the school district's Board of finance and then
080the officers for the were required to appoint um through this process there's not approval required on your part but um a president and secretary for the board of finance and we're required to review the investment tools um that we're allowed to use as per our own bcse policy um those are up there on the screen for you to review and then we we go over uh where we invested money during the last calendar year during 2020 and what the results of that were um you can see it this is our money market sweep account just our bank account um and at the beginning of the year it was earning a decent rate at least and then as you all saw if you invest in any sort of uh investment that's tied to rates um you
081know the FED fund rate or anything like that you can see that it dropped to nearly nothing and I can also confirm that we uh you can extend that through December we did get that notification this week so um the last basically three quarters of the year we earned 1500s of 1% on the money that we had in the bank we did not buy treasuries this year for the first time since I've since I've been in the office the uh yield on those was just so low it didn't it was not worthwhile to invest in a treasury um and then the bulk of our funds we actually put in a trust Indiana account the treasury uh for the state of Indiana actually runs an investment account that all municipalities can put their extra funds into
082and they go out and get a better the best rate they can anyway in the market and during the course of 2020 the return on those Investments were very close to what we get in our um our sweep account at First Financial Bank our our money market account and you can see the results of that low rate compared to the prior few years when we um we brought in nearly half a million dollars total in investment um in interest during 2017 and then 2019 was a was an outstanding year um we're down to about where we were oh somewhere between 2010 and 2011 so um this is the reason also that we don't rely heavily on interest income and budget for it for any sort of permanent expense like staff um so salaries are benefits
083because it just is subject to such fluctuations in the market before I move on to the next topic are there any questions about the Investments that uh we used in 2020 okay this is the second year for this last requirement here um the distressed unit appeals board um has been around for a long time but in the last two years um as a result of two districts in Indiana that got into some some pretty serious Financial uh trouble and the legislature had to bail them out I think one of the districts multiple times had to receive additional State funding uh we all as the legislature acted on that every District gets to do um jump through a whole bunch of extra hoops and and submit a bunch of extra reports um and you can go
084to that website now and see every District in the state of Indiana and see the fiscal indicators that the legislature um tasked the doab with uh creating um those were new last year and they revised them over break this year uh late December is when they came out and the data that they revised has some serious issues I've been in I've been in touch with the the folks at the distress unit appeals board and had those discussions with them about how the uh funds are being recorded so they're working on making some some adjustments there um but it's important to note that the indicators are lagging what they updated in December was all going all the way back to 2019 so the final 2019 numbers are what you can view at the end of December
085um it's also important to note that it's really difficult to capture the complexity that's in a district in just a half a dozen or so um numerical indicators it's it's really difficult to capture that which is why the the director of the program tell will tell you if you ask her she takes into account every piece of data that there is when she tries to identify districts um and then the the the final part of this and this is what's important for you all is that if we ever were to be identified as a distressed unit by the doab they would reach out to us Dr Roberts and myself first um The Board second and it's confidential and it's it's a yearslong process before they ever call you out in public and tell you that
086you're a distressed unit appeal a distressed unit um in the public sphere um basically you have to refuse to cooperate with them and not follow any of their recommendations before they will publicly shame you if you will um most importantly and last they're looking through the indicators I have no concern about bcs's fiscal Health any questions about the duab fiscal indicators no I mean I certainly appreciate the good news are there particular questions individuals have I just love saying it's acronym I think do you're not the only one do have sounds like it should be part of a song I'm sure Dr Roberts would sing it for us all yeah I think every time Chad mentions that acronym there's somebody starting to sing something all right before we end our meetings we always offer each
087of uh the board members to offer any comments any observations that they'd like to share before we end the meeting so I'll turn so I won't do this every time but since it's new I'll just ask each of you Mr Grimes or is there anything you'd like to add well I maybe have a question that might have been appropriate earlier um having just going back to the hybrid recently um H have you noticed any positive cases coming back at the secondary level and the number of kids being knocked out through contact tracing or is it still is the hybrid still too new here to really yeah have a noticeable difference we haven't seen anything Todd I don't I don't believe Kelly um but probably still too new to to make a judgment on whether that's
088good or bad or because of of the hybrid uh the other thing I would add is is even with all of the students in the building uh prior to to November when we went to e- learning and and whether it be Elementary or secondary the the number of of close contacts who then became an actual positive case was was almost zero so so very few cases that we could track to say because of this positive case close contact because of a school class close contact identified close contact at school classroom cafeteria team or something like that and say now this is a positive case the number was was was negligible um and that's prior to hybrid but again in one week we've not seen yet any data that uh that we would have but we'll
089continue to monitor that we believing that um we should have basically none because if you go into one of our buildings now our secondary schools if we would have a positive case I'm not sure we would have any close contacts there may be somebody based on somehow something's working but at least when they go into a classroom and and get after it there should be very very few close contacts for any one individual at this moment bill is that a a proper characterization of that okay Kelly anything to add to that okay thanks to all right thank you for asking we're trying very hard to stay healthy and on top of that Miss Welden uh first of all I'd like to say thank you to several people in the room the preparation that's given to
090board members ahead of these meetings is really is really pretty good I felt like I had lots of information thank you Nick for technology um everybody here has just been very very helpful and I appreciate that very much I will ask a lot of questions because I have lot of them one of them that I should have asked is what you say when there's em motion and so I understand it's so move is that right yeah okay I I I'm going to mark that one down okay so so if I if I am maybe not doing something right along some of these procedures please everyone feel like they can guide me with a heavy hand um I want to learn quickly okay um I'm I'm just grateful to be part of this team and and
091thank you all for having me wonderful thank you so much thank you me did she take Mr Cloud's place uh-huh I did that's why a lot of questions I'll let him explain that to you okay yes sir yes sir Nikki I think we did praise Mr Cole on his way out last month and told him that we appreciated the number of questions he asks so maybe that's coming iig big shoes to Phil I understand that Miss St H twice well welcome Mr Grimes and miss wiing and um this is probably you know from the outside looking in um sometimes being a board member is you know it seems like there you know things run really smoothly and the conversations and stuff but the homework that we get sometimes and the um messages and emails and
092stuff some and especially a year of referendum or controversy or something a Hot Topic you will get flooded and you know it is sometimes overwhelming because we all have our lives too but we also you know do our best to respond back to everyone and sometimes we you know we never can keep everybody happy but we certainly are their voices because they put us here I will comment I really like these slides so whoever did the slides Josh it's it's uh we continue to to work on that brand uh we we do appreciate Josh and his continued efforts to to make things look a little bit better than they may did before so well especially because the print is a little larger and I left my glasses in the car so I'm sitting here and
093it works out fabulous but um I will say I'm hopeful as uh you know with the new vaccines coming out and um just an interesting tidbit I know I'm not normally talkative but um my husband and I we got our vaccines for the co he got it Thursday he got fizer I got it Friday I got madna okay he had covid last March I did not have covid yet so the question is depending on what kinds of signs and symptoms so in my head I'm running this little experiment to see you know because we're both pretty healthy um he had a headache yesterday and not feeling well I have felt great so far so um we both finished our second doses in February and uh so I encourage everybody that can and feel comfortable with
094it you know it was very fast and furious with CR did a fabulous job the girls that gave the injections you know I've given them in the past and you know I looked to her I said you know that's probably the best injection I had in a long time so I'm hopeful that this would kind of curve this spread of Co and we can put this behind us as in close the history book on our pandemic and hopefully we can move forward in a more positive PA so thank you appreciate you sharing that M Mrs D if I could just comment real quick because that did um Spar of thought uh Kelly and her team are doing a a great job of putting processes in place to be ready for when they say that teachers
095or or School staff members can be vaccinated so once that Supply is available we will have we we do have a plan in place and of course we can take advantage of the many nurses that we have in the school corporation uh to help administer that here so we're looking forward to those doses coming to to us at some point in time awesome yeah yes thank you Mr Stenner well just say U quickly one more reason to be thankful that we continue to be able to have nurses in each of our buildings yes absolutely wonderful uh my input and review this evening I wanted to comment on on um how meaningful it was personally for me to hear three board members take the oath of office and at that time to remember U the oath
096that I've taken that all of us have taken uh to the service it just seems especially meaningful and I also wanted to say thank you to U our three board officers for the willingness to serve us as elected officers this year thank you thank you thank you very much Dr bills uh welcome uh Mr Grimes and Mr Mr felden I'm glad you're with us and um welcome to the board as I said earlier if there's anything we can do to help you or answer questions everybody on the board is very I'm willing to do that so I'm glad you're here and and welcome and I also wanted to ask a question because maybe it's me and I'm oblivious to things but have we always had red name tags as we're in the process of making
097things look better Dr Bill I will credit Sherry with um realizing that we had I think had blue placards for quite some time and and that really doesn't align with uh with our Corporation color scheme and and even the um skirts that are on the table are are new to from a neutral black so yeah little little doctoring of that so thanks to Sher Chrisman for her work to tidy things up hey thanks y Got a Good Eye Dr very good eye I am not usually really so Mr Brian there is a uh young lady Columbus North that's recently had a heart transplant um I just like for every I take a moment tonight and say a prayer for that young lady being 16 years old and having a heart transplant you know I I
098just just don't understand it but uh if you would say a little of prayer from her and to our new members welcome enjoy uh didn't mean anything about the car well thing yes he really did thank you you're welcome thank you thank you and again thank you both Mr Grimes and Miss wien you'll see that we do have fun and we also get lots of homework um and I appreciate um the trust that you have in my leadership and also in working with Dr bills and and Mr Bryant I will just also add it's always interesting to realize everything that we that we do as a board and all that we would have committees that are a20 I can't even count that but I was also struck that and just a continuous reminder as to
099the work and the role of a school corporation that we will have students that we are willingly giving six meals a day when they are off and not at school and the number of students that rely on the school corporation for their food um I appreciate our ability to do that our willingness to do that I know part of it is related to Federal funding um in this particular situation but I know we do it um as best we can and I appreciate we can manage our finances in such a way to afford that so forever a reminder of what a school corporation does for a community besides what happens literally in a classroom with that said our next meeting 25th it'll be at 6:30 we will be here we will continue to offer Zoom
100options for those who are uncomfortable being in our space but we do have fun and we do laugh and it's not easy to do on Zoom so just saying but I want everyone to be safe with that said I will call this meeting a journ thank you very much thank you I'm going to stop sharing for those who are online