7/20/2020 BCSC School Board Meeting

001test test test test test hey can we test something real quick audio for the for the stream i just turn it on yes test test test test test we're testing this on the live stream right now checking out to see what the audio is like testing testing testing bcsc school board meeting thank you it's got a green light anyway only when only when nick who has the power of the or you or you the one with the power is [Music] no need to take the mass off when you're speaking into the mics well i still can't get my with you uh someone just text me all right good evening i have 6 30 on my clock welcome to the bcsc school board meeting this is monday july 20th 2020. you're gonna have to turn that

002down jim thanks okay um well welcome we will have a combination of some live streaming and then folks in attendance here as well we appreciate those of you who came out tonight to join us we begin every meeting with reflections shared by one of our board members and i'm up tonight so i'd like to share a few thoughts with you as we enter our board meeting this evening you know public schools are more than just a source of education in our country and probably especially so in communities like columbus that still have a lot of that small town vibe the hometown feel the schools are usually a reflection of the community its strengths and its opportunities for improvement its values and more a's even its ability to care for each other or not and while

003that happens what and while what happens at school is critical we know it is equally important what behaviors occur when our staffs and our students are away from school so in a time where over 2600 of our fellow hoosiers so far have died from complications arising from contracting covet-19 and knowing that physical distancing is one of the most effective weapons against contracting the disease it's understandable the subject of reopening our schools has grabbed the attention of the citizens of bartholomew county with the futures of our 11 000 plus children who will require a quality education to have successful lives in the balance it is also understandable that there are passionate fervent positions being taken on all sides of the question and most of these positions have mountains of data cited supporting each of them the

004questions of reviewing and approving are not the evolving plan that our administrative leadership team has brought forward that that question uh occurs later in this meeting i'm going to apologize up front that it it is near the end of the meeting and i commit that in my role as presiding over the meeting this evening i will do my utmost to move us towards it quickly however when we get there i expect us to take the time needed to consider the approach and the arguments and take that time and consider those well what i ask tonight and honestly what i pray for tonight is for patience good listening skills flexibility maybe some civility and yes maybe even a little grace i'm confident of one thing every single person who has reached out to our board in

005administration via phone emails directly every person in attendance or online physically here in attendance this evening or online this evening and every family member every student every parent teacher staff person and administrator involved in bcsc we all want what's best for all of us for all of our students so that community i talked about at the outset can continue to improve and become a place we are proud to call home today tomorrow and into the future thank you for letting me share these opening thoughts if you are able would you stand with me and join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all seven board members

006are present and in attendance this evening so i call this meeting to order i would point out uh to those of you in attendance that uh we have behind us listed our mission vision and high expectation objectives those are the guidelines that we use to remind ourselves of our decision-making process and the principles that we try to use to live by dr roberts and miss heine let's move right into our first uh item on the agenda thank you mr caldwell i will turn things over to miss heine we have the introduction of a very special guest here this evening but before we do that i would like to make a recommendation for approval to you ms honey thank you mr caldwell i am recommending approval of brian lewis as the new columbus north athletic director

007thank you ms heine board members we have a recommendation from ms heine is there a motion to accept it so move thank you mr brian is there a second second thank you miss day hofdwyer let's meet mr lewis before we have discussion mr clark thank you hi david i am pleased this evening to be here with you and to introduce to you mr brian lewis brian comes to us originally out of pattonville missouri and where he went to pattonville high school from pattonville he attended indiana university on a football scholarship and graduated in 2011 with a degree in kinesiology i'm still trying to learn how to spell that um from there he went on to begin his teaching and coaching career he has been a football coach and a basketball coach at the high school

008level for the past eight years brian has been an assistant athletic director at get this right brian you can correct me if i'm wrong please mary institute and county day out of st louis so he's been an assistant athletic director for eight years there and he brings that experience with him we are excited to have him on board and to welcome him in 2017 he got his master's degree in athletic administration and he comes to us with his wife emily and his son maxwell who's 10 years old and his daughter cecilia who just last week i think last saturday or friday turned seven so i'd like to welcome brian lewis and introduce him to the school board as our recommendation for the athletic director at clemson's north high school thank you thank you this is

009a little awkward for me because i'm not used to standing up in front of a bunch of people but i will say i'm really excited about the opportunity that uh columbia north columbus north has given me um i did a lot of research on uh finding a different place for me to start as a head ad so i reached out to a lot of friends and coaches that i knew in the state of indiana and columbus was always the one that always kept coming up one after another after another um i reached out to jeff a while ago because i was interested in moving my family to to columbus and at the point at the time there was nothing available so they reached out to me and him and i had a conversation and i

010didn't realize that jeff had left and went somewhere else so i was definitely excited about the opportunity columbus has a rich tradition in education also athletics one thing i'm really passionate about is is making sure the kids are respected and with dignity i think coaches are the forefront of how we raise our kids and building character to make sure that they become upstanding citizens when they leave columbus north my job as an athletic director is to make sure that i'm holding coaches accountable to make sure kids are being respected they're growing as a human being and um and i really look forward to watching this concise of our kids not only on the field but off the field because i think education is really valuable in these days so um i grew up in a

011family that my father always preached education was what's one of the most important things you can do someone can never take your education away from you sports is a privilege so i always think that if a kid is doing right in the classroom would ultimately lead to the field so i'm glad that i'm a part of a columbus north and uh i look forward to seeing you guys in the future thank you very much so we have a motion in a second in front of the board all in favor of calling mr lewis as our new athletic director at columbus north one of the two top high schools in the state say hi all pose same sign welcome aboard thank you good to have you boys good luck see how fast the thing is brian

012you're bound to look good between those two guys sorry and the light [Laughter] thank you miss heine as well appreciate that we moved to our public comments section um our process for this is we have an opportunity for public comment 11 people have signed up to speak this evening uh individuals as you signed up i'll call you to the podium please come up here and speak to us um you're welcome to defer to a spokesperson if there's a if there's a defined group you're representing or pass if your point has already been made but we're looking forward to hearing from all of you please refrain from using the names of individual students or staff members in your comments and and try to limit your remarks to three minutes each i first have tiffany and kaczynski

013is that close thanks tiffany tiffany if you'll just when you come to the public field to share your address with us so they just keep that for the public record okay thank you it's 2939 laundry anyway thank you uh first and foremost um as a parent we've been given no statistical data suggesting what the outcome of q4 online learning was for bcse in fact many children based on report card data of friends weren't able to be adequately graded for the fourth quarter at all i know the first week or two proved difficult but teachers had nine weeks to be more consistent across the board and that did not happen now we've waited until two and a half weeks before school is planned to resume to try to force online only and think that it will

014magically improve one teacher reported that 65 of their students failed to log in for the final six weeks at any point and 18 did not log in once as a community we also have been given incomplete information and statistically inaccurate data suggesting that 80 percent of teachers want to start virtually only union teachers were presented in the information that was in yesterday's republic paper that was given to the board a response rate wasn't provided but my source tells me that 350 of the 475 union teachers responded 80 of the 350 equates to 280 so 280 union representative teachers are speaking for 734 teachers which is and not 80 additionally no support staff are listed in these numbers it should be noted most professions weren't surveyed my nurse friends weren't surveyed to see if they wanted

015to go back to work at the hospital many students are falling through the cracks staff made dozens of trips to deliver learning materials to students that weren't taken home or picked up even after giving ample notice an opportunity to do this there were numerous welfare checks for students that weren't checking in with teachers weren't logging into computers and weren't responding to calls or messages the communities surrounding us such as seymour brown county edinburgh flat rock hall creek center grove and many others are all returning with safety measures in place and still face the same safety concerns for their school and staff as we do at bcsc while i want everyone to be safe the same people wanting schools to stay closed are also out in town everywhere sending their kids to sports daycare day camps

016foundation for youth etc our schools which provide much more than just a mandated education shouldn't be the only thing staying closed the school survey sent out were prefaced with the plan is built to enable schools to operate in one of three categories and now we are trying to eliminate the category that most parents chose we voted as a community and stood behind extra funding and extra property tax payments for bcse bcsc loses funding for every kid that is pooled for home school or private school so i hope the board considers this before voting we have no way of knowing what percentage will unenroll if virtual as the only option as virtual only wasn't listed in the survey if only two percent unenrolled that would be 230 students at a six thousand dollar loss for 1.38

017million dollars in one school year is bcsc prepared to lose that or more my entire issue is that if everything else can be opened with safety measures than so can school if everything else was closed or bothondi county itself had a skyrocketed amount of cases i would feel different currently over a four-month period in bartholomew county we just have .007 of its population with a positive cova test that means you are trying to alter the education of 11 500 children for a virus that hasn't produced a positive test result in 99.9 of the county send us back to school thank you thank you thank you i so next christy edwards hi christy the same thing if you'll share your address with us just for the record thanks sure uh 2961 tulip drive thank you um

018i'm asking for some grace as well my numbers are nowhere close to that i don't even have numbers my concern is the mental well-being of our teachers um i've looked online and i've noticed that there is no jobs opening for teachers aids teachers have a lot on their plate and i think that they need help if we are to return to school you can send a kindergarten in to wash their hands but are they going to wash their hands and the teachers cannot be in both bathrooms um so that's one of my issues uh my other issue the grant that black dummy county got for the technical is that correct that we've received a grant for computer technology funding i'm not sure which one you were talking about i thought there was a digital learning

019grant that bartholomew county received nick is there anything that you would be able to say not all fans okay it was online under indiana.gov so i was just wondering if some of the monies that could be allocated could update the technology for online learning some of the teachers need that option and some of the parents would like that option as well but like i just stated the the mental well-being of the teachers i think also need to be considered as well as the kids thank you thank you reuben guthrie hi reuben same thing address if you can share with us uh mine's in elizabethtown it's 13242 south 600 east elizabethtown thanks so i appreciate the time that's being yielded to me today i feel like i have sort of a unique position to grant on

020this issue uh for those of you who don't know me i'm reuben guthrie many of your kids have had me in class whether you know it or not especially on the high school level i'm a substitute teacher i've been since the fall of 2015 and i would venture to say i'm probably one of the more frequently called substitute teachers in this community and while i think there's a lot of issues coming to a head right now for a number of reasons i think that there's a lot of pressure on this board to vote the right way on this issue and in my opinion the better stance is to keep the kids at home and the reason i say that is because while i guess i'll acknowledge that many points have been addressed in an appropriate

021fashion at the same time there's a lot of anecdotal evidence that's not being considered or at least if it has been it's news to me for instance let's just take child behavior now as a substitute teacher we end up subbing for teachers who have more behavior issues amongst their kids i think most people understand that it's tough enough dealing with that job as is i don't think i want to deal with a classroom where some smart aleck kid is in there wants to lick their hands and think it's all funny to try to go rub somebody down with their licked hand and then infect a bunch of kids because they thought it was a joke or better yet because their parents raised them to believe this is all hoax people can believe the news or

022not but this is a real thing this is life or death show of hands in here this goes to anybody on the board or anybody out here who here under the current circumstances we're in with lots of holes in our plans for covering health would go to work as a substitute teacher in a global pandemic for seventy dollars a day before taxes anybody i didn't think so majority still agrees with me let the record show one minute left please fact of the matter is bringing these kids back to school and even though yes i sympathize with the parents who don't have a lot of options i agree that you know they're in kind of a bad spot we can work around that that what this community showed during the last 9x the school year is

023that they were able to step up we provided free meals to kids who needed it we can do that again you know and while yes there are holes in covering the online classes their education is not going to matter if they or their loved ones get sick or die you have to consider one for the other so my vote here if i had one would be to keep the kids at home for at least a month maybe and take a more pragmatic approach after that thank you thank you mr guthrie kenny redleaf you're good okay thank you mr redleaf todd gantt good evening and thank you hi todd can you give us your address thanks what's that your address oh i'm so sorry mr paulville 554 kenny lane columbus indiana thank you good evening and

024thank you for hearing the voice of the people tonight i can't imagine the peop the position you guys are in regardless of your decision my family will support you we appreciate all that you are doing for the children of this community our family wants to return to school in two weeks we feel very safe to send our three daughters back to school besides the social aspect of learning besides the social aspect of learning and being around their peers my three girls two at east high school and one at taylorsville need to be with their teachers e-learning went okay for my family but the value the teachers the value of teaching and learning that they didn't receive was a challenge additionally one of my daughters has a and she told me last night dad i'm a

025visual learner i need to see my teacher in person bcsc has empowered her to be a self-advocate and that speaks volumes to me please allow our kids to return to school thank you again for all that you do rachel kirschner hi rachel good evening 15961 east 200 south my name is dr rachel kirschner i'm a pediatrician here at columbus regional hospital and i'm also a mother of four three of which are old enough to be students at rock creek elementary we as pediatricians have never been accused of being cavalier with children's health it is our passion it is why we do what we do we are charged with being the voice of the people that often don't have a voice all that being said i am in strong favor of children having the option of

026being physically present back in school this fall the aap has taken a very strong stance on this as well and they agree that the benefits that our kids receive in in person education are not just to their education it's to their mental well-being to the support services that they get there to the meals that are provided a lot of the kids there are kids in our community that don't have a positive role model at home they don't have people influencing them in a good way in their homes and our children need the support and services that they get through school being like i said a mom of three kids who were doing e-learning this past spring it was not pretty i am educated and i have resources and it was not great my kids education

027was not the same and i am hoping that they'll be able to be back in person this fall thank you dr kirschner jennifer ratliff i live at 2771 south 900 east thank you jennifer and i just would like to thank you first for committing your lives to our children here but i would also um urge you to consider having an in-person option this fall in our nation education isn't just learning in our h in our nation it's a it's a social issue and the american academy of pediatrics has said they've already seen a negative impact from spring shutdowns that there's concerns of social isolation abuse substance abuse depression suicidal ideation meal access financial issues emotional issues racial inequality and those are issues here dr terrell from the the treatment center task here has said they've

028seen a double or triple in relapses here the police said that overdose deaths have doubled already this year seymour just you know our neighboring county issued a statement that said they've seen a drastic rise in custodial issues these parents we know there's an income gap and lower income and working class struggle more with those issues at home they don't have the tools to cope and from what i've seen 43 percent or so of students are free or reduced lunch here is that about close that's a huge percentage of people that are struggling and that are statistically more likely to struggle with not having the options that school offers and i think the difference between now and spring is that unfortunately covet's here to stay you know it's it's no longer an issue of containment it's

029more of mitigating our risks and what are we looking at with a year of e-learning or two years of e-learning you know these are known issues that are really going to affect children here and i think it's it's comparing our risk also the whole nation isn't shut down now so parents really are not going to have the options they had before and we our teachers and our staff we have more resources to protect ourselves that we did not have earlier so i would i just appreciate you considering all the options and more than just the education and the physical risk thank you miss reilly jonathan abbott howdy board i'm mr abbott my domicile's in the columbus indiana republic i'm a parent of four like a lot of us here our parents uh and as some

030of the speakers have said that an in-person situation for children including mine there's i mean the benefactors of it is substantial mine uh one of my children have somewhat of a learning disability uh and schmidt has accommodated him in so many good ways i'm very proud of that organization for being able to help him help him understand and learn and like the stats say you know there's a lot of crime escalating because of school if just because of this whole covenant nobody everybody's at home it's uh it's jeopardizing a lot i'm also going to speak on terms of constitutional law and how our republican form of government was established especially here you know we have children including have the constitutionally protected secured rights to exercise their rights in school wherever it may be and even

031indiana code looks at this acknowledges this for teachers as well now i see section 20-34-3-2 that specifically deals with the immunization and how stupid our parents can and teachers including the school board doesn't have to the schools don't have to compel them to have immunizations examinations testing this should be the same for masks whatever else wants to be forced on the kids i think in my opinion a lot of the majority opinion if i do believe is correct it'd be best for our children to go to school not be forced to do things maintain the status quo of what it has been before and i won't dive into statistics because a lot of us you know result to different outlets of media but yeah as the spokesman before i i agree in person it's going

032to be so much more helpful for our children mine definitely want to go back to school i know a lot of others do too that's all i got to say thank you mr abbott thank you thank you michelle carr hello my address is 3229 rolling hill drive i have two children in the bartholomew county school district my daughter will begin her sixth grade year this year at southside my son will be a sophomore at columbus east high school i am a substitute who works covering positions in special education and pre-car pre-kindergarten departments at south side each one of us in our household completely appreciates the emergency measures that this district took at the end of last year we are still concerned about this virus that is continuing to plague our world right now through working

033with the quickly put into place e-learning lessons last year we did discover that this is not my children's favorite method of learning my daughter has a mild cognitive disability and has an iep my daughter learns after extreme repetition so trying to get her to understand and remember something as being able to utilize it is very difficult she gets frustrated often the longer her day her week the more she will shut down and not absorb anything doing e-learning with her mix of regular school work along with the school work that her special needs teachers assigned her we were spending seven hours a day doing e-learning this means that going to remote for five days a week my daughter will roughly be doing five hours more education time than her peers but i know ahead of time

034that choosing remote learning will leave me with a frustrated 12 year old for nine weeks but she and i know that this is our only safe choice my son was also accepted into show choir this year it is a really big deal to him he loves performing in music as well as acting in school plays i truly believe his love of such things helps to motivate him to be the excellent student that he is his goal is to graduate with academic and technical honors he is set to take two honors courses this year and two c4 classes unfortunately c4 classes are not offered in remote learning a mandate is in place that they can only be done in person so we will worry that selecting remote learning option will be hard for him to achieve

035the academic success that he has been striving for but he and i know this is the only safe choice i share this with you not to complain about e-learning but perhaps to give a better understanding of the gravity in which i find myself advocating for the school to begin remotely for everyone this is not a position i take likely at all this is not a position i am happy taking it is a position i am taking as a person who advocates for science and for safety currently our state's positive numbers of cases are higher than they were when we first went to remote learning saturday was our state's second highest day of positives on record since this all began our county's positivity rate is at 7.9 percent today one more minute okay i'm almost done

036slightly down from the 8.2 that it was earlier last week harvard researchers have said that we should be at five percent positivity rate or below for a two week period before looking to open anything we haven't seen that yet and we are speaking of placing our children teachers and staff into confined buildings in which we know increases the chances of spread missouri closed a camp due to 82 positive covid cases between children and adults one-third of the tested children in florida were positive with covid over 80 percent of our teachers do not feel safe and are we are not requiring masks in our schools i implore the members of this body to act in a way which we know will protect our children by following the examples of other counties and beginning the school year

037remotely thank you so much felipe martinez good evening i live at 3465 riverside drive i wonder well first of all i want to thank the members of the board for their work to offer our children and our community a really good education a world-class education we have two children one of whom just graduated from high school one who will be a junior in high school and we have appreciated having been in another school system before i appreciated what they have they are receiving here in terms of education and the culture of the places where they are studying i also appreciate that this are very unusual circumstances that we are living through that the decisions you're making right now impact this moment in time and in history we are not in fact making decisions that will

038forever bind us as an organization but rather want decisions that are important right now for all the factors that we see at hand and with all the statistics and data that you have available to you i want to quote a couple of sentences from an op-ed piece that appeared in the new york times this morning from goji who is a professor and she writes for an opportunity to think about how there might be a hybrid possibility of education which emphasizes online learning she writes allow schools to offer only virtual classes this fall and convert schools and other large unused spaces for safe centers for online learning that's a little cute because she the acronym is skull rather than school but she writes this is not a radical concept many universities are bringing some portion of

039their student body back to campus but still holding classes mostly or exclusively online students who can keep learning at home should do so as a result the centers would not be crowded and it would be possible to maintain social distancing she goes on to argue that teachers then would focus their energy on teaching online and that the students who are able to come to these centers would be able to do the online learning but with the support of staff at those facilities that is to say we would not be asking teachers to do double duty but to focus specifically on this particular kind of learning which is very unique i understand but then also there would be other staff members maybe existing staff members or other people who could be brought in to be able

040to support those children with a particular needs that they might have some with ieps and other kinds of things that require very specific kind of help but in order to be able to allow them to learn as they learn best that might allow then for a lesser census in the rooms that might allow them for the ability that would allow them for the distancing that is necessary with the precautions necessary for those people whom is possible i acknowledge that it is a sense of privilege uh for some of us to be able to have the option of having our child go to or not go to school physically some of us have jobs that are flexible in order to be able to do that um acknowledging that some do not and acknowledging that there are

041people who need other things such as food and in other kinds of environment safety environments in school this might be an opportunity for you to consider an option thank you thank you i have one other name and i'm not clear that i can read it okay come and introduce yourself hey come on my writing's bad okay i forget people have to read it i'm sorry my name's tracy heaton dave martinez i'm also at 3465 riverside um my husband's accustomed to talking longer he is a pastor sorry um we have two sons as he mentioned in my my junior in high school is furious that i'm speaking on this topic he wants to go back and i know why i am worried deeply for his educators the staff the cafeteria lady the custodian i'm worried deeply

042if someone was a couple years or a couple months from retirement and they got sick and died i couldn't live with it and i know you got can't either i know you care about my kids i'm not worried about them he's in high school they're absolute jerks i textured him about the mask but i know it won't happen i'm worried about his teachers so that's my only concern and i don't think we're ready to go back yet maybe a month delay maybe some online for a little bit he did well by the way csa new tech has figured it out so maybe they should help the rest of the district thank you all thank you mrs that was the uh last name those who signed up to this evening i appreciate all all uh 10

043speakers and and mr red leaf your courtesy of saying my your point had been made thank you appreciate that as well we will move forward on our agenda um to board commendations board members do you have any commendations this evening you're ready to keep rolling like i am school board member reports i'm happy to report that at the development commission redevelopment commission this evening mr phillips ably stepped in for dr roberts and uh made a presentation requesting and that that group voted to support uh to the city council uh uh opportunity for a 750 000 uh grant from from them for our stem related programs all of our technical programs so still has to have a city council vote but thank you chad for doing that on our behalf today there are no other than

044cabinet reports mr phillips i think we have a second quarter financial report thank you mr caldwell and mr jensen and dr hack helped also this afternoon so thank you to them for helping with the presentation of the redevelopment commission since all your faces are covered as i go through this financial report i'm going to assume you're all in wrapped attention about all these numbers that i'm getting ready to present to you just just can't wait to see the next thing that's going to come up so this is the second quarter financial report there's not a lot of information to report new this time around so we'll go ahead and dig is it is on the presentation that's what it adjusts to chad oh okay all right well you have it in your in your packet

045i will just refer to a few things and i'm ready to point but there's nothing nothing to point to so i'll just refute refer to a few items in the uh in the report that you have in front of you in your packet um the first thing you'll notice is in the on the education phone we'll go to the education fund first you'll see that in march our revenues for for from the state reduced from they had been about 6.3 or 6.4 million per month and then in april that went down to 6.15 or so that is due and that is important that is due to the february adm lost you all remember we did the adm report in the spring so that large drop of about 160 students between the fall adm and the

046spring adm so that's why you see a drop there the good news is we do we are right on track where we should be for revenues in the education fund for hap being halfway through the calendar year and so that's good skipping down the expenditures portion there we're actually a little better than normal we've spent lower than what we would have normally after the first six months of the calendar year and that's um partially because i think of the success of the referendum in the may salary and benefit column there that larger amount usually is even larger than that we pay off all of our retirees in the last week of may all of our retirees get all their checks for the remainder of the year and that number was actually down because we had

047a handful fewer people choose to retire this at the end of this year than what we had in a normal year um also i will point out that we did have we did spend about 300 000 less than what we'd have expected during that second quarter mainly due to kovitz so we had very few obviously substitute costs and a few other things like mileage and some supplies that were underspent if you will mainly due to not being in the buildings during that period of time and so we're again a little right where we should be for revenues and actually a little bit behind on expenditures less than what we would have planned skipping now to the operations fund that's the one that has a certainly more concerns and that's right there on the first line

048property tax collections at this point we know that the state did allow folks to pay their property taxes a little later on those non-escrowed property taxes overall if you include our debt funds at this point in time we are at 25 percent of our expected annual property tax collections that's compared to last year we were 50 percent at this same time now thankfully the county is doing a special draw of taxes to all taxing units at the end of this month so i believe july 10th was the updated new um due date for property taxes and so the county is going to distribute those to all taxing entities so i'll update you in august on how that went but that is a concern being um being that far behind so chad you're about two million

049under there what you would expect to be um on a property fax revenue line at this juncture yes okay that's right and there very well could be close to that much coming in july and the next thing i'll point out is um she's not here but um congratulate jenae norman um on completing her first big grant for us they're on the um about the fifth revenue line down you'll see a hundred thousand dollars that's the school safety grant and that changed it was fifty thousand the state increased it to a hundred and engineer did a terrific job of of managing that grant but you can see the bottom line there is that we're only about 30 of our expected revenues in the operations fund right now so that's a concern but we'll keep an eye

050on it and keep you updated as far as the expenditures in the in the operations fund we were about 600 000 below where we would expect to spend in a normal year and that's mainly due to utilities and fuel so those two big savings from again from the covent shutdown so being only at 45 percent of expected expenditures for this time um is certainly better than where we would be in a in a normal year but that's with about 600 000 behind where we were expected to spend that's all the things that stood out to me in the report did you have any any questions i could ask mr cullen board members any questions for mr phillips thank you chad it's not on the financial report but i'm wondering if you have the ability to

051off the cuff give us an update on the health trust um sure i can um the uh that's another small piece of of if you could call it good positive news um that that shows up only in numbers from the the covid situation because people have not been going for elective procedures it's given the the trust that was about a half a million dollars in the red at the beginning of this calendar year it is giving it time to breathe and to grow some reserves so at this point most recent number i saw we were between three million and three and a half million in reserves which is not where we should be we want to be up around the six million dollar mark six and a half million but it is certainly better than

052what um even we had projected with increased premiums and and better cost savings efforts and we had expected some one-time boosts or increase to the reserve balance have those happened yet yes um they're all reinsurance reimbursements from large claims at the end of last year and those all came around february is when the bulk of those so those are in the three million dollars correct thank you yes you're welcome appreciate your flexibility thank you thank you any other questions thanks chad i appreciate it okay let's move to item 4 on our agenda the reopening plan for 2020 2021 dr roberts thank you mr caldwell so i'm going to roll through the detailed plan that we have and that you have been provided the the packet the information your pack was the annotated version that was

053released last monday the 13th and i'm going to dig into the detailed version and i think that perhaps the best way to do this as i go through the various slides please i understand robert phil's of order in terms of getting to the eventual recommendation and and discussion and vote but if there's a topic you just need further uh information about don't don't hesitate to stop me and and we can dig into that topic a little bit more and if i need to turn uh the expertise over to to one of our cabinet members or or others that are in the room here we can have them explain something a little bit further to help you out as you move toward then additional conversation so the the detailed plan that we have resemble resembles the

054executive summary that was released on july 6th and lists our guiding principles which you have all seen and so those five are listed there i'm not going to re-read those for you but that is what we've been using to put in front of us in terms of trying to develop a plan for this 2020 2021 very odd year the first thing i wanted to hit on in terms of changes is masks and so this is a slide that we've just added to the plan the plan itself has been revised but i wanted to to call out that language because as we have taken the last two weeks to continue to understand our circumstances to try to figure out how best to mitigate the risk factors for our students and staff members masks continued to be

055a lengthy and somewhat hard conversation and so many of you are aware of the progression from strongly encouraged in the executive summary we were trying to capture the mask wearing in as practical a manner as it as possible understanding pre-k through 12 and young students and and others to a week ago with the annotated version released of expected and required and laid out those pieces and we have uh skinnied it down so it's a pretty simple statement in terms of where we are with mass so this these bullet points were what was released last week and has been revised uh for recommendation tonight so basically it gets down to students and staff will be provided to washable cloth face coverings students and staff should carry face coverings with them at all times and are required

056to wear them and then we get into there is a link there that's in our document as to how to properly wear a face covering and then also does acknowledge that there will be some exceptions in terms of the requirement for mass based upon health or medical needs so we are there in regards to the requirement for masks the rest of the executive summary has has basically remained the same from a couple of weeks ago with just tweaks to to clarify the language and make sure it's easily understood but this is a page similar to the one that was released again two weeks ago as we've tried to stagger the information as it's as it's released to the public to quickly summarize our approach to mitigation of factors is is we are going to screen

057everybody and so we do understand the asymptomatic nature of some who might test positive and uh regardless of that as we screen everybody coming in we will ensure that nobody's in our building with with a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher and so that will begin on the school buses and also be down at the school building whatever the first point of entry for a person into our school corporation or under onto our school property a bus or a building there will be temperatures taken second they will be wearing masks so students and staff members will be wearing masks third we will practice physical distancing to the extent possible we do have a lot of people in our buildings potentially as i talk about the percentage of that in here in a little bit and

058and we will need to figure out how to space them out in this room here as we've seen to do to try to maximize the number of people we could get into this common space we will have a 50 capacity in all large spaces so we're modeling that here these seats are not six feet apart they're more like three plus and it is our understanding from the american academy of pediatrics that three to six feet is is uh acceptable if that's the right range uh and in terms of physical distancing understanding that six feet is the specific recommendation we have we have placed them at three feet here a little bit more than that again based upon uh what we we have seen uh from the american academy of pediatrics uh we have teachers going

059into classrooms now and and trying to understand their space uh find square footage that maybe didn't exist before my wife is a second grade teacher and she probably has more in her classroom than what is absolutely needed and there may be room in my garage and or basement to at least secure some of that stuff to get it off of the floor or out of the way so that that space can be utilized and then with with that space how can we configure the the desks the tables the chairs differently to try to spread them out and create as much physical distancing as possible so so we have teachers working on that i'm being sent pictures regularly of people with uh rulers and and working to figure out that configuration and trying to make it

060work it's not perfect but we will work on it in the classroom we'll work on it in the common spaces as i as i indicated with 50 max capacity our cafeterias when it's time for lunch we will either need to stagger schedules or eat in different places uh maximize the spaces in our buildings or or go outside uh hopefully this next nine weeks up into fall break can be nice weather for us and we can get outdoors as often as possible but we will make sure that we have uh 50 capacity in those spaces physical distancing practiced during during lunch and so forth so screening as they come in temperatures being taken masks physical distancing to the extent possible and hand washing like crazy and so we will we will have uh opportunities throughout the

061day uh for hand washing to occur and specifically instruct our kids to do that before and after lunch and before and after recess or before and after any other opportunity that presents itself we will have hand sanitizer accessible throughout our facilities and so that will be available too as students staff members are going through our buildings to make sure that is as as accessible as possible to take advantage of so screening as they come in with temperatures or yes with temperatures taken physical distancing um masks and then the the hand sanitizer um that that's the four big rocks that we throw out in front of our our staff and our students to try to to tackle and and address um as i jump into that into more specifics uh these are as as we hear

062about the right time to open or not uh this plan board is is not really about august 6th it you you set a calendar and approved a calendar some time ago and right now we're scheduled to start on thursday august the 6th this plan is one that if approved gives us the ability to not start on thursday august 6th and do something different based upon information or data provided to us and so if we are on a substantial spread and i'll get into those metrics in a minute we already have laid out that we would go into any learning environment if we're in a minimal or moderate spread this is hopefully how we can start thursday august the 6th that we have given parents options based upon how they feel about the circumstances or situation

063to either go into a traditional environment or keep their kids at home and do something in remote learning and then hopefully at some point in time some near future we can be at low or no spread and return to something more normal the last time our kids our staff members were in school was march 11th that was the last time we had normal and and hopefully again we can get there we know that there will be things will change forever in terms of the way that we approach school and hopefully some things that help keep us from spreading other things whether it be covet 19 the flu the cold or anything else that kids staff members pick up during the course of the year that we will develop practices habits that are better for all

064of those things so we have this plan laid out to allow us to adjust quickly to the circumstances that exist i don't know how many times in the last couple of weeks i was told to follow the science and usually that conversation was around masks and so as we follow the science we also believe that we should follow it when trying to make a determination as to whether or not it's safe to send people back to school or to work and i'm i know i have to be careful with the word safe as we try to understand what that means and and then based upon who you ask and so we have asked for help i am not at all the professional in this arena in terms of trying to understand what brings about the

065most safe environment for us so what is the data that might be out there that can help us understand that so we have talked with dr box commissioner of the indiana state department of health we have talked to dr scott the president of the indiana chapter of the american academy of pediatrics we have talked to dr weaver who is the chief medical officer of the indiana state department of health we have talked to dr brian nibalski who's in the audience here who's with our bartholomew county health department we have talked to dr slade crowder and dr tom saunderman physicians at columbus regional hospital so we have we have went to those individuals to have the dialogue around what are the metrics we should be thinking about as to whether or not school should be open

066or closed or we go to some other model and so what is on the screen is we've been having these conversations all the way up until this afternoon in terms of trying to nail don't down those metrics again believing we have a plan what are the things that allow us to move back and forth between red yellow and and green and so here we are looking at per capita coveted positive rate so per 100 000 people what's our covet positive rate and a green would be from zero to five yellow five to ten red greater than ten and the notes we've added there is we we obviously have to pay attention to other places it isn't just about bartholomew county but what are other places looking like too so review those surrounding counties right now

067we'd be at a yellow 5.92 in terms of our per capita covet positive rate the percent positive test rate green 0 to 10 yellow 10 to 15 red greater than 15 again making sure we're also checking our surrounding counties to see how things are there our test rate right now is 7.7 that would be a green based upon the the metrics that we have outlined here the next two are the trend of per capita coveted positive rate and trend a percent positive test rate so the two things i've already mentioned what's the trend data is it going up is it going down if it's going down then that's a green for us if it's going up and that's a yellow we're in the yellow because both of those numbers are going up a little bit

068and so we have a yellow a green and two yellows it is also important to look at test turnaround time to understand this community's ability to take tests get the information back and for us to make important decisions on it to keep spread from happening and so this green would be a zero to two day turnaround time yellow a three to five and red six or over right now we're at about a three so we're close to green but but a three day turnaround time that's information that will have to be continually provided to us from crh and optum labs who's also providing testing in our community mass compliance was added because this is a critical one following the science we we have had a lot of dialogue about if everybody has their masks on

069then we stand a really good chance of not passing any any any virus back and forth from person to person so in our school building what is that compliance rate are we at 100 are we at 90 percent are we less than 90 percent and tracking that and trying to understand how good we are in in having our students and staff members keep their maths on and and not spread the rates there's a question mark there because we've not started school to have a chance to figure that out and then the hospitalizations so as we talk about positive test rates it's also important to note how severe the reaction that people are having to that those positive rates and so a 0 to 9 would be green 10 to 14 yellow 15 plus red and

070and these these numbers and these ranges are based upon the trend data that bartholomew county has had so they looked over the last four months to march and and has helped us set these ranges based upon what we've seen from past experience and so a green for us would be zero to nine we have five hospitalizations now so from a data standpoint in terms of trying to understand what it is on july 20th at 7 32 is those those i'm sure those numbers have changed but they were before i got in here these are what they are tomorrow they may be different thursday they may be different next monday they may be different on thursday august the 6th they may be different but we have numbers in place to try into a conversation about deciding

071it's time to close we have substantial spread we have an e-learning environment ready to go and and we then institute that that practice and we move ahead with that for as long as we need to dr roberts the source again of this these metrics recommendations specific source would be from our conversation with dr nibalski and other physicians medical professionals at columbus regional hospital after also consultation with the indiana state department of health so the the asterisk at the bottom there we would have some data that we would be pulling directly from the public data available through the indiana state department of health a couple of other pieces we would have to rely on brian and columbus regional health and then all the the other piece would be you know what do we have in terms

072of mass compliance that's our own data the additional one we've not added to here is there there may be a need to close a building based upon spreading that building and so that's more of a numbers thing in that building that's not a community piece that would be what is the number of cases we have and what's the contact what is the the as we do contact tracing who has had close contact with that individual and and who do we need to then quarantine because of that and does that number result in us having to close to send home a classroom a wing of a school building or a school building so that becomes a numbers piece for the for the building itself versus the metrics here that are corporation driven or corporation wide so

073i wanted to get that kind of stuff out there first is that we made a change in the mask piece we've been revising revising revising right now we're requiring masks we've added the metrics to try to get to a point where we get it it is we're trying to all figure out is it safe safe again trying to find that what does that mean to me what does it mean to you what does it mean to everybody else to get our kids back in the school building our staff members back in the school building and these are the metrics that medical professionals providing to us to keep a close watch on that could then trigger a conversation to talk about moving from yellow which is what we would say we are right now because we

074would say that we are in yellow and then move that forward and that's why i reiterate that for this plan as you get into conversations in a little bit and try to figure out what to do i'm i'm we have a calendar that starts us talking august 6th i'm proposing a plan that gives us the flexibility to move within these areas based upon the data that we have to go to e-learning and if prior to august 6 the data is saying that's where we need to go then we that's where we need to go we communicate appropriately with our public and and we move to that kind of environment but if the data remains as it is um hopefully gets better and again i understand that challenge we have state numbers that are doing things

075we have various counties in our state that we consider hot spots elkhart vanderburgh county we have states around us mostly south that are considered hotter places we might have people leaving the community to go to those places but also encourage our community to think about this if it is important to get back into school it is a complete community effort to do that it isn't just about the students and our staff members wearing masks it is about the people in our community wearing masks i know some sores are requiring that but it is all of us trying to pitch in we are a microcosm of this community whatever is in our schools came from somewhere else whether it is drugs a weapon a disease or whatever else it is came from the community and so

076to keep covet out we need help there too and then to keep it out of our community we need people to practice safe habits if you have a trip plan to florida the next couple of weeks you need to make the decision for yourself i'm not sure that's the wisest thing to do if that's a hot spot and you're going to come back into school and be with a lot of other people but that's a possibility if there's a large wedding that you're going to go to and people aren't wearing masks you have to make that decision that is fine but as a community we have to think about all of those kinds of things if we're going to try to get back into school and keep it safe it isn't just about school reopening

077that makes it unsafe for our kids our staff members it's the practices that we have and what we're doing everywhere else that affects our ability to open school and so i ask for that help as a community so i dig into the plan then this is extremely detailed this is the internal document we've had as a school corporation that gets into links takes us to other places and so forth that's why i indicated board if you're looking at something and it's like okay you need to stop and help me out here please do that otherwise i'm going to indicate the topics and if there's something you want me to point out i can do that kelly please help me if there's something you think we need to reiterate here um i'll rush you to the

078microphone and you can help me out with that and i do want to take a real quick and acknowledge kelly thompson in her work as director of health services uh kelly has been in here all the time and helping in in much detail organize this so we are we are prepared to try to start school if at all possible so the first bullet point or first topic is practicing prevention so you have a lot of items up there about practicing conv prevention so again face coverings um the we screened down go to water bottles because i did fail to mention that earlier we are providing not only providing two mass for every one of our students and staff members we're providing water bottles too because we don't want people going to water fountain and drinking

079out of the same water fountain so we will provide water water bottles have hydration stations available so those water bottles can be filled but that middle column is is basically what we're focusing on today because we are saying we are in yellow we are in that minimal to moderate spread and that if we open school those are the protocols we practice if we would close school we're jumping to the red hopefully again going back to something looks more like march 11th we're getting into into the green as we keep going forward we have specific thoughts about transporting students that bus drivers monitor students all with face coverings we're going to screen them take their temperature of our entry to the bus physical distance to the extent possible we're going to load buses from the front

080to the back excuse me from the back to the front uh seating charts so if we do have to do contact tracing we can identify who is around a particular kid and clean disinfect and and our postponing field trips so cover that one in detail just because the few bullet points that are there but also allows me to talk about physical distancing for just a second in that as we look at physical distancing a hybrid model that other corporations are using could could be done uh you would you could have students in a building one day and a different set of students in the building the next day and you could begin to decrease that number it would require our staff to have to go back and forth between an online and in class environment

081and figure that out because they would have students still needing to participate in school every day so that would that would be the case there but let's say that reduces it by 50 percent right now our data is indicating 70 so as as we go through the next week and we try to stay true to the timelines we've set set in place as of friday the 24th this friday it's the final day for for parents to enroll their students in our online options we'll have a a hard number for what that looks like the survey data said about 30 percent at least we're looking at that as a possibility well 70 percent of students are what end up in our buildings or even less than on our buses because about 57 percent were indicating brett

082helmet did not need transportation so it's a little over 40 percent that was needing it so again we're starting to to to cut down on the number of people that are even on a bus or in a classroom physical distancing does become easier not as easy perhaps still as we'd like it to be but it does change simply because of making those options available to our parents to go online or or come to to the building entering the school buildings we have protocols for that in terms of how temperatures are taken hand sanitizer stations accessible throughout all and then only essential visitors being in the building so that's not the greatest thing in the world because we have great programs that bring in people from in our community to volunteer and help and do great

083things but we simply can't risk that at this point in time in terms of bringing additional possibility in if we can curb and limit the number of people in our buildings we have bullet points for serving meals so a variety of locations may be used for serving meals to our students making sure that we maintain only a maximum of 50 capacity in the cafeteria uh washing the hands uh before an apple whatever you want to you call it but we're going to make sure with a hot and cold entree every day and still some choices but the cafeteria staff will be helping with those choices um and limiting that exchange that touching and then that grab and go opportunity creates flexibility on where our students go to eat so it doesn't have to be that

084same table in the same space that they were used to before there's now flexibility throughout the building in terms of where they might eat uh and that's some of that other that the longer meal period space seeding and so forth is outlined there large group gatherings it gets into that about the large spaces and fifty percent we do also list under that the bcsc and ihsaa guidelines most of you are aware that we have at least started some activities from uh from a school standpoint with marching band uh sports and those kinds of things and already practicing some of these these steps at risk mitigation supporting teaching and learning i figure this is probably one that might elicit the most questions in terms of the options we provided we did want to provide three so

085the traditional or typical model of coming to our school buildings and being there all day riding our buses if that's what you need to do but if we have people concerned about sending their kids to our physical building we provide two options one is is a bridge model that is designed to be more short term that it's an opportunity for somebody to say i'm not sure yet i'm just not comfortable yet i think i'll do the bridge to start with i'll be tied to a teacher in my student's building maybe i have a child who goes to south side and i want to make sure i'm tied to south side and i would have a teacher from south side to be helping my child with the bridge model but then after four weeks i'm ready

086to i i saw that bcsc did okay with with getting my kids other kids back and they are doing a nice job with this these risk mitigation factors and and they're ready for my kid to be i'm ready for my kid to go back to school they'll have that option and and we'll give them that flexibility we want to be as flexible as possible actually in making sure that kids can get back into our building or the parents can choose whatever option works best for them the other electronic or remote option is the columbus virtual pathway this is year three of that pathway for us every year we tweak and make it better and expand it this year we've added the elementary curriculum it was a secondary program for us before we already have a

087couple hundred i think laura enrollments into the columbus virtual pathway so 200 right now and so that's more of a longer term people are signing up for that believing this this is the model they're going with they want to do remote learning and uh or at least looking at that at a semester level in terms of getting into that but again that doesn't mean that if somebody makes a decision to come back in our classroom we're going to say no we want to work with each family to figure out those circumstances and if we can appropriately move from one to the other at any time we will try to do that we're trying to find a model that fits the option that fits best for the student and the family i'll stop there because again

088that's one that i know board members you have received a lot of questions about we certainly have too we created an email address called online options i think online options at bcsc.k12.in so if you're listening in here or online online options at bcsc.k12.in.us you can send a question to that it's being reviewed as much as is possible and people being responded to or called uh to talk to about uh about those options so george roberts i think miss day health dwyer has a question yes i have a couple of questions um on the very first slide you showed where we could go we monitor um there levels of the spread is her mic on nick i might just pull it up a little bit yeah yep there we go i would say it's the mask

089because i know i speak up um for the level of the spread is this something that can go live like on our website or somewhere where parents like the night before or they can themselves monitor as well and you know because i i appreciate you know i've worked with uh dr christina box you know at the state level for a number of years and and everything and you know just knowing you know we hit we hit everything i think as far as when we talk about our kids but we also have our staff that sometimes have anxiety and you know and being able to choose you know for you know if like the one lady um mentioned about if they're close to retirement they're older you know they may have some you know complications or

090something that would cover would enhance is it something that we you know how how would we kind of work through that or give them the choice that they would be our online teacher and then you know throw our younger teachers in the classroom um and you know my daughter's now wanting to be a teacher and she was like i'll go teach but but it's one of those that you know there are a lot of concerns and sure you know and i think every one of us on this board you know we we don't take this lightly and i hope people understand on facebook and everywhere else that you know i know we all have you know struggled and tried to reach different information so i guess the thing is i would really like this particular

091thing to be a live thing like daily i can get on and look to see if we're yellow or green and you know and stuff but the other side of it is i am concerned about our teachers and you know and how we're going to ensure that whether we have enough tas in the classroom or if a teacher is sick do we have a good pool of substitute teachers to pull from um and i and bus drivers you know and our support staff i mean they're and i know i'm probably going to your question is can this be live online yes but to what end what are you thinking um i'm thinking like at you know four o'clock in the morning i know during snow days are you know they're out checking the snow and

092stuff but even that evening at the like maybe at six o'clock every evening they throw up you know the numbers that they got like like today at six o'clock these were what these numbers were tomorrow at six o'clock those numbers may change yeah but i would be i would be cautious that that we that we would envision that every day dr roberts gets up like he checks the snow in in january and february and makes a decision on whether or not the buses are going to run i don't think that's the intent of this model it is a directional right intent that says as it shifts over time uh and and moves and uh you know you hope everything moves greener but if it moves redder right they have two different messages for us and

093i think and dr roberts i see you nodding your head we probably can do this online we can and so so yeah i'm not sure daily kathy in terms of that but but our plan is to meet monthly monthly weekly we've had a standing meeting on monday mornings already with dr davalski so that throughout the summer we've been following the data having conversations about the spread and and where we might be as as as a county as a region and as a state and so we in our conversation today additional meeting today we look to add uh dr crowder dr sonderman dr kaiser uh uh julia beattie and others to that conversation and make sure we have this data ready so you know at this moment i would say would be updated on every monday

094but that could change again based on the frequency and the right day and so forth but at this point it would be next monday that the numbers would be up that would indicate where we are based upon now a week of review and and and being current as we get through the weekend to that point so so we're prepared to do that okay isdh getting getting some data from state department of health brian and his team providing us with other data us internally providing the other pieces and then i think i heard you uh in regards to staffing and trying to understand that out so with these options and that gets back into the options that we have is we we have uh one surveyed our staff in terms of trying to identify those who

095would fall into the at-risk categories as described by the centers for disease control and then with with that population working with them to find out what the right accommodations are so they continue working for us it may be an online environment it may be something else but that's all staff not just teachers but support staff too and then we've also surveyed the staff to see who else would be interested in doing online instruction so regardless of uh the risk factors you might possess and accommodations we might provide for you do you have an interest in teaching online and a lot of people do right and so we would then pull from that pool too so that's why this week of getting through it getting us to friday the 24th knowing what the numbers are from

096an enrollment standpoint and then now we have numbers of who's going into bridge who's going into cvp who's coming into the classroom on monday of next week laura dr hack mr jensen our principals are digging in to get all of that separated get those class rosters rebuilt redone whatever the case might be and ensuring that people kids parents know where their kids are going and who their teacher is then that also allows us to know where are we going to be with physical distancing you know what is that now real number not just a survey one that we did in june or survey one we did two weeks ago but what's the hard number and how do we address that and then we will know that the number of teachers we need to put into

097that that area and then even even teachers we might need to move around and so that i mean it is a real possibility if we have a building that has 60 of its student back and another building has 95 percent we have an opportunity to move somebody from one building to another building to help with the the ratio and we don't have to have 25 in the classroom or that of that building that has 95 percent of its students back because we have other staff members that can help and lower that ratio of students so it is critical for us to get through this week get through friday understand those real enrollment numbers to then be able to address the staff that we have and how we can reallocate resources to address that that need

098dr roberts that that seems like that last um timeline that you defined there seems like a critical piece of information has that been published yet the part about the 24th has been mr caldwell so yeah the 24th is the deadline for that and then uh the following week because i i do believe a lot of our families the decision to send their child in person school or do e-learning may depend on do i think there are going to be 27 kids in my classroom or 17 kids in my class that is correct so it's very possible to somebody to not choose an online option we put their child in a classroom they find out that that that classroom has x number whatever that magic number is for them and now they want to do online

099and we're going to talk with that parent and see what that option is and how we can we can um use the resources we just identified to help with that child and that family to flexibility is is key as we get through the next couple of weeks and understand the needs of our of our parents and students and how we allocate personnel appropriately good thank you board members other questions for dr roberts on what you've heard so far mr stenner i'm interested let's call the shift from green to yellow or from yellow to some version of red a pivot point if we approve a plan that accommodates all these different kinds of scenarios does the board come back together and say we endorse this this pivot that you've made this change or would it be

100like a snow day yeah you have the authority mr center to tell me whatever you need to do it would not be required that you would do that based upon approving this plan i think mr enroll mr monroe would probably agree with that given that you have already approved a calendar for the year of august 6th i've not even looked at may to see what that last date is it seems so far away right now but you've approved a calendar this plan would you would approve to allow us to operate it and based upon the metrics that we have shown to follow those metrics and and use those to drive a decision and and and then pivot based upon the information that we've had in in our consult with with our medical professionals thank you

101i'm also curious and and this is related i think our ability as a as an organization as an employer as a school corporation have we done um administered any kind of tests covid19 tests have we advised our employees or our parents students you know when it's appropriate to get a test and where to go to do that and then if we got to the point where we wanted to do contact tracing it sounds like some of that at least would be done in-house yeah how much of that would be done in-house versus would we rely on other organizations to help yeah so a few questions and i think and so let me kind of try to try to work through those first of all in terms of what we've had internally thus far it has

102been minimal because we just have not had staff much here physically to somebody may have been ill and gone through the testing process themselves and and we wouldn't have known about that because they they weren't reporting to a building or reporting to students and so forth with that said we we have had to we have had to have staff members either test because of themselves or a contact situation a contact tracing standpoint go back through that it's been a very small number that we've had to work with to try to understand whether there's a positive test and or whether they need to be tested because there's a positive test elsewhere again that will change drastically though now as we increase our staff it's just in the last couple of weeks we started to get back

103to people being in the buildings july first was the first day that the governor allowed us to to really be back in the buildings a few of us were in and out anyway but july 1st and so we're two weeks in today was our first official day for our principals so we're just now starting to get all our full staffs back and in just the way school works our teachers are not on contract until august the 5th which is still two weeks from from wednesday so we're a ways away from having all of the people here in august the sixth if we get students as far as then testing we are working with crh and our health clinic to at least have a place to to go for our staff i don't know if kelly

104or brown somebody would want to comment on that further but then as far as students we're relying on on advising that students parents seek out their medical provider for further conversation about their symptoms and whether a test is necessary and then how they would get back to school now if if a student has symptoms that are covered 19 coveted 19 like and they don't have a test we're likely still going to require them to be gone for a certain period of time if it is if they do test and get a positive test that's another conversation in terms of the number of days that would exist there so a lot of a lot of pieces to step through in regards to that brian kelly any additional knowledge on our clinic that would be worthwhile well

105i would just like to say that if we have a positive case um or or a suspected case we're going to encourage the child to see their primary care physician in order to get tested or be sent for a test or to rule out any other possible infection i mean we're coming up on flu season here soon too so strap any of those things and any different infection is going to determine how long they're going to be out of school as far as test availability i know crh is saying right now at this point they only want symptomatic patients sent so if we're talking about potential contacts or just people that are curious if they have cobit 19 there is a state uh there's a state testing site that was previously at the armory out

106by the airport but we're looking for a change in location uh and that's possibly going to be at the old fair oaks mall thank you any other questions since we have him at the microphone it may be a good time just if there's anything from right i want to commend dr nibalski because we've had a lot of conversations over the last four months weekly over the last few weeks and and more often than that not in terms of days but always available and we appreciate his his wisdom and and advice as we've wrestled with a tough situation i think there's another question about contact tracing yes thanks so ultimately that comes up to the state department of health we'll be doing the contact tracing although it will be um assumed that the school corporation and

107also the local health department might be assisting in some of that contact tracing but the official testing or tracing is done through the state department of health but in dr robert's example about children on a bus we'd be responsible for providing the information that would allow them to do that contact reason and that's exactly why we're hoping we can have assigned seats and that's going to simplify the contact tracing you know and that's the other reason that we want to have universal masking is if we have that we're going to see it much less likely of a risk of transmission of the virus but the if we have an assigned seating you limit the the contacts and we have less people to worry about board members other questions for dr nabalski while we have him

108up here okay thank you brian other questions for dr roberts on he's presented mr dr bills thank you mr caldwell um i do have a couple questions in the teaching and learning aspect of the plan and that is okay first on july 24th we'll know exactly how many students will be in school and or online right right so that is when the social distancing the more detailed social distancing will occur yeah um i have i i've been looking at it's it's interesting that i think it was mr martinez that came up and talked about hybrid and blended models but i'm wondering um about um some e-learning centers for wi-fi um how are we going to handle c4 and honors and ap and dual credit uh students in this environment nursing and dental and welding and

109we talked about you know i i asked some questions about this before but i was wondering if he could share or somebody could share how that's going to work maybe they don't feel safe coming fully to school but they want to come in and do a welding session or or lab has has that been thought about at all yes it has and i'm going to turn to my expert mr jensen and have him come up um while he's doing i do want to recognize one thing you said dr biltz in regards to the buildings and learning centers and things like that i do think that the current state uh in in regards to not having any executive orders outstanding from the governor on the use of our buildings does allow us flexibility for a lot

110of things and so even if we are shut down for e-learning our buildings can be open and our people can be here and and we can be offering a lot of different opportunities for parents and students even in that situation that was simply not available to us in in march april may because the buildings were closed we could have anybody in them technically and so we just didn't have that opportunity to expand any any additional services so there are there is flexibility that could be approached in some of those situations okay i want to start by just first of all saying career technical education or c4 is now under the control of the governor's work council not department of education so they set some rules and one of the rules they have set is that

111over 50 so 51 of c4 classes must be in person for the student to get credit for that course so that's clear the other way to think about this is think about especially the secondary level as a menu you have traditional going in person we have bridge and we have the cvp so the secondary level we can have students taking bits and parts of all those it's almost like okay if you want to take a full plate meal deal that's coming in to traditional school if you want to go all a car you're taking i'm going to come in for this class a c4 class i may be doing bridge for this ap class i may be doing cvp for my regular english class so you can take a combination of all those so we're

112definitely going to work with families and with students to do that now when you say exact numbers we're not going to have exact numbers after 24th for some of the secondary schools especially high school we know we're not going to know until kids actually show up yeah yeah so it'll be hard to balance those previously so we'll do as best as we can to set that up but we know that not everybody's going to respond to that survey or the enrollment but again we want to think about it as that menu of options so again for c4 class we're saying try to come in you know as much as you can you can't learn welding at home right you can't learn some medical careers pieces at home so those skill pieces have to be really

113much you know on-site in person so again if there's an ap class to say yeah i can do that i can go in for that particular class that's going to help you know especially the block's going to help us with times because you can go in you're going to go in for you know 8-8 minutes not just 45 minute class so that's really going to help us as well well that makes sense i know that um you know all of us received many many emails from community members this last week and a half and many a lot of the questions i received were about the those c4 classes dual credit and i received some about my math just doesn't want to stay on ap classes and honors classes and so i'm it's good to hear

114that they may be able to go to those classes but then work at home work from home also is that is that kind of what you're yeah absolutely yeah it's going to be like i said a menu of choices okay the students at the secondary level gonna be able to choose from as part of what works for them and how they feel comfortable so that's that's what we're doing i do want to say that in the next friday note packet you'll get ap results we just got those in fact today and you're going to see that even though we were online we did pretty well even with a different test you can't compare this test because obviously went from a three-hour test to a 45-minute online test but we did pretty well so we're pleased

115with that and explaining that dr bilson other board members i i want to point out that with this slide you'll notice that whether we're at minimal moderate spread or in low no spread we're maintaining those programs and it really is i think uh symbolic of education for us our delivery of instruction has probably forever changed that that as as we look at different ways to serve all of our students and and the needs of them and their parents uh we we need to be more than just a traditional um environment in terms of offering so these options will remain here even if all of a sudden so that light switch goes back to we flip it in on march 11th again it's not going to quite look like march 11th because we just simply have

116more options that we will we will sustain so would the parents sign up for just traditional school but then i mean there are three options right now so what would that option be what would a parent sign their child up for if they wanted them to work come in and do labs but they also wanted some remote learning what would that they said yeah that'll be a matter like you know once the guidance counselors get back in they're gonna have to contact our guidance counselor and kind of work through that and what that schedule will look like okay thanks are there other questions for dr roberts or mr jensen while he's still a few steps away from the podium yeah dr roberts yes i do have it i'm just thinking about this because you know

117dr biltz did say that we all kind of got bombarded with a ton of emails as you are aware and and you know in sitting here looking at this and just you know listening and everybody asking questions and listening to the public you know and then i think back of you know some of the the emails we got um in being a parent as well and having a child that you know had special needs and trying to you know truly understand the whole three and four hour type of you know we didn't have e-learning i was doing three hours of you know teaching my son at home after school too but did i mean i guess sometimes i think did we make this really clear because some i know i had a couple of people

118said it just seemed like it was unclear and i know listening to you explain it and with mr jensen and all of us sitting here it just you know it kind of clicks i guess um you know it makes sense to me um but i also know that you know we had an awful lot of folks ask questions and you know it's almost like i want to look at everybody that spoke that said keep the doors closed you know does this make sense to them you know um yeah um the the i think anytime you have the opportunity for somebody to explain it it makes more sense than it did before maybe another reason why being with your teachers is helpful um but i think everything that is on here just to get straight to

119your question these links were made available how much they they were better understood i i don't know and as people dug into them and and they they get tweaked every day laura and bill are doing a great job as as they get if they get a question and they answer that question it's it's being changed in the documents so what somebody maybe didn't know two days ago or couldn't find they might be able to find now okay um and each each detail of this will be better seven days from now than it will then so we we have learned a ton over the last two weeks simply because of of the forum we created for questions by by having the reopening at bcsc.k12.in.us site and then adding an online options one we're at 1500 emails

120or something like that right in terms of coming in and trying to answer each of them individually or calling those individuals and as we've done that it's made us hopefully smarter in in crafting this and making it better so i i i get people not fully understanding it the annotated version we gave out last week was was did not look like this it was the document that was it's in your packet and that was an attempt to make it as readable for people as possible to get straight to the things that people were wondering about like masks and physical distancing and and all screening all those other things but yeah the level of detail here does hopefully make it even more clear and this is the one that's been circulated and utilized internally the entire

121time okay thank you you're welcome can i ask another question sure sure dr bills so i didn't know if there was anybody here that could talk about the teacher survey that from the columbus educators association i heard very little about that but it was a something we probably need to talk about and discuss see what's going on with that i don't this ain't here or i don't know if there's an even any anybody here that could talk about those results or do you know i don't know that we have a cea member in the room or or if so they may not have been involved in actual the survey i i can i commend the work of our association uh in in working with us through uh trying to understand the options available and and

122how we could navigate through this and i think they continued to work with their members as as data changed right so a couple of weeks ago um in in having discussions which the the formal arrangement that we have and it's through um it's a statutory requirement is to negotiate certain things and and you have to come to an agreement and discuss other things and certainly having a changed plan of instruction or or the way you're going to run school it falls under that discussion topic or as a discussion item so where we do that and we go through that process and so uh a lot of conversation communication at least ann cea officer was in the phone calls with dr nibalski each week to hear his thoughts ideas about where things are or going and

123so they had a survey perhaps in in late june that was shared um where the majority of staff members of those again surveyed or participated in the survey supported coming back it was a slight majority but supported coming back on time and then they did another survey last week and you saw those results i believe the specific of those results was uh the choice of three options uh one go online only to use a hybrid approach or three go traditional and uh combining the online and the hybrid approach is where you get to the eighty percent and then twenty percent only choosing the uh in person traditional yes and and that group was um our membership for cea is um i don't have an exact number but it approaches 500 out of our 734 members

124the data that was reported by one of our speakers earlier i took notes on forgetting who who did it it may have been i don't know i won't say it because i'll miss it maybe tiffany okay um those are pretty accurate in terms of of the number of people in in the association and the number of people that were participating um and so that's that's what we have um i was i was shared that some of that data on on friday then of course we all the board was was given that information yesterday but i do think it's fair to note that there's been a progression of this plan there's no doubt that if you read data a week ago two weeks ago there's there's some improvements there are more details available dr robertson has

125been so so um uh i even heard a few of the speakers tonight refer to a mask policy that has changed since uh you know since it was first discussed so i think that's that's a fair uh um fair challenge for us to continue to communicate that widely but clearly as as we can and i appreciate the work that uh the team has done to pull that together and on that point mr caldwell the association certainly was behind masks they advocated for that and so the the first version of our plan did not go far enough was strongly encouraged as they would have liked i think that we're in a place now where they would they would support they do support that at least that piece as they still wrestle with maybe um exactly how

126we start on august the 6th so so dr roberts there are a myriad of detailed questions that um probably if there are 11 000 students there's about 15 000 specific questions that even though someone's asked someone like it someone else wants to know their their slight tweak is there a go-to place for all of those uh as a parent as a student that i can you know online or a resource that i can ask a question and maybe we can't answer it yet but at least they can they can get that question out yeah i would i would i'll reiterate um the email addresses we've we've um created because they go to people who can uh understand uh what what is going on and reach out either via email or a phone call so reopening

127at bcsc.k12.in.us reopening at and the other one's online options at and that one's gets more specific into the models that we have so if you have a very specific question about online options you'd go to that one if you're wondering about your kid or child wearing a face mask or what's the screening process going to look like or what does lunch look like or cafeteria or or buses look like etc then you could go to reopening some of those messages are going to be delegated to other individuals perhaps at a building level because that's where we're getting into that a lot is that is we're giving you some high-level stuff here how this all looks at columbus north is different than it looks at csa lincoln you know 2100 students or whatever percentage comes back

128uh in at north versus 350 students at csa lincoln and even the age group right so we will we will make sure that people can answer those questions and again all principles are back in the buildings now so we should be really efficient at getting that done then our website so bcscschools.org we will keep on that front page just after all kinds of scrolling pictures at the beginning the little video that we have going they're the the most recent information so enrollment options the various options we're providing period uh the statements that we have out any copies of the plan that we've made available uh bcscschools.org so i know i'm starting to go along here yeah and i know i'm sorry that's okay given that the questions are getting more and more specific and all

129of our buildings are different i just wonder given given the timeline that our administrative leadership is working with that that there's a point that the questions pivot i mean the building principal is going to know because it's different at rock creek than south side so i don't i guess to clarify for families by the 27th give them a day to look at the data but that week the questions really need to go to building principles for that level like so what that level of specificity about lunch yes um and i don't know if there's something on our general website we should do to direct families there for that level of detail i would just strongly encourage building a faq list because you're going to want the same answer when it should be the same preparation

130right right but when it should be different that's okay you know the the principles that rock creek and the principles at clifty are going to have to give the different answer for whatever their circumstance is correct yeah i mean like answers about the learning pathway options would be similar but how it is implemented we expect it to be different at each building because they're configured differently their enrollment is going to be different so we shouldn't be surprised and families shouldn't go well at parkside they're doing whatever why aren't they doing that at smith because they're different places and they're different ends and all of that and and we should expect that because that's what we're trying to do is do what is best in each of our buildings for those students that we have in

131those buildings and the staff i i was envisioning dr shed the question like okay so you're going to require masks how are you enforcing that and who does that and i think your your response will be consistent across the school corporation it'll it'll fall into our pbis disciplines and and the the um responsible administrator teacher bus driver whoever the person is in charge will will work with the student to say this is what we this is what we require you understand that and you have to work through that yes and those are those need to be consistent regardless of which corner of the county you're in right correct you're right i think but there will be some specific i keep looking to board members seeing if you have more questions because you guys know me

132i have at least three but i'm trying to let you get yours in first james i keep looking at you i know you got questions man when it comes to the level of specificity for the individual schools when can that information be made available to the parents so they can use that data to make a decision on what they're going to have their children do yeah yeah um good question james because we said to him the 24th of the timeline right and that's friday and and just today we we really have not even full staff back we have full administrative staff officially back excuse me we don't have a full approved opening plan yet either right right well i think until you give that to us and they can march ahead ahead with that so

133tomorrow um as as we now have a finalized plan hopefully to uh work from they they will be able to develop the level of specificity hopefully that addresses the questions that parents will have and communicate that and and different buildings are different places as of this moment for a variety of reasons some might be immediately ready to do that others because the conversations they still need to have with key stakeholders in the building just aren't there but i would hope that as parents are making that decision this week that key information like what i think you're asking can be communicated to them it is a different time and we acknowledge that in terms of when you think about class rosters and knowing who your teacher is exactly and so forth we're about two and a

134half weeks ahead of that right now with this conversation um some will know that maybe as soon as they walk out the door at the end of the school year others that may not know exactly who your fourth grade teacher is and until a few days before based on how that's going we're trying to get all of that done ahead of how it's been done any other year uh in in with a more complex environment than any other year so that's that's what our principals are working through and trying to try to communicate to their to their parents as well as they can with a very tight timeline that 24th tied ahead we did have debate about that in terms of is that too soon um and and we we decided we needed to put

135it in as soon as possible so that it could help us with our personnel allocation we're recognizing that after the 24th as information continues to go out we have to be flexible working with families to um uh to to change that option if that's necessary or important because of the information that's been that's been shared but i'd like most and laura dr hack mr jensen parents are definitely reaching out with with level of specificity on those options trying to completely understand them and and if they're waiting to make a decision based on the teacher they get you know or something like that that that may be not going to be that level of specificity is not there for them but in terms of what the model looks like or how it would work in that

136building most of that specificity is is is there if if they're figuring out uh what lunch looks like you know parkside for example mr smith and his team probably doesn't have that quite in place yet as he works with his cafeteria staff and and others to to understand exactly in that time frame of when eating lunch is appropriate how to use that time frame to create physical distancing and so forth so the specificity of topics um programming options it's getting pretty close to being there some of those other things they're recess maybe what recess looks like exactly what the car line looks like in the morning and taking a temperature maybe not dr hacker mr jensen any additional comments there mr hofdwire you had another question dr hack did you were you gonna say today

137super yeah yeah thanks thanks doctor so and you brought up staffy you know and i know i'm surprised somebody hasn't asked it yet because it seems like this time of year we always ask you know how is staffing going and are we ready to march forward with all our staffing and everything you know i never like to give numbers i know we're doing very well okay so we've just got a few open positions but we're trying to wait until we see what's how the numbers play out before do we need to move somebody those kinds of things so we're a good spot okay and then as far as you know we talked about the positive behavior of all the kids and everybody wearing their masks properly and i know you know because you know when

138kids are in fourth grade they're taught recycling and then they come home and the mom's not recycling i get told otherwise i need to recycle yes and so we know at least our younger kids you know for the most part will follow rules so you understand the rules of rules and and i think that's one concern we have maybe with some of the staffing if we do have susie q and bobby that decide that they're playing a game if you know ripping each other's mask off or something then that chuck those two kids will be marched down to the principal's office maybe and mom and dad are called and you know have we talked about maybe i don't want to say discipline right because it's a behavior that we need to correct and then yes

139and so as i respond to parents asking about the mask piece is my kid going to be in trouble with that eventually uh you know we're but we're an educational institution that that we need to approach it that way that we're trying to develop a behavior that that that can then be uh practiced outside of the building it's not just because we're making you you wear it here and as soon as you you leave the campus you take it off and you don't use it to go into the restaurant or or wherever it is that you go next so it is something that we're trying to develop the behavior appropriately and and if we get to just straight non-compliance and insubordination and those kinds of things we handle that kind of behavior like we would

140with anything else but our intent is to treat it in an educational way make it a part of our pbis expectations at the beginning of the school year and just as we instruct people to i i use northside as an example oftentimes because they always ask me to come over and just kind of watch how things go but as they instruct people how to behave in the hallway or walk on the correct side to make it easier in terms of going different places and it's even more important now with covet 19 that they will be instructed to wear their mask and how to wear them and we have we'll be doing instructional videos for all these things what is what does screening look like what does hand washing look like what what does how do

141you wear a mask appropriately all those kinds of things and um that's how i work through it it's i i don't want to be um suspending expelling or excluding students because of masks right um but but we do want them to have them all the time and so we start with that expectation that requirement and then and then work that's one thing our our educators are great with is shaping and molding behavior right and and they'll they'll do that with this this behavior too all right thank you so dr roberts the the page you screen you have up here is helpful for me the how would you characterize the bridge model versus what we experienced the last nine weeks of the spring of 2020. i mean how will how will you expect uh students and

142parents who choose the bridge model to to experience it differently than than than what we had spring 2020 dr hack is you're making your way up to the microphone i i will give my my uh quick thoughts is that i would i would perceive it to be markedly improved that we did we were given a situation last year and really had to take a model that was right designed for one day and turning into nine weeks and and we learned some things there and then this one will be um better in terms of its attachment to the building and then the curriculum and instruction that we will deliver so dr hackman and laura if i can i mean the reason i ask is if i feel like a really valid critique that i've heard from

143a lot of parents and their concern about the e-learning bridge model is just that that they weren't prepared they would like to have better resources if they choose that to help them help their children but also the accountability piece of of the teachers and and the students uh to each other so that's that's what's driving my question so one thing we know is we definitely needed to improve and and knowing that we were in crisis education last time in the last nine weeks so knowing that we did um understand that we had to make some adjustments and those adjustments came in the form of how do we how do we talk about attendance how do we talk about grading practices how do we talk about consistent communication how do we talk about those expectations not

144only for the students but also for our teachers so knowing that we've already started to develop that plan we do need to see hard numbers so that we know how many teachers we're talking about but we will have a development opportunity for our bridge teachers so we're not teaching like we did the last nine weeks you need to better understand how to teach online what does your landing page look like on its learning we want a consistent message there so when a family sees a seventh grader as kindergartner a high schooler we have a consistent message so that's something that we need to consider in the past the doe gave us a shortened amount of instructional time maybe 45 minutes to an hour we know that that's not what's best for our students so we

145want again about a three hour time that our students are engaged in learning that doesn't mean three hours online i want to stress that again so so in that time frame what does your morning meeting look like we want our students to be engaged with teachers so what does your morning meeting look like how do you connect with students online what does your reading look like what does your math look like what needs to happen so that engagement does happen and if it's not happening how do you follow up and make sure that you fully understand where that child in that family is so you may have lessons that are synchronous or asynchronous so the child can get on but we really want students and families to engage in the curriculum engage in the online

146experience so my understanding is parents and students would choose the bridge for at least a four-week commitment and and if at the end of four weeks i've heard really good things about all the kids going back to school and now i dropped from that to my fifth grade class at southside i will expect to be in the same place that my peers and my cohort that's right are going to be when they drop in and that accountability is there that i know my teacher knows and i know that i'm not behind i'm not ahead i'm right where they are right and in that scenario your fifth grade teachers are still meeting and still talking we just have one that's online so what resources are we using this week where are we in the story um

147where are we with our manipulatives where are we with our expectations so there's still some conversations and some plc opportunities there for teachers to come together and have those conversations so that whenever sam hack leads the online experience and goes into south side there is a natural transition there may not be perfect but it is a natural transition plus you're trusting that your south side teachers are still holding on to all those fifth grade students and moving them along and so it is a we we're in this together and they're still our students and we want to make sure that that happens okay thank you that's very helpful i think i think every opportunity to beat that drum and let let the community know that that's where we're headed that mutual accountability will be one

148of the big improvements to the bridge versus what we did and again kudos for what everybody did in the nine weeks it was tough and we weren't prepared for it but we did the best we could but but let's we know we can do better continuous improvement thank you laura appreciate that thank you board members i i'm i'm going to move us towards asking for a motion i think dr roberts have anything else just before you do that and for those who are or are still in the audience appreciate you you're hanging in there with us just to show you what the rest of the plan looked like i won't stop except the topics we have the communication guidance including if we had to close templates already available for that to start getting information out

149social emotional learning we know how important that is whether we're in a remote option or we have kids in our buildings how do we address that so curriculum built in in terms of technology and equity making sure that our kids have equity of access to our devices and internet making sure that we're addressing vulnerable populations whether that's our students or staff members so a list of things that we will approach there including a link to our employee assistance program we we will maintain our eye care program and we may be even able to offer that in some capacity if we go online we want to the health services piece that kelly is here director of health services a list of things there i think an interesting just note there nebulizer treatments we give a lot

150of those during the course of a year kelly correct and just with the current situation we cannot give nebulizer treatments at school so that will change at least a practice for uh some cleaning and ventilation dr bozeman is it will has several things to to work on in that area and to to help us address processes there are two links to go to when a student or staff member becomes ill what's the screening decision tree what's the return to school guidance for that uh teresa has her human resources page so if we have a staff member wondering what their various rights are if they are in a situation where they have come they have tested positive for covenant 19 or are in a household with somebody that has and then we have a couple of

151quotes there from dr box and the american academy of pediatrics about the importance of being in school and then we just acknowledge the various groups that we we have worked with including that coven 19 community task force that dr niebulski kelly thompson myself others are are a part of and have regular conversations and i do want to cite the georgia department of education is where we kind of stole the model of having three different levels to pay attention to and being able to efficiently uh or with agility move back and forth among those based upon the spread in our community okay thank you you're welcome so we have a proposal for the reopening of schools and i would call it a framework that's flexible to adjust operationally going forward i think that's that's this proposal

152that you've reviewed for us tonight uh this plan do i have a motion that we endorse this and ask our administration to go forward so moved thank you dr bills is there a second i'll second thank you dr shed now going back to robert's rules of orders not jim's but the old roberts um what what what other do you have any other questions or comments i would i would just like to flag that that um this this role of schools in in our community affects my vote on this i would let you know that i just think knowing that we're more than about just education for some children it's the only place to get a solid meal it's the only set of adult eyes that really takes a hard look at them every day and

153and i i'm not as familiar i've had a privilege to have options available to me in my family but i know everybody doesn't and and so that to me is a will be a key part of when we vote that i would vote to endorse that i just would let you know that because that that's that's important to me it's um i think we would be rampantly pretending if if we we said that coming back to school coming together in the even if it's 70 percent and the 8 000 or so that come to school every day that if we didn't think that increases our risk as a community for covet 19 it has to it has to because physical distancing is the one thing we say that's an effective tool so that coming together

154will will increase risk and i what i saw tonight was a plan that says yes but here are the things we're doing to mitigate that and in that coming back together we also address those other needs of those maybe with fewer options available to them to really have have a all of our students and all of our children have an opportunity to to to be the successful person they want to be someday that that to me is is the real key in this i just wanted to say that as we went into the vote mr caldwell yes dr shedd um kind of related to what you've said and and what i have learned more for the increasing number of conversations is um one that what we're being asked to vote on is to allow our

155leadership and our staff to plan and to get down to all those details that are in the queries that are in all the emails that we have that we can't know and we can't prepare well for all of our learners and for our teachers until we give our leadership the permission to go forward we won't know we can't know anything if we just are e-learning for the next nine weeks um so i so that's important for me to think about and how to think about this that there's not one strategy or one modality of instruction that a vote would be endorsing it's endorsing our leadership to go forward and make plans and to the level of detail when the email says you know but how's lunch gonna be we don't know yet um i think

156the other thing that's important to me and the great pride that i take in our school corporation is that we always give choices we always have multiple pathways universal do we live and breathe universal design for learning so it's always about having choices for our learners and the plan clearly affords that so i those are the two um components for me and i will say i appreciate very much that the leadership listen i think i think my buzzword like for the last five days was we need metrics we need to get beyond the fear of the unknown and beyond just not understanding so i appreciate so much the persistent conversation we had about metrics thank you dr nibalski and your team for helping us wrap our heads around that so that decisions won't be emotional

157fear-laden decisions but based on something substantive so i appreciate that very much for what was shared with us this evening one thing i i want to mention tonight is is it you know one thing that uh is that the we'll get some of the numbers on the 24th and then school is set to start august 6th and is that enough time for our principals and our leadership and bill and doc you know laura and everybody to get everything ready that's the only that's one thing that's sort of that's not a very much very much time you know because they'll have to analyze that data after the 24th probably that weekend and then during the week then school is set to start the sixth so yeah i'm just a little that that's a tight it's a

158tight timeline and then i just want to make sure we have enough time to plan that they have enough time to plan that social distancing aspect so we don't have 30 kids in a classroom which i mean whatever size the classroom is of course but that's that's one thing that i have a little bit of a reservation about honestly yeah it's a good question dr bilstein i think everything that has come up in the last couple of weeks um whether another school would decide to delay for a couple of weeks or or they would go to a hybrid model or close we we we have reviewed all of those situations and and what the plus delta would be uh for us to go down any one of those paths and and exactly what you said

159or ask is one of those that i think it was wayne township last week after washington township um washington township closed at eight o'clock in the morning last monday um and then some point in time wayne township said they do they were delaying for two weeks so my direct question to this team that's in around the room here was does that make sense for us is that something we need to consider if not closing like washington township has just done and these individuals believed that we we could get them we'd stay on the path we could get the information needed to make the decisions necessary to have our kids the ones that choose to be back in the building on august the 6th and continue to make adjustments and improvements and and tweaks to that

160as we go uh thursday or friday august the 7th will look better than thursday august the 6th it does every year and monday august the 10th will look better than both of those days so we had that conversation and just from a plus delta standpoint came to the belief that it was better for for our community too to stay on the calendar that you had already set and approved and and that we we could make it work there's a lot to do between now and then there is thank you you're welcome one other thing that would make me a little bit more confident about the whole situation would be if we were not trying to implement something like this while we're seeing all the trend rates on the rise going in the wrong direction uh

161nationally locally i mean here charlie and showed up there that that the tests and positive cases are going up and you know it's yes we were thrown into a situation we weren't prepared for last march and you know it could have gone a lot better but it also could have gotten a lot worse so do we want to throw all the teachers the staff the students into another situation that we are not entirely prepared for that we haven't been through before even when the situation in reality is getting worse i mean i i think it would be more beneficial to you know not not closed-schooled not do online permanently but at least take a beat see where we're going before we just try to rush into something and you know rush into more unknowns yeah

162i think we owe that to our our students our staff you know give them that kind of time to see where we're going with it yeah um as i was going through these metrics earlier it is clear that there are some numbers and some other places that would give us pause and and as we consider our own circumstances tomorrow wednesday friday next monday next wednesday two weeks from now uh these numbers may take us to to that place where we would say close it down and that's why i would want to reiterate that i don't again you guys can choose how this all goes but as is you're not necessarily making a decision whether you start august 6th or not you're making a decision to approve a plan that allows us to make a decision

163based upon information that tonight i could not say with certainty that we're starting on august the 6th because we're going to be using information to help us continue to look at what is happening locally regionally and statewide and we might have to go a different direction but if these are our numbers today i would just ask a question if not now when you know what do those numbers need to look like for bartholomew county and at labor day at fall break at the end of the semester it says now we can now we can go back and and many would disagree with me on this but i believe that two days of of time with our teachers with our kids if we had to close on august the 10th august the 10th was better than

164zero because we have kindergartners coming to school for the first time if we start with online experiences that's all they've got first graders last year really didn't participate in e-learning as kindergartners because they didn't have devices necessarily so they're coming into an online environment that they've not necessarily practiced and have not met their teacher just all the things that can at least start with one of the positives that allowed us to be successful enough with our fourth quarter experience last year was because we had all the relationships developed for three quarters of the year with kids and so that that progress from uh in class to online worked better we can't start the year with that same experience obviously right and basically every single student has a new teacher you're going to have some with

165uh duplicates people they had last year that maybe taught math and have again for math this year something like that primarily at the secondary level but but everybody's starting with somebody new and and my my belief my feeling is that even a couple of days in the classroom with that new teacher if we had to close down based on the metrics uh we'd be in a better position then than we would doing it at this moment so that's just my take brian so just just from a number standpoint so so everyone knows so we were talking about the per capita um so for bartholomew we're 5.9 as of today so just in relation to some other counties in the state we're talking marshall is 41.7 vanderburgh 33.3 state of indiana is 9.6 and then we

166also we johnson 9.8 brown 7.6 jackson 5.2 decatur 3.2 so really all the surrounding counties also are either in the yellow or the green which is good for us that's what we're gonna keep an eye on now we use these you know similar parameters as the task force we were gauging as a community you know the the governor would go phase by phase we were kind of doing that on a community and citywide basis so there were times where we were strongly considering hey if the governor's going to go ahead maybe we shouldn't do it and then the governor would come out that day or the day later and say okay we're going to stick and call it 4.5 because we were afraid to go to step 5. another thing that i think will probably

167be really good for the community we're in talks right now to have a city and county-wide universal mass mandate so that'll cut down on the transmission rate in the community so if we're going to do it in the schools we're hoping to do it county wide thank you brian we just add a statistic and that you know as we try to understand our circumstances and and what can or will happen and mr caldwell mentioned earlier that positive tests will occur right um there has been child care offered across the state for the last four months and and 400 licensed child care centers in the state of indiana during what was the peak of our our our troubles or challenges to now in 12 different times out of 400 a a child care center had to

168close down out of an abundance of caution for for a case and able to to basically immediately so so hiccups in terms of those child care centers and so as as we again have just investigated other things that might be kind of like we're doing particularly elementary schools we're talking about child cares what might be similar and that that data is positive i think another one to look at is why mcas across the country have been open during this entire time and and i don't have the exact metrics to quote or cite for them but have been successful in terms of being able to remain open and and not have a lot of positive test cases or or create challenges and again it doesn't mean it's gonna there's always that possibility but at least looking

169at similar kind of environments as what we've had not being in school since march those are at least some some successes i guess to point mr stenner thank you mr caldwell uh i'm glad for a number of things tonight i'm glad that we've got a solid plan in front of us to review i appreciate the work that the administration and all the stakeholders that participated uh have put into the plan that we've reviewed tonight i think it's important and i'm glad that we have acknowledged that a couple of the trend lines are not in our favor today and i'm especially glad as dr shedd was that we've established metrics that are understandable for me an absolutely key metric is the number of new cases per capita per day per 100 000 people and when that

170gets to the 10 11 range for that seven day moving average i think that's going to be a critical point for us i'd also say that i'm glad that a number of speakers dr nevolsky most recently have related what's going on in our schools to what goes on in the broader community and we're not going to have successful plans in our schools at the same time that our community is not having success in controlling the spread of the virus we're absolutely dependent on the community to be able to move forward with these plans so thank you for asking okay there is a motion and a second on on the table to support the plan as put forward by the administrative leadership this evening i'm going to call for the question all in favor of that

171motion please indicate since i can't see your face necessarily that you're saying aye would you raise your hand aye all right all those opposed same sign okay let's note that the motion carried five to two um thank you for that thank you for that presentation dr roberts let's move on to our next item on the agenda item 5. dr robert's additional request items 5a through i yep so me again uh we'll run through these relatively quickly so we have minutes of the regular school we're meeting from june 15th as well as the executive session on that date and an additional executive session on june 22nd you have a list of supplemental contracts in front of you from dr hack and mr jensen there are no requests we always have field trips and professional leaves but

172none at this time you did have a few school fundraisers in your packet from a claims and payroll standpoint we have two sets for you june 1st to june 30th the total over 12 million dollars 12.2 for the date of july 20th we have about a 1.7 million dollar request payroll for june 19th june and july 3rd two sets of payrolls total was a little over 4.2 million dollars and just a note there that the payroll date of june 19th included perfect attendance pay for 41 teachers and 300 each and aviva payout for retirees so there was some additional pieces in there we do have a revision aboard policy 511.03 we've had conversations about that policy for a couple of months dr shedd had noted some some possibilities for work changes we have worked on

173those and that that revision is in your packet we have two bond resolutions that mr phillips can speak to as necessary this is the second time i believe mr phillips we have requested such a an opportunity to leverage uh bonds for purchasing capital equipment primarily technology um some of the pieces i think based upon what's what's going on but um you have again two resolutions one's a preliminary bond and the other one's a reimbursement to to reimburse for expenses that go into that process and then lastly you have been reviewing a student expulsion appeal so your decision is in uh included in my recommendations overall thank you dr roberts so items five a through i is presented do i have a motion to accept so mo thank you kathy is there a second okay thank

174you pat any discussion any questions for dr roberts i know you like to talk to chad after two and a half hours in a meeting on numbers but probably not tonight not quite as entertaining hearing no questions all in favor of uh five a through eyes presented please indicate by saying aye hi i'll pose same sign since i saw no hands go up i assume that was unanimous sharing okay thank you i'm six a request for previous human resources recommendations ms heine thank you mr caldwell i'm requesting approval of the remaining human resource recommendations as presented this evening thank you miss heidi do i have a motion to approve that request from miss heine thank you mr persinger as our second second miss day haltwire thank you any questions for miss heine thanks for all

175your good work on that ms heinen keeping us getting our staffing where we need to be right now all in favor indicate by saying aye aye all those same sign that motion carries unanimously board members if i haven't worn you out already what other input do you have for this evening anything mr stenner miss day healthwire all i'd like to say is that i appreciate the requirement of the mask and i also hope that bartholomew county will kind of follow suit bcsc can be a trendsetter maybe in that aspect and we teach our children to go home and teach their parents so and i do like the fact that this is a living document uh it could be changed as we move forward and um keeping an eye on that number is very critical thanks

176kathy thank you dr bills so thanks everybody bcsc administration dr roberts everybody that was um involved in working and explaining this plan and and sometimes and also thanks to all the parents and teachers and students who sent emails and completed surveys and and contact us and gave us your thoughts you know this was a difficult decision and you know you have to kind of once in a while go with your with your instinct with your gut and and you you had all the numbers and you had the data there was just um a hesitation so it was not a reflection on any of the work that any of you you had done it's just uh it's really hard i understand thank you thanks thanks dr bills mr persinger echo dr bill's a statement it wasn't

177reflection on necessarily the framework or anything i am in favor of the vast majority of everything that was on there it's just the reality that's around us you know i mean yes the surrounding counties may not be in that bad of a direction right now but what we are seeing is that it is getting worse it's not getting better all over we're not an island we don't have a wall around us people travel for work myself i travel through three different states all the time you know and i know i'm not the only one and with my wife working at school bcsc and you know my kids going to schools in bcsc i just and also a halt of people in the community that reached out to us just the overwhelming amount that just were

178worried and not in favor of going back right now it's just hard to ignore mr bryant our new athletic director left does he know that he can't put up that stuff place over here yeah you stuff really really blue and white he should be good in blue and white okay okay thank you thank you i gave him different advice pat dr shan i just i just want to reiterate i appreciate very much all the passion that we've heard from our community i think it's it says so much that people care so much about our kids and care so much about our teachers um that meant a lot and even if it meant reading all the emails that we received the amount of research that some individuals did and what they sent to us was fabulous

179and very impressive so i i appreciate that and i think it it helps me actually be quite positive about our times ahead because dr robert any closing community nothing to add mr coleman thank you i would remind our board members that our next board meeting is scheduled august 10th i want us to keep a close finger on the pulse here and if we need to do something sooner we have an executive session i'm sorry so we strategic planning session on the 31st so we can we can touch base there and if we need to do even another session beyond that we can do that we just have to meet the 48-hour requirement give public notice but i think dr roberts you know this board stands ready if we need to have another discussion let's let's

180have those discussions as frequently so that'll be here as well on august 10th um strategic planning will be at the uh boardroom on the 31st at 9 00 a.m yeah so just for the public's sake in terms of that meeting we do uh try to at least twice a year every six months have a strategic planning session just to talk about goals objective strategies for the school corporation and had had moved the date uh from typically october i think to right before the school year so we could look at getting getting the school year started off in the right direction that date was set in january i think we did not know that covet 19 was going to be a part of our our life but i think it ended up being very strategic maybe

181accidentally on purpose in terms of making sure it's before the school year but it i think it has added emphasis or value right now with all the conversations we are having so we do have a strategic planning session not an executive session a public strategic planning session at nine o'clock in the morning uh on uh next friday the 31st and then our regular meeting is is the tenth thank you for that correction and um dr roberts i think i think if i can echo some of the comments made if if the passion and obvious caring that this community has for our students our children our teachers our staff came out through indications i hope you and your leadership team at all the schools will ask for help volunteer help if you need it from the

182community if it may take more hands more eyes to pull this this launch off and this opening this year so let's let's don't hesitate to ask for help if we need it that's a good point mr cola thank you thank you if there's none other to come before this board tonight this meetings adjourn