10/19/2020 BCSC School Board Meeting

001our sessions normally with a reflection shared by one of our school board members tonight miss kathy reflections kathy thank you october 2020 reflections as we are now halfway into october and during this year's pandemic i would like to share some interesting facts and personal thoughts i have reflected on these past few months october has always been my favorite month marching band competitions football games oktoberfest ethnic expo and the most beautiful splash of color god blesses us with each year we often go horseback riding and attend the kelp's annual farm fest to gather pumpkins go on hay rides and have a bowl of bean soup that was cooked on an open fire in the big black cauldron making memories for sure the kelps farm fest tradition has been in in our family for us for the

002last 23 years as we trekked there this year we knew covid would cancel the festival however for my 19 year old daughter we still go and get pumpkins and take the annual sibling photo on the old fall decorated wagon with their pumpkins this is the annual tradition that she and her 20 year old brother will not let go for a long time so what is special about the month of october it is the second autumn month national fire prevention week falls during the week of october 9th each year there are many health observances that have october as their national month these include healthy lungs breast cancer lupus spinal bifida blindness sudden infant death syndrome and down syndrome awareness the annual columbus area down syndrome support group had a virtual annual buddy walk this year this

003raises money for support of families that have had a child with trisomy 21 aka down syndrome october for me also reminds us of our annual flu shots getting my annual mammograms screening and fall break this fall break we elected to stay home october 19th today marks my best friend julie allen hall's birthday the gift that will never change is our daughters being born on the same day the 26th of january but the most important gift i received on this day in 1999 was my son james james was born three weeks early he was due to arrive november 1st all saints day and my two nephews birthdays however he decided to come the day before a large county full-scale exercise that i was coordinating seven pounds five ounces and 19 inches long beautiful delivery was fast

004and furious lasting 20 minutes james was born october 19th his right lung was not completely developed and we were transferred to the nicu unit in riley hospital after a week-long stay riley at riley we were coming home on oxygen james was born with trisomy 21. you know this as down syndrome he did not have many markers and prior to delivery i was tested and there were no indications that he was he would present with any abnormalities i am blessed to live in bartholomew county with my work at homeland security i had the opportunity to tour other schools and see what their inclusion program was it was shocking to me thank you dr van horn for fighting the fight to keep our kids mainstreamed because of the support of james's teachers and his village james had

005the best education pre-k through 12 i could ask for he was homecoming cr homecoming king ran unified track and won state their junior year com completed several 5k runs wrestled at central and received third place in his weight class at the tri-county tournament he was safety patrol and must the mustang mascot at south side he earned his aerial light in cub scouts and achieved his rank of eagle scalp at age 16. he also earned double bronze ponds palms as well he graduated with a core 40 diploma with his sister as they took a bow on on the stage to their classmates who of whom without would have been a struggle to achieve all he had he works at freddy's since 2018. he attended an adult leadership course in scouting called wood badge and was asked

006to be on staff this year he worked at dollar general store and most recently attended and graduated erskine greene trainingist to in muncie in the heart of the hotel program laundry houseman and housekeeper on october 9th he became a new homeowner he moved out last week he can't he can ride the buses pay for meals and go shopping independently of course there are some challenges but don't we all have them today my son is 21. labor and delivery was a whirlwind of events was just the beginning i remember being very determined to ensure he was given all the resources possible to achieve what he could achieve though james does not know he has trisomy 21 as we know he would use it as an excuse there was not a lot of information that would prepare

007me to give birth to a child with this different ability but i have faith that this was part of the plan i remember the best advice i was given at riley hospital when we were getting ready to leave and demonical a social worker asked me if there were any other questions that i had i said yes what do i do with him to help him and care for him she stated as every day i think of this you take him home you love him you care for him like any other baby you discipline him when he when needed and you teach him most of all you're his mother his biggest fan and advocate for him he is a little boy first not a disability that will grow up to be a wonderful and that will

008grow up to be wonderful enjoy this journey that god has blessed you and your family with my journey with james i would not change it at all most parents would agree there is a different joy that is brought to us that other parents do not get to experience i am blessed that james loves to share this joy with all of his friends teachers family and community there's a poem that was given to me very early uh when we had when we came after we came home from the hospital it's called welcome to holland this is um by emily pearl kinsley and it starts by saying i am often i am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience

009and understand it to imagine how it would feel it is like this when you're going to have a baby it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip to italy you buy a bunch of guide books and make wonderful plans to see the colosseums and michael michelangelo david the gondolas to in venice you may learn some handy phrases in italian it it's all very exciting after months of eager anticipation the day finally arrives you pack your bags and off you go several hours later the plane lands the stewardess comes in and says welcome to holland holland you say what do you mean holland i signed up for italy i'm supposed to be in italy all my life i dreamed of going to italy but there's been a change in the flight plan they've landed in holland and

010there you must stay the important thing is they haven't taken you to a horrible disgusting filthy place full of pestilence famine and disease it's just a different place so you must go out and buy new guide books and you must learn a whole new language and you will meet a whole new group of people you never would have met it's just a different place it's slower paced than italy less flashy than italy but after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath you look around and you begin to notice holland has windmills and holland has tulips holland is has even has rembrandts but everyone you know is busy coming and going from italy and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there and for the rest of your life

011you will say yes that's where i was supposed to go that's what i have planned and the pain of that will never ever ever go away because the loss of that dream is very very significant loss but if you spend your time mourning the fact that you didn't get to go to italy you may never be free to enjoy the very special and very lovely things about holland happy birthday to james who turns 21 today thank you for sharing this adventure we call life we are so proud of you and i would never change it nor do i regret going to italy i like being different and i feel more engaged on this journey with you and the fact that you're taking me on it may the lord continue his blessings on you and you

012continue to share and show the world your capabilities of your different abilities thank you kathy thank you for sharing that very personal and intimate reflections with us most of us have got the opportunity to know james as you're recounting his accomplishments it made me tired just knowing how much he's already crammed into the first 21 years and i know he's got a lot ahead of him thanks thanks again for sharing that that's wonderful thank you and happy birthday james if you're able would you join me and stand in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all dr bills is not able to be with us this evening with

013the rest of our boards here so we have a quorum therefore i call this meeting to order our bcsc mission vision and high expectation objectives are posted in the room for us as we work through our opportunities this evening i will i think immediately gavel out and we'll have a public meeting um on the bcsa cea tentative agreement dr robertson chad thank you mr caldwell i'm going to call mr phillips up and uh we'll run through information in regards to the tentative agreement uh with our collective or with the columbus educators association in preparation for our collective bargaining agreement all right thank you dr roberts i will go through this relatively quickly i've done this a few times in the last few days so um board members if you have any questions there's no actions

014for you to take this evening but this is a public meeting but we'll run through the information real quickly for both parties so um relatively involved process with collective bargaining as always started back in june with informal negotiations and then those negotiations become formal in on october sorry september 15th after we um after we get the official adm count or at least unofficial adm count and then it has to conclude before november 15th but we're lucky this year to be wrapping up relatively early the last action there will be proposed this friday in a special board meeting to vote on this tentative agreement i want to thank the members of the bargaining team at least a few of whom are here tonight i know um amy london and dakota huddleston are here for the teachers

015association scott rayburn as well scott this guy snuck in back there and then also uh john green dr roberts of course teresa heine and john green could not be here tonight and then dr shed and mr caldwell also tag-teamed being at all of the meetings when they could so something we decided to do differently this year is is kind of add some context to the current collective bargaining gram by look at some of the things we've been able to accomplish in the last the last two contracts prior to this the first of those being a two-year contract passed back in 2017 and in that contract we were able to reestablish a salary schedule that had been lost after 2011's legislative session when the legislature prevented us from having regular steps built into a schedule we

016started raised the starting salary over those two years for teachers from thirty six thousand seven twenty to thirty eight seven fifty five and a half percent increase in two years we also built into that salary schedule a permanent full-step increase for teachers that already had a master's degree at the beginning of that 2017 school year and so that has been built into each year permanent increases the teachers association passed that contract with 90 percent vote and average teacher increases were 3.2 and 2.3 percent during those two contract years then last year's contract was um probably the most challenging one that i've been a part of since 2005 2005 6 when we had the last health trust crisis in 2005 6. on top of that we lost 47 kids on adm compared to the pre or

017fall previous fall and and so it was a extra challenging year that year in spite of that we were able to provide two and a half percent increases average of two and a half percent um for teachers over that period of time raised the starting salary again and then we're able to stabilize um health trust reserves because of the changes that we worked with the teachers association to implement as painful as those might have been and then uh it was after this contract passed that you remember you uh approved a transfer of 1.4 million dollars from the rainy day fund to permanently move up the starting date of teachers contracts and then maybe most importantly at least in the last four years for teacher compensation this last june we passed a referendum campaign thanks to

018the community thanks to the voters of this community for their support of our teachers and our school corporation so some of the challenges that came into coming into bargaining this year that you're aware of the adm count was up i'll go over this in detail here in a little bit but still down from 2018 and even 2017 prior to that questions about how the state is going to handle virtual attendance in the future after january 1st the continued trend of losing adm from fall to spring and then in my opinion maybe the most important factor is what's coming out of the legislature this spring as they really tackle a difficult time with lower tax collections and then of course we mentioned i think at the last board meeting mr caldwell you mentioned the need to

019restore staffing levels to where we were prior to to this year so one of the other things we noted as we entered into negotiations this year is all of the things that are going to be occurring around teacher compensation during the course of this school year starting with a extra half day of pay that teachers came in early and and got the year um worked hard to get the year started well in spite of all the challenges from covet 19. teacher appreciation grants should come in december again this year we expect the salary increases if you if all goes well and you approve this contract on friday the salary increases and retroactive pay for teachers should occur on november the november 20th paycheck and then referendum increases and associated stipends would go into effect on

020january 1st and then the approve you all approved setting aside 250 000 for stipends for teachers teaching on multiple platforms and we would anticipate paying those out in february a lot of things happening in the course of this this school year when it comes to teacher compensation so the overview of the agreement is that returning teachers take a step on the salary scale the steps remain between each step except for the last one which i'll show you here in a minute that average is a two percent increase for all teachers uh in addition to that a two percent increase on the appendix b and c which is the uh the extracurricular and co-curricular uh schedule that we have for teachers doing additional duties um you also approved two meetings ago i believe changing the definition

021of covering covering another teacher's class from period to hour and then we also have this every five to seven years a 27 calendar pay issue and we'll get into the details on that we came up with a what we think is a productive way of addressing that problem and then you know we're not for the support of our community and that operating referendum that passed this spring we certainly would not be celebrating a two percent increase this year would we so we're not for for the support of our community this would not be um as much of a celebration as we feel it is around supporting our teachers the teacher referendum increases will be five ten and fifteen thousand dollars which is what we have um we had proposed during the campaign the referendum campaign

022and those are based on years of experience the maximum salary is eighty five thousand dollars between the base and the referendum increase and then we also included stipends for all teachers who don't qualify for an experience increase from the referendum here's the new uh the old teacher salary schedule which will look very much like the new one on the right with the exception of the last step that we just added uh added a 1200 to the last step at the end but other than that the salary schedules are identical as as it seems like we always do we spend a tremendous amount of time during bargaining talking about uh the teachers that are above the scale we have um as the contracts have changed with legislative requirements going back to the beginning of this decade

023we've had teachers that have been all over the place on the scale and so we have a group of teachers we have to address usual usually addressed individually during the course of bargaining and so those there are there are two groups of those teachers between the current top of the scale and the new top of the scale and they are all over the place in between there they will move to the top of the scale and receive a stipend for the difference between their increase on the base and six hundred dollars so no one gets less than six hundred dollars at the top and there are a couple of examples in there and any teacher above the current top of the scale receives a six hundred dollar stipend it's important to note that every one

024of these teachers between their base increase and their referendum increase will be earning seven or sorry eighty five thousand dollars during the course of the next school year starting this january because that's the maximum salary and they're all within range to get to that maximum salary but the stipend is meant to make up for the fact that they miss out on some retro pay for this first six months six months of this contract year and so they will still earn they will still earn the same as teachers not at that level here's some detail on the referendum increases what we decided to do after many many meetings this spring was grant one point for each year of experience of bcsc experience for teachers and then a third of a point for each year of experience

025outside of bcsc the point being here that we want to reward teachers that come to us from outside of the district but our kids and our community didn't benefit from the years that they were teaching somewhere else but now our kids well now that they're uh they're in our schools teaching for our kids and so those points then determine what their increase will be any teacher with five between five and and uh 9.9 points at the beginning of the year will receive a five thousand dollar annual increase and then it's ten thousand and fifteen thousand for the next level of each of those points again the base and the referendum cannot exceed that eighty five thousand dollar maximum it is important to note that we cannot spend any referendum dollars until january 1st and so

026these stipends are for an entire school year because they're only be paid out for half of the school year each of these teachers this will be a twenty five hundred dollar increase for the first group five thousand for the second group and seventy five hundred dollars for the third group starting january first and um paying out through august 13th so there's 17 pays and then starting on that first pay in the next contract here it's the whole 5 000 10 000 or 15 000. teachers not earning a referendum increase will be paid a stipend in january we estimate that amount based on the the amount of dollars set aside for those stipends it's a fixed amount of dollars 130 thousand dollars to be paid in stipends to those teachers that don't qualify but until we

027know exactly how many teachers qualify based on years of experience we can't quite determine what that amount will be but it will be between somewhere between four and five hundred dollars for every teacher who doesn't qualify for a experience bump because of the referendum every few years probably every six years on average there will be 27 paychecks in a calendar year and all public entities from a budget perspective counties cities schools we all run into this and from a cash flow issue it creates a couple of million dollar issue for us if we pay 27 pays out in one calendar year and so every uh every everyone does addresses this problem a little differently the most common way is the way that we have done it in the past which is to delay the first

028paycheck of the contract year in august by one week and so every certified teacher and administrator went three weeks between pay and that reset the button until six years later when you had to uh you had to do this again working with the cea they surveyed their members and said how would you like to address this problem this time and we decided to take the first nine paychecks of next contract year those are between i believe august uh 26th or so and december 31st there would be 10 checks in that period we're just taking the 9 pays and spreading them across the 10 checks keeping the schedule in place so it's still every 2 weeks just each of those checks is about 11 percent less for each check the collective amount of money being the

029exact same amount of money that they would earn if we skipped a week and went three weeks between pays there's no difference in their income for the calendar year this just saves them from having to to skip an entire week of getting paid and that was our collective solution the best part of this from the the guy who helps direct the payroll department in our in our school corporation is that if we implement this solution we don't have to deal with this problem again until 2032. so that's the best part of that from my perspective the teachers are in the middle of their vote right now they voted today and they'll vote again continue that voting tomorrow and pending the results of that vote we'll have a special board meeting on friday night friday afternoon

030four o'clock in this room i believe and ask for your approval of this tentative agreement happy to take any questions at this time thank you chad well dr roberts anything you would add i appreciate chad's explanation of uh the process that we went through and the result that we have and appreciate certainly the efforts of our columbus educators association as we came to this agreement so i'm hoping that it is something you'll see fit to approve as we finish up the process board members any questions for mr phillips sir could i just ask a clarifying question i should know this but i forgot so okay so whether their points a teacher's points for referendum pay is for the 2021 school year is it counting that or it's counting 1920 dude am i making any sense

031so how many so do they have five years because they completed 1920 or are we counting 2021 as one of the year we will for each year we will count the the points that they have at the beginning of the school year okay so the points they had in august of this year is what will determine what their increase is on january 1st next august it will determine their increase for that entire school year 21 22 school year okay so it's determined at the beginning of the school year each year okay so there could be teachers who are getting a different a referendum increase in august of 21. correct there are a large number as a matter of fact that are some that some that will not qualify in january for an increase but then

032due immediately in august when we start school right awesome all right thank you any other questions just thank you appreciate the presentation all the work that went into it curious about how we the 27 pay problem happens in an irs year it is the the contractor you'll vote on friday um sets our expectation for any time we have would have 27 pays in a calendar year and so it will apply next year because it's not just for now it says basically any calendar year in which 27 pay periods would fall this is the way the school corporation will handle it just assume that that language correct thank you 720. chad i think you clarified that the referendum funding for at least teacher compensation certified staff compensation is a calendar year 21 through calendar year 28

033set of funding is what is what's the the community voted on that's correct right so uh well as whatever those how are those contracts roll out in the future that'll be the end of it until there's another referendum approved or whatever the community decides right dr roberts i would encourage you not to lose a lot of sleep worrying about 2032 and yes all right all right if there's no other questions thank you mr phillips for your presentation i'll gavel back in this board meeting is back in session uh we um start this evening with a presentation about uh social emotional learning i think dr hack and mrs frazier are going to join us and update us on seo good evening my name is sarah frazier and i am the social and emotional learning curriculum coordinator

034for bcsc i want to thank mr caldwell and dr roberts and the board members for allowing me to speak this evening also i'd like to thank dr hack and mr jensen for making sel a priority in our school buildings today we're going to be talking about social emotional learning in our district and the sel supports for not only students but also for teachers and staff i want to start with a little quote that says educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all this quote is from edutopia.org but it's true we educate students not only academically but we also need to be looking at the whole child and educating them emotionally physically and mentally and making sure that they are well and prepared to learn in the classroom so what is social

035and emotional learning according to castle which is the collaborative for academic social and emotional learning scl is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge skills and attitudes to develop healthy identities engage or manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals feel and show empathy for others establish and maintain supportive relationships and make responsible and caring decisions there are two graphics on the screen the first graphic um comes from castle and it shows their five core sel competencies castle is the gold standard um if you will of social and emotional learning and the state of indiana has done a great job at modeling after this graphic so they have created their own sel competencies using the same five that castle has but also adding in two additional competencies which

036are mindset and sensory motor integration and this happened with the collaboration of their social and emotional behavior wellness team at the state level what are the benefits of sel well research confirms that social and emotional competencies can be taught they can be modeled practiced and lead to positive student outcomes that are important for success in school and in life there are four benefits here on the screen but i'd like to highlight too especially due to the covet 19 pandemic sel can improve students social and emotional skills attitudes relationships academic performance and perceptions of classroom and school climate and also create a decline in students anxiety behavior and substance use i'd like to thank dr roberts dr hack and kelly thompson for allowing me to be a part of our district's reopening plan this here is

037a snippet of the social and emotional part of that reopening plan because this was put into place schools in bcsc are prioritizing safety connection and relationships in all of our buildings the developmental relationships search institute has done years of research and has found that these relationships are powerful in young people's lives these relationships build on search institutes work with the developmental assets as well these relationships are providing student support expanding their possibilities challenging students growth sharing power and expressing care for students through community partnerships working with heather carson the director of the council for youth development and receiving elbow dollars and heritage fund dollars we have been able to think differently about sel and all of our buildings thank you to these partners as well as counseling counts for promoting this work and supporting this

038work in the district supporting students sel needs um with that safety connection and relationships focus first thing i'd like to highlight is igniting sparks sparks are the interests and passions that young people have within them that light a fire in their lives and expresses the essence of who they are and what they offer to the world and i would like for you to think about what your spark is as an adult it's just as important for adults to have a spark as well as children search institute has repeatedly found that students with sparks and the support for developing them have better results both developmentally and academically and the council for youth development had their youth summit this year and the theme was igniting sparks they put together a panel discussion and short documentary that students

039were able to participate in virtually also heather carson and partners at foundation for youth and council for youth development created a spark a workbook as well as additional activities that we promoted in the schools and many of our teachers took advantage of that opportunity some teachers and counselors are doing spark minute meetings where they meet with young students in kindergarten through second grade and they create a slide presentation of what their sparks are third through sixth graders have been creating their own spark slides because they do know how to navigate google slides much easier than our younger students also we've been using a software program called wordle and it creates students sparks into a collage that braylon nolting our lead counselor who is at richards has been putting outside of students classroom doors so as

040students walk through the hallway they're able to see what sparks everyone has in each classroom and also we've been asking teachers to promote these sparks during their morning meetings and some counselors have been promoting them through their college go week as well another thing i'd like to talk about are welcoming and inclusion activities these include greeting students by name at the door welcoming them also having teacher and student call backs or call in response promoting morning meetings and also restorative circles in classrooms and creating that overall culture of empathy engaging practices is another component i'd like to highlight we try to re-teach and model pbis expectations in our classrooms also promoting collaborative learning experiences through kagan structures just trying to get students to interact with each other as much as possible and also incorporating regulation

041tools and regulation stations in classrooms each of you was given one regulation tool which is a stress ball that can be used just to calm the brain and have students ready to attend to tasks easier also you were given a gratitude journal this is a gratitude journal for kids all of our third graders in the district were given these journals they focus attention on the positives that are happening in their lives and research suggests that feelings of gratitude may even possess some mental and physical health benefits as well so that is yours to keep hopefully you have a young person in your life that would be able to use that journal or possibly you could model some of the things that are in it for yourself our elementary bridge students were given a bridge bag

042and inside those bridge bags was an sel tool a regulation tool or a book or social emotional resource that could be used at home also our teachers are promoting brain intervals and physical activity and trying to get the kids out to get some fresh air and lastly optimistic closures this is just a positive way to end the day and remind the students that they are a part of a school community and that they are cared and loved for when they leave the classroom each day and i have a few graphics here there's a video in the middle the wordle collage is on your left this is an example from a richards classroom in fourth grade and also the poster over here on the right is from mount healthy they drew out their sparks on note

043cards and put them on posters and posted them around the building the video that we're gonna watch is a fourth grader at richards and he is talking through his spark slides erwin sparkman in fourth grade mrs renner my spark is playing hockey i feel my spark by training myself and getting ready i found my spark in 2020 what makes me special the best about me is i help other hockey players i am very nice spark support my dad helps me with my sport my coach teaches me how to do stuff my mom helps me with my spa i can help someone on my hockey team how to do stuff who am i in the future i want to play in the nhl i will have two or three pets and maybe one kid i will

044live in columbus ohio so bringing a little bit of student voice into the board meeting i thought you would enjoy seeing that hmm mr williams is there a trick here we go all right sel instruction for students um first thing is sel curriculum thank you again to the ellwood and heritage fund dollars for making this possible um i teach a life skills training curriculum to all of our fourth graders in the district life skills training started in the secondary level and then filtered its way down to the elementary level foundation for youth and communities that care help get that curriculum to our secondary students i also teach too good for drugs by the mendez foundation and this is a curriculum that all first graders in our district receives secondary has advisory and during advisory on

045alternating days their focus is on building sel skills developing positive relationships and acquiring developmental assets educational neuroscience is something that our teachers are focusing on and that's just helping students create an awareness of how their brains work focusing on the brain states their survival brain state emotional brain state and surviv excuse me executive function and knowing what they can do to self-regulate and help calm themselves down is something that teachers are working hard at and also promoting brain intervals sel competencies teachers are working at embedding these competencies intentionally in their work in the classroom and those competencies include mindset sensory motor integration connection collaboration insight regulation and critical thinking skills and lastly three signature practices hassle promotes these practices and those are welcoming inclusion activities engaging practices and optimistic closures and just a few pictures

046i would like to share with you in the top three pictures you will see morning meetings happening in buildings mrs brenda freidy over here in the top right she has some bridge students but then also traditional students and so during their morning meeting she's carrying around her chromebook and letting kids who are having online school see kids who are in the traditional setting so again fostering that community the brain states on the bulletin board are posted at mount healthy elementary school they are working hard on conscious discipline and implementing those practices in their building as well as practicing a breathing technique this is called pretzel breathing and all you have to do you can practice it with me is stick your arms out and cross them thumbs down interlace your fingers pull it in put

047your thumb on your chin and you take four deep breaths in through your nose out through your mouth and through your nose out through your mouth and you do this two more times four to five times and it just helps kids um center that crossing their midline and getting them centered and relaxed to continue the work throughout their day and then this is a bulletin board at southside elementary school be the i in kind promoting kindness in students and then supporting our new teachers these are the ways that i am helping to support new teachers in our district and in bcsc we do a beautiful job with our new teachers we go above and beyond with these individuals by providing professional development supporting them through new teacher academy and then also meeting them one on

048one to help promote their sel needs and thank you to dr heck for starting this work five years ago and continuing it today supporting our staff sel needs we are promoting staff self-care allowing teachers to take breaks when needed and also promoting them to have accountability partners someone that they can talk to throughout the day and relate with also we have bcsc health and wellness newsletters braylon nolting our lead counselor who is at richards elementary school she and i collaborate on these newsletters we send them out once a month and i gave you a copy of one of our recent health and wellness newsletters for you to take a look at these newsletters focus on community mental health resources wellness tips self-care tips and also how teachers can integrate these sel competencies into their classrooms

049also mindful monday tips and tricks i put these tips in our principal's monday notes so that they can share with their teachers and staff they focus on self-care mental health and wellness tips as well and then we provide our staff with professional development administrators modeling these three signature practices that we've talked about in their staff meetings to show teachers how they could implement that into their classroom also we are having a care for yourself care for others administrator pd with dr sandy washburn and deanna nybarger our partnership with iu that is coming up next week and conscious discipline book study with dr sandy washburn and deanna nybarger our principals are involved with that as well as a small group of teachers to learn how the brain works and how we can bridge pbis and also

050sel and counseling counts developmental assets team our elementary team promoting aces and also developmental assets and relationship resources that we can share with our buildings and community partnership with cyd council for youth development also providing developmental asset developmental relationship and trauma-informed pd through zoom heather carson and i are putting together some webinars kind of 101 sessions if you will with developmental assets and developmental relationships so hopefully we can get those out on the vcsc website soon so others can take part in that professional development any questions with what i've presented to you this evening mr stenner i'm curious completely supportive of what we're doing here how would we what are some of the measures that we're putting in place how do we know that this is working for us how will we be different from

051some districts where maybe they're not putting as much emphasis on seo sure um at the curriculum level for elementary my first and second grade or first and fourth grade teachers excuse me um they are taking a pre-survey and post-survey before instruction is given but then also at the end of instruction to see if their views have changed if they have learned more information i'm using that as a measure also our students in grades 4 through 12 take the developmental asset profile survey every other year and we're able to gather data on our students to see if we are meeting their needs and if we're on track other questions i i don't know that this is a question i'm just curious how we support the families because i do they're only with us six or seven

052hours a day so i'm curious if that's something that we already do or we aspire to do or what's going home as well okay i think that's something that many schools are doing i know our bcsc health and wellness newsletters are also shared with parents and families i also include parent information in my first and fourth grade instruction that goes home as well as they're called home workout activities so they're additional activities that parents can do with their children at home to help promote these skills and also through community building and what principals are also putting out there on social media and in their school newsletters they're providing wellness tips for families and also just promoting that overall sense of community in each of their buildings so our families are very comfortable coming to teachers

053and to principals for questions and for help great thank you what grade level is getting this third grade really lot of a lot of stuff in there for a third grade yeah that's good and what's a kegen structure kagan structures are cooperative learning um strategies and techniques ways that you can group students um ways to help students know when it's their turn to speak they have shoulder partners or partners across tables from them it just allows it teaches students how to communicate effectively with each other but also promotes sense of community as well okay and that can be academically um or that can just be a get to know you activity something fun as well okay thanks let's call them one more question what would you like to be doing if we haven't started yet

054well um you know that's a great question i didn't think about that one um i think the work that we're doing right now is going to lead to some really great things coming up i'm really excited about the conscious discipline book study that we are creating um by creating these teacher teams they are going to be somewhat support groups if you will for me to help um make sure that i am helping each building get what they need and really getting teachers on board with promoting sel and making sure that that is a priority in their classroom i think that is something that i'm looking forward to and excited about to help push this even further so may i i'm sorry so just to follow up from mr stenner's question i'm curious so what do

055you imagine will be different in middle schools and high schools as we have done this at the elementary level i get more well i'm anxious for everyone but i get increasingly anxious about middle school and high school students i'm i'm hopeful that this is setting the groundwork um early and it will carry on with them as they go through middle school and through high school i think having that time for advisory and dedicating that time to help our adolescents in these areas is really helpful so hopefully we are setting that groundwork to help this keep going through the older grades and for the teachers as well and for the teachers as well absolutely thank you mr frazier thank you dr roberts we have a update from you on the reopening plan you do i think

056each time we start this i'll be brief so we'll see if that's true obviously this time we'll bring you up to speed with at least the numbers and so forth in regards to our reopening uh of school this school year as well as give you a proposal to consider later uh on our action items so just a very quick number 11 307 is the k-12 students that we have from that count date on september the 18th we'll jump into more specific information about that during cabinet reports under mr phillips from a mass compliance standpoint we continue to monitor that you can see the bullet point at the bottom is the way that we're continuing to gather that data from a combination of a variety of methods elementary is at 97.1 percent now secondary about 93

057and overall if we take all of our buildings and combine them it's at 95.5 so just trying to continue to measure that and and get the best compliance uh we we can so that elementary number is up from the last time we saw it is up the secondary meter is lower a tad lower yes yep that is correct physical distancing we've mentioned this is our biggest challenge through each week that we've had a conversation about mitigation strategies and covet 19. i'll reference a hybrid model here and go into more detail about that in a little bit what a hybrid model could do for us if needed due to community spread of covet 19 is reduced simply reduce the building student population by up to 50 percent in regards to physical distancing and its challenges we

058are having students return to in-person instruction so as we went toward fall break we did ask parents students who are participating in our remote options to make a commitment to that option or return to in-person learning for this second nine weeks of the semester up on our return and we've had some variations in and perhaps what was given to us in terms of feedback from parents and students but it looks like we have 681 students back or 42 of the students who were in our remote in one of our remote options returning and 218 students to secondary level or about 25 returning of our middle and high schools a higher percentage returned at the middle school than did at the high school and we take those students now add them back in person to our

059buildings we now have approximately 81 percent of our students back in our buildings that is versus 72 percent when we were having these diet these conversations dialogues at the beginning of the school year so we now are back up to over 80 percent of our students back in the buildings from a government 19 measurement standpoint i think is this the most recent one i didn't do the check at five o'clock to make sure what was on the community's covet 19 website but this is what should have been so up through yesterday sunday october the 18th you can see we've now been in red after we left fall break so saturday october the 10th is where 10.1 put us into red and we've been in a red since that point in time you can then see

060that the per capita rate is increasing the percent positive test rate now increasing so we've gotten to near 11 um and then the test turnaround time has actually dropped a tad and the hospitalizations have actually remained relatively stable throughout this this increase in per capita and positive test rates i put a note at the top that i found interesting and i'll i'll show you another slide in a second that says that labor day weekend began friday september 4th which is 42 days before friday october the 16th which is where we got to a 15.2 that number is important when i show the next slide and 36 days before saturday october the 10th when red was at 10.1 and 10.1 putting us into the red so looking at this indicator sheet from back in august uh

061we see that we got into red on august the 9th just as we were starting school the first student day was august the 10th we hit a 10.1 on august the 9th and we got to about a 15 on august the 12th july 4th weekend began on friday july 3rd 40 days before wednesday august 12 40 42 and 37 days before sunday august the 9th we got to 10.1 37 and 36 so a very similar movement or or increase i guess in covet 19 positive cases in the community after those those long weekends and where we may have not been as quite as vigilant in our behaviors as we would be otherwise so we have had fall break we'll see what happens after fall break and several days after that but that's just some information

062after we were seeing these numbers we wondered how that was comparing to july 4th because it began to feel very similar to that time frame and you can see that there are a lot of similarities to the graphs the hospitalizations has been the piece that has remained at a steady number basically i do know that our census numbers at the hospital are a little higher than typical but it's not due to covin cases the number of coveted cases or code related situations is remaining against stable um this is a just a graph we have each time it shows the red yellow green we've had and where we might go based upon the information we have and right now we consider ourselves and have even when we're in some of the green numbers here we still

063considered ourselves in moderate spread and had our combination of a traditional environment or remote learning and then if we get to a substantial spread our reopening plan says we could go to an all-e-learning environment i'm proposing after we get well i guess i'll jump to that in a second uh we have had our local indicators in place since july 20th the the board meeting that we had we talked about a reopening plan and proposed those local indicators the state began capturing data and providing this chart to us on wednesdays they've been doing that over the last month and so the state is looking at weekly scores and basing it upon positive cases per 100 000 residents so per capita rate but it's on a weekly basis so instead of a number per day like 15

064they're looking at numbers like 100 how many did you have in a week and then also a seven day all test positivity rate right now the most current data we have for bartholomew county which goes back to last sunday is a 0.5 which would still keep us in the blue however counties around us jackson county to the south you can see is in the orange brown county to the west in the yellow and and then i believe that is what martin county uh johnson yeah johnson no which one josh is still in blue the one directly to the west of the johnson immediately north of uh snow is johnson to the yellow i'm sorry yeah it would be morgan that is there so anyway we do have some counties around us beginning to uh have

065numbers that are are not blue and and this graph a few weeks ago was the state pretty much was all blue so we've changed so we were looking at that uh the data is captured by the state department of health on sundays uh turn into this chart on the wednesdays and released publicly so we'll see what wednesday's data look like we we we believe that our 0.5 will tick up whether it gets to that yellow number or not we will see but we will believe that's quite possible as our stakeholders continue to look at both these kinds of numbers and this kind of information we have worked on a graphic like this a visual that puts it into the colors that the state is sharing because a lot of people are paying attention to that

066that goes blue yellow orange and red keeps our measurements in mind because we'll continue to have dialogue around these indicators on a regular basis we maintain that thursday morning meeting with our local medical professionals to understand where we are with numbers and to get advice and recommendations from them but in looking at this we have taken the again blue yellow orange red we're currently in blue and looked at possible instructional models there as well as what we would do with extracurricular and other instructional operational services but a lot of dialogue within the community about continuing to work on more refined or precise or specific movement based upon community spread this is a continued effort to understand where we are and then to be prepared to make decisions that are necessary based upon that community spread

067so just reading through there if we're in blue all schools will provide a full-time in-person option while taking proper precautions including physical distancing focusing on hand hygiene and wearing face coverings and we will limit activities where physical distancing is not feasible then for extracurriculars uh we talk about following state and local event gathering guidelines uh we limit spectators in accordance with local guidelines it's what we're doing we get advice from the bartholomew county health department and then all other district operations transportation food service etc operates as scheduled as we move through that yellow basically keeps us in that same situation but orange which is where jackson county is right now and if you've paid any attention i think all jackson county schools are doing some kind of hybrid model now in orange elementary schools may

068continue full-time in-person option so we're not just flipping the switch again we're looking at the information but we may do that while middle and high schools may consider a hybrid learning model and there is an asterisk there that if we go down to the bottom hybrid model will allow for enhancement of physical distance against school buildings because it does cut the number of students that are there and if we go to the red which is a high community spread elementary middle and high schools consider implementing a hybrid learning model or a district-wide e-learning model and then goes into the face coverings and so forth continuing to remain in place and we also then make adjustments for our extracurricular activities based upon again those situations what we are looking at with putting this in place is

069just an another way for our community to understand what is happening with community spread and to see what we might need to do from an operational standpoint for the schools and look looking at the hybrid model as a potential additional tool in our toolbox right now if we try to make an operational decision based upon community spread we'd be going from our current state to an all e-learning model nothing in between so this situation if we would follow along could add a hybrid model that looks something like this so at the high school and middle school last names ada k would go to school in person on mondays and tuesdays so basically 50 of our population the l to z last names would be an e-learning wednesday would be an instructional day would be e-learning

070for all and that would look different at the high school versus the middle school versus the elementary school uh option and then thursday and friday they would flip so last names adk would now be doing e-learning and last names ld in person looks the same for middle schools for elementary schools based upon what was shown from a visual standpoint with orange community spread so going back to that we'll be looking at maybe keeping all students in person for those five days while the middle school and the high school goes to a hybrid model uh and then if we get into a study called phase one and then if we get into a phase two we have a red community spread so we would be looking at perhaps all schools elementary middle high being in a

071hybrid model the rationale for looking at elementary middle high schools a little bit differently is our elementary schools has had a small number of student cases and when we have student cases if and when we do and we have had the number of close contacts is small when we have a positive case at the secondary level and particularly at the high school level it is possible to get a relatively large number of close contacts identified closed contacts i just want to take a moment to make sure we call out that particular piece the local health department and the indiana state department of health do contact tracing we do the identification of close contacts and so because we have the opportunity to try to identify people as quickly as possible around a positive test case and

072notify them and get them out of the building if that needs to be the case then we do go ahead with our part in identifying close contacts and asking them to quarantine but then there is an official thing that happens from a contact tracing standpoint with medical officials from the county and state level that number of of close contacts does differ just simply does between our elementary and and middle and high school levels so that is what we have there before i jump into the rest of this or just actually one more slide is what i'll be asking you to do during the approval process and if we would just look ahead on the agenda besides the typical things we approve plus the budget for tonight i have a revisions to our reopening plan that

073revision would be adding the hybrid model as an option for us to consider as an intermediary step between going from where we are today to an all-e-learning one an attempt to at least maintain some in-person uh contact with our kids to the degree that we possibly can sarah did a great job of outlining all the social and emotional stuff that we do it becomes really hard to do any of those things if the kids aren't in our buildings at all so it does give us at least that option i'll hit this last slide and take any questions you have just as an fyi our positive test cases did jump up a little bit and maybe i've heard you say this before mr caldwell i think it's better if our kids are in school we had

07456 we now have 56 positive test cases 37 of those are students 19 are staff members and that number greatly increased from the friday before fall break when we last reported our numbers we were at 29 i believe at that time so we had a number of of positive cases that occurred during the fall break and then receive those results over a period of time into last week those have leveled out and are back to normal counts in terms of a given day but we did have a a quick addition of positive test cases very few of those positive test cases that came in over fall break or after led to uh large numbers of close contacts just because of when when they occurred uh whether it's a positive test case or b or or

075due to the onset of symptoms which we do go back 48 hours before those those events so dr roberts to to our best of our knowledge those 56 uh cases do we do they believe that they contracted coveted 19 through something while they were attending school do any of them i think that they contracted it while they were in attendance at school it is really hard for us to identify patient zero right and so but but of the situations we have we can cite one that we probably had a patient zero at school that would have resulted in another test yes at least with the information we one of the 56 right and so that that drives my second observation is i think when i when i look at your proposal here for uh what

076our response is to the increased uh number of incidents in the community i think all of it any response is targeted at optimizing the safety of the community yes and if i think just real simply that students and and and other staff members days are broken up into three chunks they're either sleeping for eight hours they're in school for eight hours or they're doing something else for eight hours i don't think you get covered when you're sleeping typically i think that's a pretty doggone good track record for the amount of interactions we've had but the the cleaning the mask discipline the attempts at social distancing that we've had in classrooms it seems to me people are are contracting this when they're outside of the classroom or when they're not sleeping and and i i wonder

077if we're making bartholomew county less safe the more we move away from in class instruction so i i'm i know that's counter to what we've been thinking for the last two months but but the day i'm just trying to look at the data and the data suggests the safest that our students are are when they are in school in fact when i also look at the number of those students who have contracted that were full-time virtual or bridge and the number out of that percentage and the number out of our 8 000 now 9 000 plus that are going to be uh in in in person again it's counterintuitive but it says to me we're being our most lacks when they're not in school or assume again when they're not sleeping so it's that time

078went away and it seems to me the hybrid model maximizes the opportunity for time away and then and then bringing us back together into the large groups and then time away and back together it seems like to me you're actually accelerating the likelihood i i i i would appreciate a mathematician modeling that for us right but yeah dale allen's not doing anything still we can our system so we can reach out to dell to see if he can help us out with that i i appreciate that perspective mr caldwell right yeah and will not argue it uh we are looking for i think it's it's well known that my in my desire my uh wish is to have our kids in person as much as we possibly can so if we're able to stay that

079course that is where i'd prefer to be the hybrid model that we propose is is just that option as we as we see cases continue to increase if that is indeed the case as we consult with medical professionals uh in lieu of going to an all-person e-learning can we have something in between that is at least a possibility for us that that doesn't currently exist and again my hope is we don't continue to progress in this way uh if we go back to the uh one slide back in august we continued you know we had that long run until we got to uh uh 20 21 20.1 21 20.5 20.3 over four days we were over 20 cases and then started a pretty pretty steep decline actually and uh i'm hoping that we don't have

080a repeat of that but if so do we at least need to have some something in our pocket to grab and and put to use board members other questions for dr roberts um it's not a question can i ask anybody question you can't ask so so i worry about the communication in that i appreciate that the plan says may which i would probably put in all caps in bold because i worry that i mean we we were pushed by some so hard that i just give me a number and when i see the number we're going to flip and do something so i i'm anxious that we communicate well that just because colors change we're not necessarily changing our plan what we're currently doing so i still get nervous because it can't be an exact

081number and it can't be an exact color there are just so many contextual things really to your point mr caldwell that i know that we consider both in the school corporation in the community it it it can't be orange and red or black and white it is very contextual so that's just one point i'd make sure the the second i'm is i think i've read it in what we've received is that for the middle schools and high schools while learners may not be having in-person instruction there will be space in those buildings for e-learning families learners and or families who don't have all that they need to do e-learning at home right yeah we'll be trying to maintain some certain core resources now one of the pieces with the all e-learning model we had a

082lot of moving parts happening in that it becomes a little more complicated now with having half of the students still in the building and maintaining all of those pieces but but we still would run all buses maintain classes like c4 make sure our special needs students and ell students are getting the services they need maintaining at least icare before and after school having the building service technology hubs other pieces that would be similar to the all e-learning situation based on that history what indication is there if any that with halloween thanksgiving christmas and winter break coming up that having in person isn't the safest option instead of providing a petri dish for this to rapidly spread i mean seriously i mean we can put all of our faith we can in the community but if

083the data is showing anything it's fruitless yeah yeah i mean labor day weekend is a three-day weekend right right what are you going to do with a week off or two weeks off yeah we will see fall break will help us understand that right we will by middle of november we'll have seen what the results of that were based upon per capita rates positivity test rates here in the in the county and that will be certainly a precursor or a forecaster for thanksgiving break which is not quite as long as fall break but but has an extra day or two in there and then christmas break which is the longest one that we would have which is about two to four weeks i'm curious too what what have we learned or what what might we

084learn about the relationship between what's going on and a lot of the measures and the broader community measures and some of those counties that are that are red right now i don't know for sure but one of the things they say on the evening news is that the county might be red because there's a meat a meat processing plant there where there was a lot of infection spread or county might be read because of one or two skilled nursing facility cases so in those cases again the county might go red it doesn't make sense for the schools to go straight to a red plan i'm not sure is there a direct have we learned what the relationship is for us between what's going on in the broader community and what's going on in our schools

085let me catch that in a couple of ways one in in terms of at least what the state department of health is doing they are trying to capture that mr stenner with with uh citing situations where there are um is a congestion of of of cases and saying okay the county is is maybe red or orange but there's a there's a qualifier in there and so let's try to i exited out of the presentation piece of that you can see like it's it's a little marker on some of these counties that's kind of a an exclamation point or at least a question mark that indicates that uh there's there's an additional challenge there locally and we've had those conversations you know one of the reasons that we we meet regularly with our local medical professionals

086that includes the bartholomew county health department and crh officials is to understand what truly is happening within the community we see the raw number we see another per capita rate we see positive test rates perhaps changing go up what is that what might be leading to that is there is there a defined situation or an understood situation if not then that that's concerning if it's just pretty widespread if it is a very specific situation or or circumstance or there was a super spreader activity or event then at least there's dialogue that can happen around it i think that's why the may provision continues to be important is having that dialogue to to understand it in terms of the relevance this we've had a little bit of a change over fall break and now in that

087from august the 10th until fall break as the ebb and flow of the community occurred in terms of per capita rate we didn't see any ebbs and flows in the schools we maintain a very consistent situation about three three and a half 3.6 positive test cases per week and then we hit fall break and for whatever reason whatever the situation a lot of people one got tested et cetera whatever we did have the numbers during fall break and the beginning of last week and uh since that time have again leveled out but the beginning of last fall break the beginning of last week was the first time that we had positive test cases that were increasing at a time when the community per capita rate was increasing so one one snapshot of that or one

088one occurrence of that situation versus what i'd prefer occurred in the prior nine weeks and what we've learned from that don't know quite yet as we try to understand that that situation i guess there's this little clarifier so what you will be asking us to consider at uh item 2g and the agenda 4g and the generator will be basically the summary of those last few pages of using that as a guideline for you and and your team to think about uh what your actions may be in responding to the different state levels you are proposing that we can move towards looking at the states move to looking at the states in regards to understanding the differences between the options that we have and so when we had the red yellow green we have three three

089colors there that basically put us in yellow red in terms of our conversation we will continue to maintain these indicators in conjunction with the local community covent 19 task force that information will continue to be posted every monday and thursday because of the richness of that data there's a heck of a lot of stuff there plus the mass compliance we track for you we'll continue that and we see this information every single day it gets posted publicly by five o'clock on mondays and thursdays and then we are looking at this because a lot of people are tuning into the governor's press conferences state department of health press conferences on wednesdays looking at this graph and we felt we needed something that aligned what we were trying to do with at least what the state is

090reporting and and that's uh this this graph here so we would ask to put this page visual in our reopening plan with with an explanation and then this hybrid model learning page pages if it actually ends up being two as the possible options for us if we get to the point where a hybrid model seems like the best thing to do next so these three slides three pages would become an additional part of our considerations in our reopening plan somebody asked for clarification so the state does their math weekly wednesdays so we're not we're not including like a trend like we're not doing this one week one color and the next week's a different color and proof we do so we'll jump back here no no but it would be a trend game going on

091all right yeah yeah so so good point doctor so 0.5 last week we'll see what happens this week and typically even in observing counties around us they are not jumping from you know 0.5 a blue to a three red number so there tends to be a at least a gradual movement in that and and we still are working on understanding their all test positivity rate because they're they're reporting a little bit of rate different uh just there's a a piece in there that um that we're we're trying to reconcile um but but as as we did here it's not a we hit red on august the 9th and and and wrote that for a little bit trying to understand and see what needed to happen from a school corporation standpoint so similarly it doesn't automatically

092take us to a place because we get to a color at least leads us into a conversation into consideration if that needs to be the case and then once committed we need to stay there for a little bit you know so to your point again if we would go let's say 2.5 like jackson county is right now so we're orange but next week rates decrease pretty quickly i don't know that's possible based on how that's calculated to go to a 0.5 let's say you did so all of a sudden you're jumping back down into yellow or blue now we wouldn't say okay we're back and jump back we need to give it time and space uh the the time the timing that we're considering and we're considering we continue these implementation conversations with our teachers

093association to understand all the little little details that have to be worked out but the timing would be one of them right is that how long we stay into a hybrid model well at least 14 days two weeks seems appropriate because that's a quarantine time frame so for no other reason attaching it to a known number that is that is out there around covet 19 of of trying to protect yourself for 14 days so at least a two-week time frame would be what we would look to if we had to to move to to a model and then based upon the numbers if we would have to move again uh do we get tighter and that means now elementary schools are on a hybrid model too uh you might have to do that for a

094little bit and then gosh the things aren't changing so we have to have to try something else but my hope is that the experience we had in the first nine weeks of the school year uh it is is what we will see as we continue forward uh in terms of how the the school numbers uh were relevant to mr stenner's question to the community numbers um but if they're not if we do have indeed a large increase of cases and we and we have spreading occurring within the school uh then we have to have to react to that i would add that note in in terms of the 50 besides the 50 piece and you know we would use that wednesday although we'd have some people in the buildings to see what needs to be

095done from a building uh standpoint cleaning wise and otherwise as we got ready then for the next round of kids on thursdays and fridays do you point mr call it is it is for g and if we get to that point you want to split that one out or whatever obviously that could be my intention okay yeah all right thank you dr so you have an answer for coming back from a hybrid or e-learning environment you know two weeks you have a number tied to that how long are you going to watch a trend going in an increasing direction before you have a serious conversation or make a decision about moving away from what we're doing yeah that's obviously over two weeks yeah so um in terms of how long i i would not give

096an exact day or number but i can state that past experience we were having that very direct conversation on august the um 18th 19th and 20th of of so you can see where that fell and and we in conversation understood some circumstances within the community also had a decreasing rate begin and so uh continued to to watch that but there was very specific dialogue on the 18th 19th and 20th about going to e-learning which was our next step right at that point in time we didn't have a hybrid model in place so that was after having seen a week of red numbers and them being increasing so that's at least an example to cite of what we are but that thursday conversation and it's more often if necessary i'm throwing that out as a week

097a once per week thing probably that the week of the 10th and the week of the 17th we we had probably five different conversations with our local medical professionals and including a dialogue with the community coven 19 task force as a group to understand what might need to happen so that's that's the dialogue we're having all right so the answer is the same as the discussions back then there is no that's correct i i don't have a specific number of days of of per capita rate increasing to say this is when we're going to flip it and go to that hybrid model but i would add that the additional piece of information that we have here that we didn't have then is a county number that the state's also providing as they're measuring our our

098statistics and and have recommendations too these recommendations i don't think i cited or stated that are drafted from state language as well that the state has has from the state department of health the governor's office has said you know if you get into these levels then you might consider uh doing these things so we are adding those to again our toolboxes options to to potentially utilize if if community spread takes us that way we had a copa 19 meeting last thursday which was on the heels of let's see i make sure i have my dates correct here the the 12th was last monday so the 14th of wednesday so we had our conversation on thursday morning we were at a 14.2 from a per capita rate had dialogue around that and with hospitalizations and and

099other things uh seeming to to still be favorable uh so we'll continue to look at that number we went from 14.2 to the 15.5 in those next three to four days of reading and that's that's that's where we are yeah and james i'm not trying to muddy the waters but i'll tell you that i want to hear from our bartholomew county health department and and and the other medical community officials that dr roberts has been talking with i want to hear why we're not actually putting the community at more risk by taking away in-person schooling options to me right now the data suggests that's the safest place for our children i know i know many families will swear that they're keeping their kids safer by keeping them home and doing virtual learning but the data

100suggests that in as a population i'm sure because i'm sure some are but as a population that's just not true when we break down that 56 and look at how many of those students i know i know this for a fact prior to fall break how many of those students were out of the population of virtual learners only and how many were out of those in person they were all coming back i know in all the cases at that time dr roberts has said one now that we know of that may have may have contracted it with through a contact belief we believe right maybe and again we don't know for sure but but i i i don't like that solution but i struggle with is that really and again because i think it's the

101structure i think it is wear your mask wash your hands we have good cleaning surfaces and i know we've not been able to achieve the six foot social distancing that we want but we've been struggling and working to maintain social distance and i think that doesn't happen when you leave the school same mitigation strategy is not being practiced in in other environments right mostly in other settings right so we will we will leave time for more discussion at item 4g when it comes time to vote on what dr dr roberts has proposed i'd like to move forward forward if that's okay thank you um we come to the public comments section and let me get to this doctor are you still here i think you're right behind the post on me okay it's your opportunity

102i really apologize that we've had you sit through an hour and a half if you if you'll come up okay there you are if you'll come up and and um introduce yourself and i'll ask you i'm not going to make you stick to three minutes because dog owns you put through 90 with us so hi good evening i'm tammy iorio i'm a pediatrician at northside pediatrics in columbus i'm also a parent of three bcsc students the secondary level right now and i have a daughter who's at college who went through all 12 years at bcsc um so i've actually found it really fascinating so i'm glad i was able to listen to a lot of it i decided to come this evening to put a plug in to encourage some more open communication regarding covid

103and i want to share something that happened in the last two weeks personally and my family that brought this issue really to the forefront there's some communication that would just be nice um i love that dr roberts just went through kind of week by week what the number of cases were i think that's something that i haven't seen in the newspaper i've seen snippets of this week there were this many cases there's been this many since school started that's that's good but i think seeing a week by week is something that would be great that would be nice i think that splitting up the the hybrid and remote learners who are sometimes in the building because many of them are not full-time remote all three of my boys are listed as bridge students they all

104three are scheduled to be in their buildings for up to two hours a day so that would be nice but what's not just nice what is necessary to stop the spread and to keep families safe is an enhanced communication around identifying those contacts and so i want to share a story as briefly as i can about something that's happened in the last two weeks so over fall break there were numerous fall sports having their sectionals beginning of the state tournament um soccer teams among them two of my boys play high school soccer and at one of our soccer games on tuesday of fall break there were about 25 boys on the bench a sectional game means the roster is larger than normal so there are more boys there there are many great things that bcsc

105has done to make sports still something that can happen the buses are de-densified as they like to say you know we had two buses to transport one team students are allowed to ride with parents if the parents would prefer their student athletes not to be on the bus at all i think that's great there are mask rules as they arrive and when they leave and when they're not playing or drinking getting a water break they're supposed to be wearing masks these are all great but the social distancing just like it's a problem in many of our classrooms it's a problem on the sidelines at many sporting events if any of you have either been to a football game been by a football game or watched one on streaming there's no social distancing on the sidelines

106and it can be the same issue i think at other sports for sure with soccer at our sectional game we had over 25 athletes and there were two benches that were right next to each other and there's no other place for them to sit so social distancing didn't happen luckily most of these players were wearing their masks so this makes it a pretty low risk situation on the thursday of fall break so less than 48 hours after our match i received a call from the parent of one of our players because besides being a parent and being a pediatrician i volunteer as much as i can with my students activities and i'm the parent manager for the soccer team meaning i coordinate all the emails between the team and the coaches and the families and

107this parent called me and said my player who was at the game tuesday night is coveted positive and it's a um it's a story that he shared with me that isn't relevant to the story isn't relevant to this but they found out that day that the student was positive and he said can you please send a message to the team to make them aware and i said well i think we probably ought to check in with the school first i don't wanna we don't wanna you know surprise anyone with the message of something like this and i know that there are people that are supposed to run you know take care run through the proper communication channels so i volunteered to help and i made four phone calls to people at the school in the

108corporation and i explained the situation and was told that there was a process there was a procedure that the corporation would assume responsibility and take care of that um i was asked not to say anything to anyone else so i called that dad back and said you should be prepared for a phone call you i'm not to say anything else and neither are you are you and and he said okay so i didn't say anything else i'm well versed in not talking about um medical conditions when it's with through my work this was not through my work i was contacted as a parent volunteer and as an acquaintance of this father but i still followed instructions decided to let the process work and didn't say anything i didn't even say anything to my own boys

109they heard a rumor within a day that there had been a player that was positive and and pushed and tried to figure it out and i did not tell them who it was i said if we are affected we will receive a phone call and we did not receive a phone call on the monday after fall break so six days after the soccer match and four days after i made my phone calls my son came to me and said mom i know who it was he said he told me he's my friend you know that and i said okay he said why don't i have to quarantine i was sitting right beside him and i said well you know tell me more what do you mean because as a parent you don't always watch the

110other side of the field he said i sat right beside him the entire half of the first half until i went in um as a 15 year old boy i didn't necessarily believe him immediately so i actually went and pulled up photos from the game that we had and looked and it was true both boys had masks on so again a relatively low risk exposure and yet still an exposure more than 15 minutes less than six feet away and i found out about it four days after i could found out to find out about it and and you know four days after he's attended a girls soccer game he's um he's delivered groceries to his grandparents luckily just delivered them outside he had attended school actually for the first time this whole year he went

111to school last monday and so all of these things were things that didn't have to happen and as dr roberts pointed out the school is is not expected to be contact tracers i understand that and yet the school had taken on some responsibility to identify contacts and this school was given the information that there were definitely contacts at this soccer match it was less than 48 hours these were these were all student athletes that were in sitting in proximity in close proximity during an entire match and somehow the process failed and so luckily in this case um his quarantine is over tomorrow i knew what to do we started quarantine him in a different part of the house immediately i contacted the school he hasn't been anywhere else we've had masks on at home as

112you know he's not been sick his test was negative i have no way of knowing if any other players who were possibly exposed have had a different outcome and it's not my business but i can say for a fact that this was one example of a failure in the process to identify contacts even when the information was provided and sometimes contact tracing can be difficult or even identifying close contacts if those involved are not forthcoming with information but that was also not not an issue here this family asked to send a message they wanted to share with the team this information to try to protect people so again it looks like in the end it may have turned out okay and that's wonderful but i hope that going forward that the corporation can come up

113with some possibly improved ways to notify people if there are exposures at bcsc events other than telling people not to say anything so i appreciate all the rules that we have in place that have allowed kids to go to school whether it's full-time or part-time that have allowed kids to be in band and be in choir and play sports but if we want to continue that really the only way to do that is to make sure we're identifying contacts and informing people so we can control the spread so thank you for listening thank you dr yorgo can i ask you just this is not to find and and punish the guilty but just to help us make sure we we cover any gaps in our communication would you be comfortable just communicating afterwards with dr

114roberts via email or somehow the four phone calls you made so we can understand is that okay yeah certainly i wouldn't talk to dr earlier anytime but i i have seen the information she's oh you are you're already aware okay so you don't need that communication i i've talked with kelly thompson who i think could also receive the information from dr arrio in regards to that particular process all right so we're good all right at least understanding the process that happened there yes yeah yeah thank you thank you that was the only uh person that signed to speak this evening let's move on to our next uh uh agenda item um the neola policy revisions wow that was a pretty massive chunk of the pack until because of how important that is we left it

115off the presentation but anyway uh yeah so you had quite the packet of policy revisions so a reminder that from an eola standpoint about every six months you're going to get an a a packet of information that is updates based upon legal recent legal developments whether that be legislative changes at either the state or federal level or case law that has changed the way that we need to look at things so that is what you had in front of you uh kind of unlike title ix where we which we separated that one out uh although again some very specific changes we are trying to address this is just a typical packet for you there were some cobot 19 related policies but if we jump into those let's see there we go golly yeah i5 my

116issue in terms of when i was revising this i think i put the slides in twice so here we go in terms of that one and i want to jump into that piece and we'll return to the board accommodations cabinet reports and so forth so with the policies that um you had uh policy zero one five one organizational meeting was a technical piece so just being made to correct some outdated citations uh 0152 technical again correcting outdated citations and providing uniformity making sure we were referring to the school board and school corporation the word board incorporation was used before so again some of these things sometimes are pretty simple zero one five four motions revisions to accurately reflect the required board actions at the organizational meeting so when we have the organizational meeting in january

117we're just making sure to reflect what actually happens there and updating citations that reflects current law committees another technical change to correct outdated citations and provide uniformity again referring to the school board executive session information revised so the bylaw revised due to amendments in indiana code it does address the allowable purposes for an executive session and also talks about language that allows you to call an executive session a treasurer 0.171.4 just reflects the options provided in regards to motions that is a consistency piece there were some grammatical changes and again it does allow the treasurer to appoint a deputy as pursuant to state law uh 31 20.11 is the public hearing before the commencement of public or excuse me collective bargaining we just saw that happen we're adding that to policies that senate enrolled act

118390 does say that we need to go through this process so we're making sure policy reflects that excuse me can i would you read that one again so it says before starting negotiations that i don't understand we have to allow it's a public hearing to allow the community to speak up on do they have any any charge to us as a board or to the administration as we enter to that yeah there were two processes two public sessions added by sca 391 was a public hearing before we started bargaining we did that on the 15th something like that before that september 15th date and then the public meeting today tonight was the second one from this act uh oh okay we did comply with this we did this new policy this year we've been plenty

119of meetings i just yeah second year that we've actually followed this without it being a part of our actual policy 511 is just determination of legal settlement and eligibility for enrollment of students without legal settlement and the corporation goes through pieces in there that talks about how we rescind approval or establish terms or conditions for enrollment 5460 graduation requirements is just there were new requirements from the for this year based upon hca 1629 that added a section and talks about making sure that each senior receives notifications concerning fafsa and the process and benefits of completing fafsa 16 105 is the authorization to accept and distribute electronic records and to use electronic signatures so it allows us to to do that now and then even give specific authorization when dealing with medicaid assistance for iep services

120so just gives us more flexibility to use the electronics available to us when going through these things 6250 is required adm counts for the purpose of state funding it gets into state board of accounts student engagement policy and addresses when those adm counts might be and how that applies to our state funding could i ask a question about that one because i was curious where it talks in within that policy it talks about virtual education and internal controls to inch to ensure the definition of enrolled so i appreciate how much of an issue that is i was just curious about what those conversations are for our internal control of counting enrolled yep and enough catalyst you want to try to take a a go with that i'm going to pull up the policy to look

121back at that language in terms of the internal controls piece it doesn't tell you how it just says you and i was just curious what we have been thinking about because i know that's been tough yeah and you're afraid although it's in that policy it's really internal controls over everything in that department right i mean it's called out again specifically in this policy but even the audits that we will have on an annual basis usually refer to that particular piece as making it necessary that we have established an additional set of internal controls but dr dr shed you're asking the question of how do we make how do we ensure that someone we count as a virtual student is in fact a virtual student so you're getting using the policy that they're enrolled yeah yeah

122okay i just i just know it's been an issue because i don't it's unclear to me if the state is calling enrolled as attending oh i see yeah right yeah i do this i do i do i exaggerated answers it is and we also we also have a couple of other specific to that point internal controls is in my mind because we see that in audit all the time but you if if specific to the piece about attendance for virtual students that may not be something you want to refer to chat well i believe that there are really two two issues going here this policy and the problem that the legislature was trying to address is a result of schools that were deliberately corporations or for-profit charter programs that were deliberately cheating the system and

123taking dollars because of that we then had to put in extra precautions to make sure that we don't even accidentally let one student be counted who's not actively enrolled and engaged in our system now because of covid and the fact that we have thousands of students enrolled virtually now in a virtual program um an internal control as a formal process does not exist but for this year as we worked on making sure that no one slipped through the cracks the adm process included a check between our office who completes the formal collection of the of the student lists and submits those to the state a process between our office and the the building principles and administrators to make sure that every student that they submitted to us had been engaged in learning activities prior to

124the stn and we did remove some kids that they said oh these two just came back in the days just following adm count and they hadn't engaged in processes before that we took them out so we we got caught up in some schools and some for-profit corporations that were cheating the system sure okay thanks for that chad appreciate that the next one is 75.41 web access accessibility content apps and services very important that are whatever we're doing electronically it is accessible to all and this policy attempts to clarify that and talks about how we will ensure that that's the case 8330 student records addresses the release of educational records and health safety emergencies and talks about how we might need or can do that and not not violate ferpa if we truly have an emergency

125happening within the school corporation 84 20.01 and it does start to tie into cove with 19 related things by the way 84 20.01 pandemics and epidemics this is where we do get in the covenant 19 language and so it's something that you should consider and then control of casual contact communicable diseases is revised to update the list of common communicable diseases and include this 2019 although it's 2020 it did first surface last year and that's what we have so that list of items is in front of you for a first reading and we'll continue to take whatever suggestions you might have and or as we review it make tweaks as might be necessary to bring back to you i guess november 9th is our next meeting for a recommendation for approval since we're on the

126subject of policy revisions has there been any consideration given to the 31-12 uh conversation has been had mr culver do you want to respond to that i know you would i i shared with mr monroe and he got back with me saying hey we ought to talk and he and i haven't talked on that one yet my only concern was making sure that some of the revisions that you had recommended mr persinger didn't step over a line that we still had the protection against litigation or any any other uh concerns that were there for liability of the board with the changes uh and and that's my that gaps on me i i didn't get back with chris on that yet so what i could indicate james i did have some conversations with mr monroe after

127having seniors and just looking at things and making sure so we've been working on that the uh since we met last week from an officer's meeting next friday is our strategic planning session i'd say we make that an agenda item is is that with all seven board members in an open conversation you you have the i think seven can attend or at least if not in person virtually and have dialogue around that policy and any anything else that seems to be uh in front of in front of you at this point that's scheduled again next friday 9-12 i think october the 30th on the 30th right okay okay good good question good catch okay any other questions related to these policies a lot of a few new policies other revisions but most of them relatively

128minor in nature technical catches some changes and citations making sure everything's up to date thank you dr roberts you're welcome let's move on to next item board commendations board members anything to share tonight what about school board member reports again i know many of our committee's subcommittees aren't meeting as regularly just announcement we do have a districting and facilities committee meeting this thursday morning at eight o'clock the zoo meeting or zoom link will be sent out to all who are participating we're reviewing adm account day accounts like you'll see tonight as well as the renovations we've been completing and we do have a date set up for you all to tour the three facilities we've recently updated the columbus east auditorium tnm building and soccer complex and actually a quick note about that a note

129from dr bozeman this afternoon our columbus north girls soccer team won in thrilling fashion twice on saturday including a last second goal to the last time you saw a last second goal in a soccer game to tie the score and then go into overtime they play in a semi-state saturday they will practice on our new turf field tomorrow right dr bozeman because they'll be playing on turf field in the semi state and we've been cleared to actually allow the kids to opportunity to practice on that field so excited about that first first use of it and uh we're doing that november 9th prior to the school board meeting it seems like there was one other thing we're going to cover at that night or that meeting on thursday but anyway district facilities committee meeting on

130thursday morning okay and then cabinet reports mr phillips you want to start with the avm update yes thank you mr caldwell just two very brief updates the adm final adm is is completed up 31.7 students basically we were saved by a very small senior class going out so the kindergarten group coming in of course was small as we expected but that class of 2020 again those are the children born in the the 10 or so months 12 months following 9 11 2001. so that small class moving out really helped us keep that adm uh where it needed to be again like i mentioned before it's still still below where we were even in 2000 and fall of 2017 so some more to do to rebound there and we think we'll get there next year may

131i ask two questions i'm sorry um i'm curious about schmidt's growth i mean it's it's really kind of the only elementary that really grew is that an anomaly anomaly or is there something that we need to be sensitive to that there's a trend going on because that's getting really big we have a doctor we have a larger spreadsheet that goes back several years that we track and and look at those kinds of things and actually prior to that schmidt had been down 21 students the year or the year before and 30 stitches here before so we do track those trends over time and they seem to at least in the last six years or so correct themselves like mount healthy had grown um almost to a point of un sustainability over three or four years

132and then this year they were finally back down so nothing at this point that we see is concerning okay okay and and maybe you've answered the question about the high schools that we saw we saw the really low senior class okay yeah right yeah so they look like their growth is pretty substantial this year it was really just a normal size ninth grade class coming in to replace a very small 12th grade class thank you well i think top of mine we always think of north as about 2 100 students and east about 1600 students and those numbers had kind of if you round them off they were lower than that last year but they're back to those those kind of numbers a few 20 99 and 1562. if you have that graph in front

133of you that said the the last five year one or something like that of the elementary schools there are only a couple that actually grew in numbers over there and i know at one point in time we talked about another elementary school and all that kind of stuff but in terms of our elementary numbers over a five-year period of time the increases were which buildings they were 50 58 students as their five-year trend lincoln 25 and then taylorsville 6. so only three buildings that grew as they increased decrease over that period of time thank you chad and do you want to follow up with your q3 financial report sure thank you and i'll stay seated for this one because there's there's very little to report on this this is the education fund and there's only

134a few cells highlighted generally in april there you see that the state support decreased that was the when the adm kicks in from the february count and so that reflects the decrease in our enrollment from fall to from fall to february and then july is when the state's per-pupil support kicked in the new support level for fiscal year 21 and so as a huge help and actually led to us being slightly ahead of where we would expect to be from an overall revenue perspective and expenditures are probably uh tracking a few percent behind where we would expect again most of that still the lingering effects of covid and the expenditures we didn't experience in the spring and during the summer and i do expect the cash balance in the education fund to be up at

135the beginning of the year over the 2.1 that we started the year with and again due to revenues higher than expected and expenses lower than expected chad what does the what's the interest cost to us on that tax warrant this year a million dollars what is that i'm sorry what's the interest expense tied to that i mean do that's essentially a loan we we take out and knowing that we're going to get the money but at a later date how much do we pay for that because i'm looking at our balance and it says you you've got a lot more tummy comfort there but we didn't really need it this year i mean we would have always had a positive balance without that 10 million dollars correct um it was under two percent from an

136interest standpoint all of our tax anticipation warrants together the operations fund the education fund and the two debt funds so there were four total i want to say it was about 22.3 million dollars in total uh in loans and so 400 400 450 000 in that range closer to five closer to 500 000 is the final amount i believe but i do that report in february but i'll uh i'll get you those numbers send them to you [Music] this has been this has been probably the worst year that i've seen to to borrow money like we did in january and then try to earn interest on that money as it sits in the bank just last year was the opposite it was as good a year as we could have expected and then on to

137the operations fund again not not a lot of uh items out of what we would expect the one thing that is different is the august revenue in the property tax line there they did distribute taxes that were collected late there after uh the governor the governor's order allowed folks to pay their property taxes late so we still are a little behind where i would expect to be from a percentage standpoint on our revenues for the operations fund but nothing nothing that i'm concerned about and expenditures also behind where to expect them to be a lot of utility savings from the spring from covid fuel those kinds of things so generally i would expect us to be at the same level at the end of this year in the operations fund as we were at the

138beginning around that 5.6 million dollar mark thank you thank you okay thank you mr phillips i'll move on then mr caldwell to the request for approval the list not too long today or tonight we do have the minutes of the regular scheduled mor school board meeting from september 28th we have a list of supplemental contracts in your packet as well as field trips professional leaves and school fundraisers we also have two sets of claims as well as the payroll payrolls for september 25th and october 9th additionally we are asking you to after two meetings talking about the 2021 budget to adopt it that includes a form for resolution bus replacement plan capital projects plan a resolution to authorize reductions and the lit resolution and then the additional one that you can decide vote i guess

139to move that one may maybe off there but included in the consent agenda's revisions to that 2020 2021 reopening plan which includes the hybrid model as a potential option thank you dr roberts um board members i'm going to ask first for a motion to approve items for a through f as presented on our agenda can i have a motion thank you mr haltwire and mr brian can i take yours as a second are there any questions for dr roberts uh i'm sure chad would be willing to go back to any details on the budget again if you'd like i may personally want to see one of you outside if you're asking a question on it again though it's you can get us well prepared all right if there are no questions uh all in favor

140of items four a through f please indicate by raising your hand i'll pose same sign motion carries unanimously thank you item 4g is there to have a motion to accept item 4g the revisions to the 2021 reopening plan as presented by dr roberts this evening thank you dr shad is there a second very good thank you mr bryant any questions yeah i did have one uh yeah options right that's a good point mr center yeah we're not changing any current language in in the uh no this is adding adding options uh for consideration thank you thank you any other questions on the motion that's on the table all right hearing none all in favor of item 4g please indicate by raising your hand all opposed same side thank you motion carries five to one thank

141you let's move on to item five request for pre-approval of human resources recommendation miss heidi thank you i'm requesting approval of the human resource recommendations as presented this evening thank you miss honey do i have a motion to approve the request from ms heine so moved thank you ms dahl dwyer in a second thank you mr persinger any discussion all in favor can ask you by indicating raising your hand i'll pose same sign that motion carries unanimously thank you miss heidi mr coldwell if i may yes before getting the board input review um with the public meeting of the uh for the attentive agreement um we didn't ask for public comment which i think is is allowed during that time and so i made a note on it we got the public account for the

142other thing so it just may be an opportunity um to at least allow that to be the case in case right somebody likes my applause when it was after it was over and didn't hit it on public comments so i wanted to return to that my apologies thank you so so let me was that was that gaveled out a meeting it was okay so i'm going to briefly gavel out we're back into the that presentation is there any comment from anyone on the bcsca tenant of agreement i'd like to be made all right hearing none i'll gavel back in thank you i just i want to be able to check that off and make sure that thank you thank you oversight board input and review this day off wire anything from you thanks again for

143getting us started with your story good to hear mr stenner mr persinger dr shad um i just appreciate that we're constantly working on things that you know things aren't cut and dry i appreciate what we learned about social emotional learning it's so important and particularly important right now so i appreciate what we're doing it just seems that we're always growing and getting better and i do appreciate that about us thank you thanks mr brian i think miss frazier has left haven't she yes i had a question and then a request if uh the answer depend on the answer uh do we include our sros and our dare officers in the sel program okay uh educational wise i guess thank you good question thank you mr dr roberts nothing else to add mr cola thank you

144all right i think as we reflect on the the proposal that the cea members are considering right now and uh hopefully we'll be able to consider for approval as a board on friday uh i want to be reminded to thank the community for their support of the referendum it was uh this will be their tax dollars at work and i think they're the the community recognized it's a good place for their tax dollars to be working so i appreciate that we do have uh a board meeting scheduled for this friday at four o'clock uh we'll make a accommodations for that to be both either in person here at the terrace room or uh via zoom um we also have a strategic planning session scheduled for next friday at 9 00 a.m on the 30th that'll

145be in the board room upstairs we might need them yes we have that listed but we might change that to the terrace room just because of the number of people we have and making sure we can spread out appropriately for distancing that's fine and then our next regular school board meeting is monday night november 9th uh here in this room again at 6 30 that evening yes there's no other business to come for this board this meeting's adjourned