School Board Regular Session - April 27, 2020

001oh good evening this April 27 2020 regular meeting of a comely school board is called to order this is clearly not a regular meeting as we are participating via zoom and are streamed live on the Carmel High School's YouTube channel because of restrictions in place due to the corona virus well they're not physically present at educational service center we are following the requirements of the Indiana open door act and related guidance for conducting this karmically school board meeting as required by Indiana law roll call madam secretary all blue members are present today Thank You Colleen do you need us to each individually signify what President or is that good enough I think because we can visually see you all I think we should be good enough but when we do do the there's one action

002item yeah that so we'll do that okay yep okay all right I started our last meeting on March 23rd just over a month ago with a long list of thanks on behalf of the board continue to provide virtual learning to our students and food to some of our families we have seen members of the karmically school family reach out to each other to provide support and help and he's unprecedented times we have seen Aceros driving by students homes signs appearing in yards to recognize accomplishments of our students and countless other examples of supporting each other I again want to thank our teachers and administrators our technology department our food service team and community volunteers and countless other members who have stepped up during this challenge and all the rest of our caramels clay families we

003will continue to be the best at getting better as we adapt to this challenge the professionals at karmically schools are here for our students their families and each other so if you need assistance please reach out also during this time take advantage of the opportunities that just this challenge brings and we will get through this together oh I skipped the pledge we went out of order so I'm gonna go back and ask Pete O'Hara to lead us in the pledge okay and I'm gonna pull up okay I pledge allegiance to the flag the United States of America and to the Republic for which one nation Thank You Pete we appreciate you being with us this evening we appreciate you leading us in the pledge at this time we would normally have the pleasure of congratulating

004the accomplishments of some of our students just because we are not physically together we still want to recognize those fantastic accomplishments well we would not be shaking their hands we will have presentations from their teachers and coaches and photos of the students I want to thank the presenters in advance and give a special shout-out to our board secretary Colleen nobis for putting these presentations together first we have the Carmel High School debate team the presenters are Miss Maria she said of it and mr. Dylan gentle core you the story of the caramel for the past three years I've been a story of wheat and greed highlighting the passion and commitment of the city staff to our intelligent knowledge thirsty and hard-working student body my name is Maurice achieving and I'm the head coach of the

005caramel debate team in the fall of 2017 a group of five students approached me and asked me whether I would be willing to coach to comment rate him after several other teachers they are talked to where I'm able to give them a satisfactory response seeing the desperation of the faces knowing that I was to be a teacher myself and someone was truly passionate about debate there was no way for me to escape the new responsibility that was being laid upon me but it was clear that as a full-time English teacher I couldn't do it alone so I am enlisted the support of a bright passionate dedicated new English teacher who was resolute to make a difference in a career he had just started coach gentle core we both graciously accepted the responsibility give up the

006little free time we have for grading as well as our valuable time with our families on weekends in exchange for a modest stipend but tons of fun we were ready to travel every Saturday to live our homes at the wee hours of the day only to return home sometimes just an hour or two before the new day started we set goals and procedures of the club with the collaboration of our tremendous officers these officers are the backbone of the Carmel debate club as their work tirelessly and selflessly to motivate every student who sign up for the club and give them the best so they could eventually join the ranks of the best debaters in Indiana in the u.s. today they are being honored in our coaches we are delighted to see them being recognized for

007their intelligence hard work and dedication are extremely grateful to the karmically School Corporation and to the Carmel clay school board for this event thank you for recognizing our students efforts to present our school district honorably in an area where CHS is underrepresented and almost unwelcome but how can that be for school of our caliber because of their hard work talent and dedication we are sending more than 15 students to Nationals if it that we have never accomplished a coma my school until this year it fits that only a handful of school with robust debate and speech programs managed to do occasionally our students are the pride of our school community and country and we can never celebrate them in us so thank you now it is my pleasure and honor to yield to kochi who

008will be presenting those who markable student thank you coach the TV my name is Dillon gentle core and I am the assistant coach for Carmel debate it is my great honor to introduce to you our accomplished debaters club president iris young vice president row Hill Senapati public forum event had Edward dong public forum event head Andrew Sanchez lincoln-douglas event head Vivian Jung policy even had Jade Mehta policy event had sage Mehta Congress event had Isabella filet in public forum Caleb Tsui Sonia Chun D Liat on Marissa Finney and Kate Smith in lincoln-douglas Jasmine su and Sanjana potala in policy Paul burger Ramu Shiva Vishwanath appear among qiraji Siyad Daniel share faith Austin and Meghna Eyre in Congress Ayanna bossy neo fling and Jordan Siegel in world schools debate Nicholas soo Anushka Pandey Leonard group schinsky

009Sonia Selassie James Jang Yi Ling Li son Charlie put powder Sri Pinson dotty shreya Oona and Michael Walker in big questions debate Collins Oh coach the TV and I would like to thank the board for this recognition and extend one final thank you to these students and their wonderful families because without all of their hard work and dedication this truly memorable and historic year would not have been possible thank you well thank you very much coaches next presentation is perfect a CT SAT score the presenter is Miss Rachael cold welcome to the school board recognition for perfect a CT SAT scores my name is Rachel Cole director of counseling services at Carmel High School and I'm very happy to introduce tonight our young men and women who've made a perfect score on the a CT

010or SAT at some point in their career during high school Aiden is show T DT a-- i or tara condo Lou Angela Lee Rafael Lee Justin Pugh lotta Mohnish pan de Ken Robinson Logan Sandlin min sook sim [Music] Yanik Singh Harry Wang Natalie Wells iris yen Brian Zhang Leonardo Xue Congrats all these students and their families we are very happy for you we know this required a lot of hard work and sacrifice from both students and parents you should be very proud of this accomplishment thank you Miss Cole next presentation is Carmel High School girls swimming and diving state champions the presenter is mr. Jim in ski dr. Beresford mr. Kirschner and members of our board we once again thank you for the opportunity to be here in front of you virtually tonight to recognize

011two outstanding athletic programs both of which captured state championships and recent competitions at the IUPUI Auditorium in February our our first team that we're going to be recognizing this evening is the girls swimming and diving team they won their 34th consecutive state championship which is yet another national record for consecutive state titles in any sport all time and I don't have to tell you what a wonderful achievement that is but I always remind that this group and this group of seniors it's the first time that many of them have had the opportunity to be in the various seats of the program as we go through that many many three decade plus record for our programs so without further ado of a few comments about this group of greyhounds Carmel piled up 420 6.5 points of

012the state meet which was the fourth most all time and meet history and they overwhelmed the field with their depth to win yet another team title we had at least two participants in every individual event except in diving in three and three other races it is the 14th championship for Chris plumb which is the most in state history and girls swimming and diving Carmel won the opening event of the meet the 200 medley relay for the 12th straight year and proceeded to sweep all three relays for the seventh time in the last eight years it sophomore Gretchen lookking won the 200 freestyle in one minute 47 0.50 and freshmen Barrett Bergland took the 100 backstroke in 53 seconds 0.41 to give us two individual winners members of those relay teams were the foul in the

013200 medley relay the team consisted of Barrett Bergland Maggie love meredith Bergland and colleen duffy the 200 free relay was made up of Colleen Duffy Avery Williams crutch and lookking and Madeline Chrisman and the 400 free relay was made up of Gretchen liuqing Madeline Chrisman Megan Chrisman and Barrett Bergland as always we would like to thank the parents and both of these programs this evening our girls swimming and diving and our boys swimming and diving program for all the time spent supporting their children in supporting the program we know that there are many early mornings driving and sometimes adverse weather and adverse conditions to get there and our parents make up a huge part of the success of this program over the years we want to thank all of them we'd also like to thank

014obviously Chris Palmer head coach but all of the members of our coaching staff who give so much time and effort and dedication to making this program what it is today we will now introducing the senior members of our girls swimming and diving team starting with Katie bend meredith Berglund taylor calmly morgan croning Madeline Davis Jessica Estabrook Colleen Harless Megan Hastings Sarah sharding Vivian kraebel Sarah young Rhea Patel Saijo Parekh shock Michaela Sura Megan tester and Avery Williams once again congratulations to all these senior members of the team and congratulations on another state championship Thank You mr. Inskeep and now we will turn back to mr. Inskeep for a presentation of the Carmel High School boys swimming and diving state champs our next recognition this evening is our boys swimming and diving state champions at the

015end of February the greyhounds took home their 6th consecutive state championship and boys swimming at the IUPUI natatorium it was also the 20th overall state championship for the boys swimming program as well the hounds got off to a fast start winning the first three events and breaking two state records during those events karma went on to win six of the 12 total events and set five total state records after helping Carmel win the 200 medley relay and setting a new state record with the time of 1 minute 27 seconds point 94 senior Jacob Mitchell and Wyatt Davis went on to capture the 200 freestyle and the 200 individual medley respectively Davis's title and the 200 I am broke a ten-year-old record as well finishing the event in one minute forty four seconds 0.17 however the

016two did not stop there Wyatt Davis went on to win the 100 backstroke for the fourth time breaking the state record in becoming the most decorated swimmer in IHSA history with the time of 45 seconds 0.88 Mitchell finished the 500 free freestyle in four minutes 14 seconds 0.68 giving him the title for the third straight year and breaking the record he set last year the two helped Carmel win the final event of the day the 400 freestyle relay which marked the fifth new record of the day with the time of two minutes 56 seconds 0.36 members of the 200 medley relay champions were Wyatt Davis Ryan Maliki Griffin Hadley and Jake Mitchell again that was a state record time and members of the 400 freestyle relay state champions we're Jake Mitchell Gus Rothrock Griffin Hadley

017and Wyatt Davis in two minutes 56 seconds 0.3 six yet another state record head coach Chris plumb won his sixth straight state championship leading the Greyhounds it was his 23rd overall state championship as a coach and that ties him for the most in IHSA history by any head coach tying him with former cross country and track head coach from carmel shot Kevin we will now start by introducing our senior members of the team JT Curcio Wyatt Davis Brandon Edwards Winston Foltz Daniel Hall Carter Higham Noland cop Jacob Mitchell Griffin Seaver and Carson young Jake Mitchell went on to become the first mental attitude Award winner from Carmel High School following the conclusion of the state meet Mitchell is a decorated swimmer winning IHSA titles in the 200 medley relay 200 freestyle 500 freestyle and the

018400 freestyle relay he was also a member of the state record holder in the 200 medley relay a 500 freestyle and the 400 freestyle relay he has been a part of the state title teams all four years of his career it also set numerous other records outside of the pool in club sports he is the son of Michael and Tina Mitchell and will attend the University of Michigan to study biochemistry and swim for the Roth the Wolverines thank you very much and we appreciate your ranking these girls well thank you again to all the presenters and congratulations to the students I know normally dr. Beresford would lead them in a state champ or something I caught him with his mouthful but I'll give him the floor if he wished to say anything or he can

019wait till his superintendent reporter oh I I've always got something to say but I really missed our recognitions it's been real tough since we have been able to meet in person so even though it was virtualized it was nice just to see their faces and to acknowledge you know the the great work our kids are doing these days and and and don't get me wrong and these kids work hard you know these coaches but in a lot of hours to help and to train them and get them where they need to be give them the support that they need but sometimes I think well you know we may take for granted that that they just walk in with a lot of talent and just do their thing but this is years and years of work

020and a lot of them have started out in the Carmel dad's Club and they're in the club Swim Club since there are little bitty kids and then they've come to this level where I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of those swimmers might be Olympians of one day so just congratulations all the kids and yeah I would have them all gather up and we've count the three and say state champs one two three state champs well done thank you next on the agenda we have public comment since we're holding this meeting in compliance with governor Holcomb's order the public comment guidelines in bylaw zero one six seven point three have been modified for this remote meeting community members were permitted to submit written comments by completing the public comment form between noon and five o'clock

021today we received nine responses to the public comment form but a school board meeting tonight all the comments were related to the change in school day recommendation which will which we will be receiving later in this meeting comments were received from Lorri Brooks one three two one five Dunwoody Lane caramel Jeff cap key of one zero four four zero Highgrove caramel Yvonne Sullivan of 1404 for mrs. Sinha Hwa Drive caramel Ryan wing ko of one three nine eight twin lakes circle East caramel Vesper Miller of five one one two Oriole Drive caramel Lisa Hussman of Carmel Indiana Carrie Aaron's of one one eight seven cross field court caramel Carolyn Wyatt of three to nine second Avenue Northeast caramel and a tin ASCO D of one four five six Skaar like Court thank you all for

022your comments instead of actually reading your comments into the minutes the comments have been shared with the board and they will be posted as part of our summary of the meeting that will get posted after this meeting we also received a number of emails on this topic at the end of dr. Beresford's recommendation on this topic he will share with the public a way that they can provide comments on this topic so that the board gets them in one organized source next we move to consent that we have a number of things on a consent agenda on April 8th of 2020 I reviewed administrative matters and approved payroll claims in the personnel report for the period of March 15 20 20 through April 7th 2020 the personnel report for April 7 2020 claims for March

02315 2020 through April 4th 2020 and payroll for March 15 20 20 through March 28 2020 as part of the consent agenda the board is going to retro actively ratify those actions the board is also approving the following consent items this evening the North the personnel report the claims report payroll the minutes of our workshop session from March 9 2020 and the minutes from our regular session from March 23rd 2020 may I have a motion to approve the consent so thank you thank you Pam in a second second thank you then we'll move to discussion I will go and roll call Katie any questions not at this time thank you Lin any questions no questions thank you thank you well you have any questions no Thank You Pam any questions no I do not thank

024you we will now vote as I call your name please either state yes or I if you are voting in favor of the motion or no or nay if you are voting against the motion Katie yay Lynne hi Leila hi Pam I thank you and I vote aye consent passes unanimously thank you next we will move to discussion items first item we have is present a presentation from dr. Beresford on changes to the school day Thank You mr. Krishna back before we jump into that I did want to point out that when we passed the consent agenda we did pass a very important retirement of one of our our employees and Bruce Wolfe who's better known as Wolfie and is currently the assistant athletic director Carmel High School is retiring this summer after 40 years

025with Carmel clay schools he started as a science teacher at Carmel High School in the fall of 1980 he had graduated from high Carmel High School and so returned his alma mater was always special for him and although it looked a little different now than it did then now he's very highly successful teacher and coach he was the defensive coach for the football team through the 80s and the early 90s when the Greyhounds won four state championships during his time on the staff with then head coach Jim Belden he also gave significant contributions to the baseball program he was the assistant coach and later on the head coach with our baseball team and then he entered the athletic office working as the assistant athletics director and a during his time in the position he's seen

026the growth in participation by Oprah 100% and in the addition of many programs and one of those programs that were added really is his direct contributions to champions together and our unified sports programs and he's put Carmel at the leading edge in the state and the nation for inclusion and education based athletics and if you ever get a chance to go to unify track or any really and you know the flag football any of those events it's it's really a special special thing for both the athletes that and and then their their typical peers that are working with them so he's a consummate worker great communicator with student athletes he's leaving us with some big shoes to fill but that's how you know when someone's done their job well done and and yeah I'm stealing

027a lot of words from from mr. n ski but let's share a little bit of what I shared with wolfy when I found out now what he said he was announced his retirement I contacted him I told him unfortunately we're gonna have some problems with your paperwork I said as the board of school trustees you guys trust me too you know and to make it you know a priori that we take all the actions necessary for the care and benefit of the students that we serve and so based on that I told him in good faith I can't accept his retirement because it's clearly not in the best interest of the students we serve and then I found that you really can't do that you can't keep people from retiring so dr. strike you know

028what I you know took care of that for me so after 40 years of service Wolfie has been the dad a coach the counselor a cheerleader and general positive influence for thousands and I mean that thousands of greyhounds he's played a huge part and making inclusion part of the culture here at chromo high school and he's certainly earned the time off so we offer our greatest congratulations to Bruce Wolfe and best wishes on his next adventure so I didn't want to let that one slip through without you know talking to you throw a little love to Wolfie for all the good good work he's done for over the years so now we'll move into our item for discussion I want to share my screen here and I hopefully I'll be successful okay all right before

029started I want to just address just a few questions you know I think really as an administrative team we wrestled with them and then also some of the public have brought these same topics to our attention and first one is probably why make this recommendation now you know with the you know this pandemic crisis that we're in and is this is the timing right and to be honest with you there's good arguments on both sides of that that decision-making on one side we know it's good for kids to be in a routine and to have a normal routine and really that's one of the things that makes it tough on a lot of kids in the setting that we're in right now is because they're out of their routine and so you know I respect

030that opinion because there is some a lot of validity to keeping keeping it you know regular schedule so jumping into a different schedule next year you know the thought process that might not be a good thing the flip side of that is you know in making some of these this recommendation a lot of those things are to support kids mental health and to support you know a lot of the struggles they may be going through right now by having you know a later start time or by adding a little time for more social-emotional learning that sort of thing and so you know had a TA parent that sent me an email and one thing she said first up she said it was saying you know make sure you heard anything are you gonna make a

031recommendation on that and she said I don't think there'll ever be a better time to do this in first semester next year because I can tell right now my son who is a you know and middle school high school is you know the extra sleep he's doing better you know based on that rest and so when it got down to the decision make on that it was that you know we want to do all we can to support in some of these records this recommendation and it would would support kids and then you know in that situation we're coming back to school and so that was what that was that was some of our the topics that we wrestled with and making that decision another thing we wrestle with should we do this next year

032should we wait until the following year when we're going to do redistricting and you know kind of just do all the changes in one big swoop and yeah we kind of wrestled that one back and forth as well thought process on that is do you you know have a lot of change at one time or is it better to have a little change next year get used to the new time schedule if that's the way the decision goes and then having another new piece the second year and obviously the recommendation when a decision making on that was let's let's break it into two pieces rather than doing something you know a big huge change and then finally a you know common topic and I even asked the question myself you know we're doing pretty good

033I mean Carmel our Carmel clay Schools students would perform at a very high level and you know why make changes if things are going well and that sort of thing and when it came right down to it on that is you know we've got kids that you know we're seeing anxiety and depression you know increasing we're seeing younger kids that are struggling with regulating their behavior a lot of things that we you know that we're trying to put layers in place these changes play right into that and so the idea is you know if we see a problem coming we don't want to wait and react to it after it becomes a bigger problem and and at the end of the day is if these changes are intended to help kids why would we wait

034so so that's kind of the at least three points that I wanted to get you know on the table as we get started just to do a little background on the process this process actually began in year's school year 2017-18 it was part of the elementary program evaluation so this is actually the fourth year we've been on this journey and last year when I came on board we did a study review of that program evaluation and in the review of that finding we decided that we had create a presentation to school community so that everybody would be informed about the whole topic of it and then and if you recall that's when we put a website up with a lot of information and the research accompany a lot of frequently asked questions we made we

035put up a video and if you remember that was the video that I made with the busy hands and the white background a lot of drawings and then the idea behind that was to inform the public and inform our stakeholders about what the research is and what we're talking about and then at the end of that we set out to do a feedback study so we sent up information out so people could fill out and give feedback on that presentation and the idea behind that was to inform first and then get feedback afterwards because you know we don't want people to be uninformed us and giving us feedback so that was the idea behind that and then just a number of you know 2019 I've presented to you that feedback study and the results of

036that through a lot of work by dr. Rhonda Peterson and the CIA staff and who went through that feedback and and developed themes out of that and and I presented that to you and on November 11 at that time I postponed a recommendation because we had had some meetings with transportation personnel and drivers and we weren't confident that we knew enough to be able answer a question what would be the extent of the impact on transportation you know if we change to that schedule we also I've also met with Carmel Teachers Association a couple multiple times and to get more feedback from from teachers as well so that brings us to today and and I wanted to fill you in where I left off which was with transportation and happened was the transportation department went

037through and actually did the routing process that we typically do in this summer and and started the writing routing process for the 2021 school year and they did that based on this year's staffing that means bus driver shortage and everything and now we did how we're doing transportation today you know right now or before we before school was closed they take it all they took it all the way up to somewhere between seventy five eighty five percent completion so we've got a really solid idea you know solid information that we're working on and the recommendation the recommended time schedules will work you know with our transportation investing system now one of the concerns was loss of bus drivers and in looking at that there will be some loss of drivers dude as a schedule change

038right off the bat and we have five or six staff members I think a couple of teachers and and SMI A's that will drive in the morning then go to work so we're gonna definitely lose those and then there was some a lot of conversations around some people may at that schedule may not allow them to drive or only drive one routes to like at a morning stand not a morning and evening or something like that on those we just don't know what they we can't know the the you know in that definitively and because it's really more of a case-by-case basis so based on these times we just have to see what you know what people can work out what they can't so that's that's where we left off with the you know with

039the reason for the pause on the 11th did one you know we have formed a transportation task force that's had led by dr. o strike and mister McMichaels and and they pulled together a pretty big group along with our new transfer system transportation director and they're going to be looking at all aspects of driver recruitment with the goal being that we'd have adequate number of drivers and maybe even more and then be able to eliminate the double routing that none of us are really happy so that brings us to the actual recommendation and the recommended changes there's three of them and the first one is to change the time for our secondary schools Carmel High School in the middle schools and that recommend changes to start school at 8:45 a.m. and then in the day

040at 3:45 p.m. now what that is is that's an hour later for the middle schools it's 55 minutes later for the high school and both of those are within the all the REC studies recommended 8:30 or later for a starting time for adolescents so so that is the recommendation for that timing second recommendation is for elementary schools to start at 7:50 a.m. and end at 250 p.m. at 7:50 is 15 minutes earlier than they currently start like this school year and the reason for that was to provide adequate time in between the start of the elementary in the start of the high school and secondary routes because the true buses have to do the elementary routes first and then get to the secondary routes and that's increased and that's also a 30 minutes longer a

04130 minute longer school day than we currently have the third recommendation is a district-wide 40-minute late start day and days that we would do that twice a month approximately for teacher professional development the reason it's approximately is because sometimes on short months we won't have to to late starts we might just have one you know on some of the vacation months and that is it those are the three major recommendations now just to give you a little background and all this is on our website with a lot more information but just just to highlight some things why you know why do we want to change the secondary times and make them later and I'm not going to read all of this but in the American Academy of Pediatrics you know the American Psychological Association and

042the list is longer what's on this slide I'll recommend that adolescents will you know it really meets certain developmental needs to start school no earlier than 8:30 and later is probably better the reason that when the basis that the studies have shown is that anybody's done junior high who teaches junior high and those that puberty changes a team and and one big part that it changes is the circadian rhythm which is that sleep-wake cycle that that repeats every 24 hours and the shift causes them to be more alert at night which means they have a hard time getting into deep sleep at you know or in the evening till till late early and then they're in a deeper sleep in them in later morning hours and so the whole idea that the change is to

043match up with that circadian rhythm research also indicates that kids need more sleep just because their physical growth and the adolescent brain development and there's a lot of concern about the lack of sleep among teenagers because it affects our mental health their physical health or academic achievement and also safety so so that's kind of the why of it and and then we wanted just one more time review the benefits so what they showed studies show is that the benefits of this is decreased rates of ls and depression anxiety obesity drug and alcohol use overall performance and in really anything academics academics athletics the worst increased attention in class less fallen asleep better attendance a better cognitive function and decision-making and then even fewer automobile accidents or risk-taking behaviors for your discipline referrals and so that

044is a you know kind of a quick review of what those changes that secondary change was all about now move to the elementary changes the elementary school day be recommended to like I said begin 15 minutes earlier and end at at 7:50 and end at 2:50 this is a 30 minute increase from the current school day so it's a 30-minute is we have 30 minute longer day and the plan is to use the extra time for 15 minutes of that time to be added to the academic block so teachers can use them for you know more innovative experiences for kids and really there it's a teacher's choice you know as to what you want to do a big part of this comes from wanting to decompress that day because it's a very very full day

045the other 15 minutes would be added to our current 15-minute recess that we have each day that would create a 30-minute recess block for students and the idea behind an unstructured play is well document a lot of the studies about that how important that is and that would lengthen that would double you know our current recess time for that unstructured play so why and I shared this slide just because I love this slide because it talks about a lot of things that are really good for our elementary kids that's not to say that these aren't happening during the school day now but like I said it's a very compressed day and I think what thought process on it is if we add that time we could have more of this what are some of the

046benefits more opportunities for stem and steam activities and you can kind of go through that list there's an unstructured play again student choice is important I'm giving them times to choose some things that want to do social-emotional learning is something we're trying to incorporate and find space for one of the ones I think is compelling just time to breathe you know in the transition from going one thing to nothing to another thing and maybe some time for students to collaborate more and so those are some of the benefits that we could see now this providing a little more time for third part of the recommendation is for district-wide they'd start twice a month and Takai explain a little more detail what that would be like is that it would just be - we would you

047know we would advertise the dates and do a lot of reminders but twice two days a month the buses would run the routes 40 minutes later and while we're on that delayed schedule the teachers across the district would be collaborating and so a late start day for the secondary schools for Carmel High School in the middle schools would start about 9:25 a.m. and then the late start days always end at the regular time so 3:45 p.m. would be the ending time for that in the elementary schools then would start 40 minutes later and that would be 8:30 a.m. and again they would end at the regular time a note on that one is that we had a lot of concerns by families that a late start would put them in a bind for getting to

048work on time because we're starting earlier this would actually be 25 minutes later than the current school day so it's still 25 minutes but it wouldn't be 40 minutes different from what you're doing right now you know what the schedule is right now and also because we were we we've gotten that feedback they're real concern about what about we are gonna get to forget to work and let me childcare cost that sort of thing and so we've been looking at it and we believe we're confident that we can do no-cost childcare and have that available for students in K through 8 so that would cover elementary and middle school for parents who may need just to drop their kids off at the regular time on those late start days and had some questions like who

049would watch the kids kind of thing and and we're we've got two options mr. McMichaels been talking with our before scare before school care folks and maybe we'll make a deal with them and to cover that or also we may utilize our instructional assistants who would be available to help with that some of our instructional assistants work for the before school care so there's that's not a new thing so but we feel like we can we're confident we can cover that okay so why why do late starts and to explain it quickly the purposes of the late stars to provide all of our educators right now it's happening at the high school only but this would provide all of our educators the opportunity engage in collaborative professional development teachers to work in teams called professional

050learning communities you madam PLC's mentioned a lot this has probably been the most effective way for teacher growth and to really move the needle is getting teachers together in these professional learning communities and work together they use that time to review current student data so that's really you is to meet these needs of the kids that the kids have educational research indicates collaborative environments typically see higher student achievement and usually it's a higher highly productive working environment so what's it going to cost and the cost of this change we were estimating it right at three hundred thirty six nine thousand dollars a year and that's the estimated cost to pay elementary instructional assistants and also our front office staff and any other hourly workers who work he'll be working the additional 30 minutes a day

051this change does include shorten in the middle school day by that 20 minutes and the high school day by about 50 minutes most of that time will be eliminated by extra time that's in that school day that's not instructional but you know we don't we're not prepared at this point time to just to be able to make an estimate on what the savings might be of that because we'd really need to take a deeper dive into seeing what all there's a lot of people to do a lot of work and we'd really have to take a deep dive to figure that out but that's what the financial impact would be in this proposal so in review the three changes are there and in closing I would just say that we believe that this proposals in

052line with our Carmel clay guiding guiding principles we've tried to keep students at the center of every decision having a safe non-threatening learning environment keeping students academic social emotional physical needs addressed students and employees are held to high personal standards expectations we realized that high quality employees are vital to the success of our organization and that effective teaching and learning requires continuous improvement that's the late start piece diverse opportunities benefit students open and transparent communication maintains stakeholder trust we've been as open as we possibly can with this and I've been reaching out to stakeholders for well it's been a four-year journey parent community involvement enhances student learning and that's why we reached out to the families then finally fiscal responsibility is fundamental to achieving our vision so with that I will hand it over to

053you all for discussion and I've got the team here online who are ready to pitch in and answer your questions as needed - thank you oh thank you very much dr. Beresford for that presentation I know that there are questions from the board so I'm gonna just go kind of a roll call order from how we sit at our normal meeting so that would be Katie Lynn Leila and Pam I will go through it once and then we can circle back again so if you've got multiple questions you know you can ask a couple and come back and if you've got more questions you'll get a second chance so first Katie any questions I do hi thank you Mike are you able to hear me okay perfect so my first question is regarding elementary school

054teachers how will their day change with adding the 30-minute lock are they saying are they required to stay in the building longer is it just more time with actual students what does that look like maybe you want to talk to them about you created that block of what the schedule might look like for teachers sure so right now our teachers are in front of students for six hours and thirty minutes and so 30 minutes of that is the students lunch so they would be in front of our students for a full seven hours in the past we had teacher hours from 7:40 to 3:10 but last year we changed that where we no longer have those teacher hours so their day would change in this seven hour day they would be in the building longer

055then they might be now however as you know and when you pass by any elementary school our teachers are there all hours anyway but they would be required to be in front of students for 30 minutes more thank you my next question is in regards to recess what are some of the initial thoughts regarding or what about indoor recess we live in Indiana so there will be time where we aren't able to go outside sure and that is something as they're looking at recess with indoor recess you know what will that look like if we have tea right now when we do indoor recess they're in their classrooms so that may continue that they'd be in their classrooms obviously having a lot of different things for the students to do a lot of times when

056they do indoor recess now they use different makerspace pieces to really engage the students they have lots of indoor recess games so we would continue using those tools to engage our students so that they can have some downtime and have fun to connect with their peers thank you I just have a few more oh and will this affect lunch times the lunch time would still be the 30 minutes that the students have and what about after school sports or after-school activities are there gonna be as their thoughts on the guidelines for how late they can be if they can be before school which would negate the benefit of them being able to sleep more have there been discussions yet along that route yeah I can answer that one for you Katie and yes one of

057the concerns was early on when we were looking into this is well what if you know the day starts later we'll just the coaches and we'll the sponsors just do everything before school and then we'd lose the irony now and the answer to that was where we landed just worgen some we're gonna have to monitor those the teams that currently practice in the morning swimming is a great example we just saw they you know they come in at 5:00 in the morning and so I get a lot of advice from them on snowy mornings because they're on the roads at same time I am they will have to monitor that because like for instance the swimmers they they'll still practice in the morning but they'll be at 6:00 instead of 5 you know and but

058we will have to monitor that we don't start loading up that morning you know and keep an eye on that okay thank you and their last question for now is about that 15 minute block for teachers to use that it is my understanding and please correct me that it's not necessarily where we want them to invite invent new curriculum it's something where we want them to expand on the good things that they're already doing if they wanted to do perhaps an experiment that you know they didn't have enough time for before they have a little extra time is it really going to be kind of up to the teachers and in turn like the schools kind of what they do with that yes they in that 15 minutes would be not as you said to

059an invent new curriculum to really go deeper in their curriculum that they currently have because right now we just do not have enough time to get fitted all in the way we would like to so that might be as you said doing an inquiry project or doing a lab experiment it might be spending more time in their literacy blockage it'll vary based on the learning that's going on it'll vary by classroom it will vary by day in year it won't be a prescribed piece and the other piece too it'll really help them to have some more time for that social-emotional learning piece for those connections those pieces that are so important for our students a couple of years ago you may remember that we extended the day because a lot of snow days that we

060had and the feedback that we got was it just gave kids time to breathe it really gave them the time to build those connections with each other and not feel so rushed throughout the day thank you that's all for right now Mike thank you Katie thank you dr. Dudley thank you dr. Beresford Lane do you have any questions yes I have two questions to hear and I first question is that I remember the Como Teachers Association did a survey asking teachers about their opinions on changing secondary school start time and then extending 30 minutes I remember there's a high percentage of elementary school teachers that do not did not support the extending 30 minutes for elementary school and I want to see if there's additional discussions with the Como Teacher Association following a survey and

061what's a feedback after that and the second question is and Amy just shared that there will be quite flexibility for teachers even daily changes here to how to use the 15-minute and tie and I just wonder how much consistency we want at a building level or a degree level so like it's the the great say first grade they still have the same time for recess well you just allow teachers just to structure their day are totally totally different every day I just want to get an idea about how they work if you allow flexibility by still wanna maintain maybe consistency full of grey things like that thank you doctor do you want to address that the second question and then and then we've got Pete Pete O'Hara with us who's the president of the CTA

062Carmel Teachers Association and I don't know Pete is is that something you might want to share a little bit about the feedback from the teachers appreciate being here we want to have a teachers voice you know in the meeting so but Amy wants to go ahead and answer that second question first so then the flexibility that I'm talking about is the flexibility that teachers would have based on what their students need at the time what would stay consistent is for example recess all students would have that thirty minutes of recess that wouldn't be flexible to say we're we're all I'm going to do 20 minutes of recess today the other pieces that would be consistent and that are consistent right now are the curriculum when we think about the curriculum at the first grade level

063that curriculum we have a guaranteed viable curriculum and all of our first grade classrooms and that's to say that a student at college would is receiving the same curriculum as a student at Prairie tres so those consistency those that is all consistent but what is more flexible is the time students need to learn that prison we have students across all 11 schools that have very different needs and some students learn things very quickly other students need a little bit more time other students need to back to that information to earn that so that's the part with the flexibility but the consistency would be in there lunch time would all be consistent that recess time would be consistent and the curriculum would be consistent as well thank you Peter I'm gonna put you on the spot

064is that okay that's why I'm here the the elementary teachers are passionately concerned about the extra time and the extended day and I just got to tell you that since last week when dr. Beresford put the in the loop out the emails that I am getting are about 15 to 1 of teachers and again they're passionately concerned about it and they're concerned about kids and they're concerned about the extra time and how the extra time affects kids and I think probably some of you have received emails stating the same concerns so yeah that's just something that that is they're very concerned about it and very passionate about it and very passionate about the fact that it's how it affects kids thanks Pete appreciate you sharing that and give us a straight thank you thank you

065for the information so I just wondering I see there's a concern here from teachers and they are uncertain about benefits to kids are we planning to do any follow-up study and can the boy hear about you know how its implemented maybe after a semester after year to see what teachers think and then what students think about it I would say to do any more studies at this point in time I think we've had we've surveyed a lot we've had a lot of discussions I think we've kind of turned every every detail this topic you know one way you know then if it was if you're asking me if we it was implemented would we review you know how it's going absolutely just like we do with anything that we would implement well yeah that's what

066I suggest you check the effectiveness of it no not again Vesta gating just you wait do we what not by just you know after we do it how it goes I wonder how he goes thank you well thank you in Thank You Pete I do believe dr. Beresford correct me if I'm wrong that at the end we will provide a way for teachers and families to share their thoughts obviously today is just a recommended and discussion so we have received a lot of input from teachers and and some students and parents just in the last couple of days and we're open to hearing more of that Leila do you have any questions I do it sort of stems on what Leonard asked and the other previous questions thank you board members because I thought they

067were great what I wanted to better understand or get a little more information about excuse me is the conversations that the administration has had with the teachers and the type of response because we as a board have received several emails of our very passionate elementary teachers but we've also received emails from parents who support some are a little concerned but in conversations that I've had personally with people reaching out to me directly there has been a lot of support as well and I've got teachers that are on both sides of the fence so what I'd like to better understand is what what has the administration done to have some of those conversations deeper conversations with the teachers to solicit not only feedback but understanding I can then yeah I guess I could start with when

068we did do that feedback study we you know I did a whole group on just teachers and we divide that into elementary teachers and secondary teachers and I'd shared that you know that information with you and that was a do you want to do that this was not that was not a you know instrument where we said do you think we should do this or not it was about the you know the information I just shared with you about the you know the benefits and the studies and all those pieces and and we we got pretty favorable results on those topics about you know about that research and then but that was very different from the the feedback that Pete's competing his group surveys where and Pete you want to talk about the I think

069you did two different surveys did yeah you know we did one early on and then we did one just a few months ago and they were a lot more pointed and maybe maybe they weren't written the best fit they were good for us and I like to call my last one a poll because I needed to get the pulse of where we were and that's where we really found out that the elementary teachers were so upset especially about the extended day middle school teachers were pretty much on board and it was split at the high school quite frankly and but as time goes on I think we see more and more at the high school level at least more more support for for this because of the sleep we know about teenage kids need more

070sleep and you know the other thing I want to say about that is that dr. Beresford and I have talked about this I don't a lot and we have not always agreed we have not always disagreed but we listen to each other and we have been part in this and you know I have done my best to represent the teachers and the feelings of the teachers and to take back as much information as I could and as I can and you know we we've it's it's been a it's been a group effort it really has been so teachers have been involved all the way I'll second that and like when when peace group did their surveys we met with his leadership to go and get the results of that and and the second one as

071well no so he invited me to meet him with the entire all the CTA representatives from what all the buildings be all the buildings and it was the last day it was far last day before we found out about this not having school anymore and and it was a great we were there for three hours we just discussed everything and everybody put everything on the table it's great great session it really was it was yeah that's when I throw a compliment back that working with Carmel teacher associations awesome yeah you know we can have great discussions and even whatever side of the table you're on and it's it's always respectful and it's always you know looking out for the best interests of our kids thanks Pete thank you dr. Beresford that's all I have for

072now Mike thank you thank you Leila thanks again Pete have you have any questions yes I do thank you first of all I had a question earlier wondering if we could leave the elementary day the same and go ahead and change the high school and the middle school yes as far as like changing the time of day for the secondary schools and we could that that can be done the we'd have to think through as far as that as far as the times changes go you know what we could do that because eliminating a half an hour would not mess up transportation it may actually Roger do you want to weigh in on that a little bit I know you looked at that yes if I understand the question if we if we had the

073secondary school start at 8:45 its shorten their day and and they were out at 3:45 and then had the elementary day start 50 55 minutes before that which in this example would be 750 as was recommended if we did not extend the elementary day then then obviously they would they would be that they would end their day a half hour earlier which at the end of the day that would give us an additional 30 minutes too far as running the transportation system which which in in today's world of being short of bus drivers that would actually be a benefit in terms of giving us more time to run the elementary routes before the high school day was finished so while we would not be able to do would be to continue to have the elementary

074day inside of the secondary day well that's not what I was asking right I didn't think it was so assuming we would we would flip the bell times if you will but not extend the elementary day that would be the result okay also I have a huge question about prep time and I know that we weren't going to talk about or that wasn't something that you are going to investigate right now I'm for teachers eliminating collaboration I figure we're still having specials at 50 minutes a day is that correct have to defer to Amy on that so in the day yes specials would still be 50 minutes correct okay so if there's 50 minutes a day five days a week that means teacher would have 250 minutes per week if we add in recess which

075is 30 minutes per day or I am assuming 3 days because I remember the days I had to have recess duty and I would have to have it twice a week so that would give me three days of breath so that's 90 minutes and that's not counting days for indoor recess when you wouldn't get those days so that would give a teacher 340 minutes a week except for late start weeks so I'm a little concerned about the prep time issue that's coming up when the high school the middle schools and the elementary schools are all going to be equal in time period I would see that discussed prior to vote if possible please yeah that's a separate issue that's why we didn't I did not add that to the the you know the proposal or

076the recommendation in order to to discuss prepped time and those kind of changes we need to have a probably a separate candy tail conversation with a caramel teacher Association and and look and how that would do in order to provide prep time to teachers while you know while recess is going on we would have somebody has to watch the kids and so we'd have to determine if it would be like a rotation system like what you're talking about Pam or if we would hire an instructional assistants or or read rework the schedule of instructional assistants to cover recess but we have to make sure we have solid supervision so that's why that's not part of the this recommendation it's a lot of detailed work and and really we it was we didn't want to muddy

077up this presentation by yeah you know by trying to sort all that out that has budgetary you know additional very you know impact so we'd have to to do that's my next question the initial cost that we had put in for this was and that was back in December was four hundred and seventy seven thousand three hundred and twenty-five dollars would be the cost for this to go into place if I figured my figures correctly and only I was only counting six and a half hours for three hundred sixty minutes a week or a day so if we had recess at each school which is say five grade levels three minutes each that's 150 minutes of recess it would have to be covered so that's like 42 percent of a full day of 360 minutes

078so the IAS per building you'd have to have to because we usually had two on recess duty when we were out one at least two teachers so there would be 22 total Ayase and I was figuring that that was like one hundred forty-seven thousand eight hundred forty dollars more so the total cost I came up with was about four hundred and eighty three thousand dollars in addition to if we do hire IAS to cover recess and also thinking ahead if we left the elementary school day the same and spent the same amount of money that would be seven and a half teachers that we could hire to help cover and and maybe make class sizes a little smaller next year and help cover what the help the kids recoup from what they went through this

079year did you want to that I'm just giving you some information that I have and my last question is is this I know in 2009-2010 they took three over three million dollars away from the school system because they were they had a lack of state funding so do we know or have we any idea of where the state funding is going to be going since we've been spending money on the coronavirus and all of the additional expenses that have been going with that and I know that there's a lack of state income coming in now so I'm wondering do we have any idea of what we might be facing next year and maybe into the next two years Roger do you want to talk to that a bit yeah the short answer would be we

080don't know and I don't I don't think anybody knows we could anticipate that that the economy clearly is has you know been significantly impacted and that likely will have an impact on sales and income tax which is where revenue found from the state formula looking back to 2008 and nine the circumstances are are different in a number of ways one is is that the the state has a I believe and I think most people believe a very healthy rainy day fund they have about 13 percent cash balance which is almost double what we maintain and and so hopefully if this you know if this is not a rainy day I don't know what would be and so the question will be is will the state legislature look to there to use rainy day funds and

081if so how much and and what might the loss be in in sales and income tax when when people get back to work and we're not locked down you know they'll start to get better insight but the assumption is is not every job that was out there will continue to be out there so so we just don't know what that financial future bring and couldn't guarantee that there wouldn't be a shortfall as there was previously but but locally we're we're in pretty solid shape in terms of our financial stability and and you'll recall in 2009 that financially we were not particularly hurt by the shortfall because we were able to transfer cash balance our own cash balance from our debt service fund over into our at the time our general fund and and and then

082right after that we had a successful referendum and so it's also really impossible to anticipate what the flexibility might be and what the choices might be there very well for example could be a relaxation of how them you know the local money is used as far as our debt service cash balance and and and other cash balances for that matter and then and and Carmel schools also maintains a cash balance not specifically for this purpose but for an unanticipated you know financial challenges and certainly this would qualify okay one more question which I just thought I'm sorry so if we if the elementary date remains the same and starts at 750 like we've we've proposed that means the cost that we have projected that this will cost over and above what we're already spending that

083will not happen that's correct yeah yeah the our there would be no change in the hourly workday at that point okay so the 336,000 that were that we're not we would not face that as an expense correct okay that's good thank you I might put that into perspective just because it's three hundred thirty six thousand dollars is a lot of money for most of us and and and sometimes it's difficult to understand the scope of the formal schools budget which is well over a hundred million dollars and so again not to minimize it in any way but three hundred and thirty six thousand to put that in some type of a comparison is about one third of one percent of our salary and benefit costs yeah but still it when it's about six teachers right

084yeah I'm not minimizing it that's again we have almost a thousand teachers and and I know all of us would appreciate having you know anymore whether it's six or one but but I I thought it was worthwhile to have some comparison of the money because the numbers that we deal with are so large that for many people it's it's hard for them to get their arms around the you know the financial aspects okay thank you remember that I'll remember that at negotiations next time gotta remember we would never bring a recommendation if we weren't comfortable with what the funding of that would be and that that we wouldn't be able to handle that we are keeping an eye on class sizes and you know those concerns as well okay thank you so if we if

085we could we possibly put an ia in all the classrooms or in a lot of the classrooms so that the teachers have additional help next year to help make up the deficit may be that the children have from the end of this year just the thought yeah there'll be some we'd have to evaluate and you know we'd have to be have more of a learning plan than just their bodies into into classrooms but but right now that's a good question going on with districts all over the state is you know what is the loss and then is the loss because kids are engaged they are doing things but we don't know if the gap is going to be huge or or not and you know it's being a former classroom teacher is every year the

086students come into your classroom and there are all different levels and that's kind of the art of teaching is that you take all those different levels and you work with the kids in small groups or individually to bring them up you know to the you know to be prepared for the next level and and that's not an uncommon thing that goes on in our classrooms but so you know I don't know you know it's hard for us to make an assumption that kids are going to be drastically behind the times come you know come fall but we have to be alert to that and we have to you know assess that when we get our kids back in our classrooms where we can work or work more effectively with them one on one would that

087be accurate say dr. Dudley you want to add to that yes that would be accurate you know not knowing we we do have virtual learning going on and and soon you'll get an update on what is happening but as dr. B says we're not going to know you know what the effect of this is one until we get our kids back into the building right okay thank you very much well thank you Pam thank you Amy Roger Pete dr. Beresford I said I would circle back so Katie do you have any more questions on this discussion do you excuse me um one of the things that I think and we haven't touched on it too much but I would be remiss is the recess time I know that when we did the elementary evaluation that

088was a huge topic of discussion and we had so many emails from parents Alice a pleading that they definitely wanted to see that more recess time so I do think that that's something that that we should also make sure that we are I know we are considering it but a topic of discussion that I do think that that is very important for our students and I just wanted to kind of make that comment there is that with all these discussions I know that there's lots of different recommendations but I do think that that is an important one thank you Katie Lynn do you have any additional questions no additional questions at this time thank you thanks Leila yes yes I do and Katie thank you for bringing that up about recess because what I was

089going to go back to was that elementary school day program evaluation and I was hoping dr. Dudley could maybe touch on this I do recall although it's not in front of me there were several recommendations and one was additional time for inquiry for social studies projects for science related experiments and that was one of the basic recommendations I believe because we I mean for two reasons when we were looking at ISTEP scores we saw a bit of a gap and well anyway dr. Dudley could you just touch on that please I am not seeing dr. Dudley okay then dr. Beresford I don't know the answer to that mostly because I was looking for dr. deadly kid can you I'm sorry pant or at Leila could you could you just share that question with me one

090more time yes the question is during the elementary school program day evaluation I believe one of the recommendations was to extend the amount of time that we need for inquiry for social studies and for science and during that evaluation it was my understanding that they reviewed ISTEP scores at the time that there was a gap and we weren't making as greatest strides and so they felt as though if we had more time to dive deeper the performance of our students in their academic growth might you know be more positive right now I'm tracking with you now sorry I was distracted but yeah the basic oops who's talking about the achievement gap yes we have some students that are you know gap and from different you know different subgroups is what they call them I don't

091like that term but so the idea of having more you know really the kind of a list of things that were on that the benefits of having an extended 30 minutes of the day is that innovative you know learning more personalized learning more student choice and those are things that you know have been cited it's things that can help close those gaps yeah and what kind of interventions you can do with that with those I'm sure dr. Delia could speak more more detailed to it but that Elementary evaluation was before I got here and so I picked up this pieces of it as we've moved forward since I've have been here thank you thank you circling back Pam and the other questions you okay yeah my since I since I don't have any other questions

092em I'll assume you're good you're not mute hang on a second Colleen can you add me Pam you Oh Here I am okay no no further questions thanks we're gonna have to go to sign language this year or something all right well so thank you I think we will have a way for teachers and students and parents to submit comments after this meeting I'm not sure how it'll be shared but yeah I'll share that right now mr. Kirschner if that's okay go for it please yeah this is the this last slide first off I want to say that yeah issues like this can really sometimes be divisive and and the communication is so much is so important and I've really been impressed by the way our our teachers and our community have been communicating with

093one another they've been on both sides of the issues and that kind of debate is healthy I think for organizations and and it's not been like personal attacks and all those kind of things which is kind of popular these days on social media and so I'm very proud of our our teachers and our community members although they disagree they're being polite 'fl and relate and respectful about that and it's just another example of you know why this community is as strong as this because it's okay to it's okay to agree to disagree and and have spirited conversations and I think that's what really makes organizations stronger so we know that this is an important issue to a lot of people so we wanted to have a way that the community could share their opinions with

094the board as we'll bring this back in May for for decision and so what we've done is we've on the screen there you do have a link and that link will also be in the board update that will be mailed email to all the families in the district and there's QR code there and both of those will take you if you want to - comment - the board will take you to a basically electronic form where you can you know fill it out and then put your thoughts into it and then that will be the most efficient way for the board to see everyone's comments that way a lot of times when people is just an email after email you know your inbox gets pretty clogged up and it's hard to you know to keep

095it all straight so this is a way that we will use to get information to the board so that it'll all be in one spot you know that will be easy to access for all of you board members so and again we'll have this you know on the board update that will be sent out later this week but we did want to make a way for any community members staff member anybody that wants to weigh in pro or con whatever side you're on it's no problem and and we always get some meaningful information when we do these types of things so with that I'll I'll conclude this recommendation thank you thank you but before you conclude I see dr. Doug Lee's back on do you want to go back to Leila's question or how the

096Leila do you feel like that was answered well enough or would you like to ask Amy one more time you know could we just ask Amy - I find no absolutely go ahead okay dr. Dudley argue there I am sorry my internet went out okay questions that I had actually the only question additional question I had was during the elementary school day program evaluation it was and I I apologize for not having it in front of me but one of the recommendations was extending the school day specifically I thought for social studies and science inquiry that we felt like there was after all the evaluation happened and looking at ISTEP scores and just I supposed teacher and parent feedback that having additional time in those areas was really important could you touch on that sure

097so one of the the recommendations was to have additional time for specifically for inquiry but also looking at steam and having more time to delve deeper into so it may be an investigation that you might do in science to have more time for that hands-on learning that sometimes gets missed when you're rushed so it wasn't just for inquiry or just necessarily social studies in science but it certainly stemmed around those pieces as well when you think about that content in those engaging activities that do sometimes take longer and some you know you you're teaching the lesson and then now it's time to do the investigation and you have to get all of the materials ready and that does sometimes take longer so that that was part of that program evaluation alright thank you next we

098will we have another discussion topic materials adoption now the presenter is dr. Doug Lee thank you so this evening I'm bringing part one of our miscellaneous materials adoption for discussion and next month I will bring part two this is the year that actually we had some pretty big adoptions that were to happen but then as we went virtual it was more difficult to have our finish our literacy adoption pieces so I will be bringing to you next month for discussion some pieces of literacy adoption but I'm not I'm certainly not going to be bringing the entire literacy adoption we decided to put that on hold for next year just because of our circumstances right now but this evening the materials that I am bringing for discussion for materials adoption stem for from several high school

099courses the first one in family consumer science our educational professionals to this the change for this material is because this is a dual credit course through Butler University and they are recommending a new textbook to be used in this course so that is the textbook that they're recommending for this dual credit course the math you can see the math the science and the Wellness those are all new courses those are all IV courses that we added to our program of studies and so we need to adopt materials for those and the exciting part is as you can see the different IB courses I'm sorry the science and the Wellness our new IB courses the math the IB changed the curriculum and so that is the reason for the new materials for the math IB SL

100and HL but for the environmental systems and the sports and exercise science those two are new courses that we just adopted through the program of studies and so we need to adopt those materials and then the last course in Performing Arts for the piano and an electrical keyboard that is a new book that the high school teacher is suggesting to use for that course and we have not adopted materials new materials for that course in several years so those are the courses for materials adoption that are ringing this evening for discussion thank you dr. Dudley this time I'll go in the opposite order if you're not if you're not ready Pam you can pass and I'll come back but any questions Pam no I think these are really great courses they looked very interesting and

101it's neat to see that we have so many IB courses being offered and I like seeing the adoption of the Performing Arts as well thank you thank you Layla any questions nope no thank you thank you Winn no questions thank you thank you Katie any questions no questions all right thank you well that is the un-- the end of our presentations for today next we will move to reports the first report is the student data report which has hinted to before by dr. Doug Lee is on a virtual learning update so dr. Doug Lee thank you can you see my um screen there yes we can perfect great so believe it or not we've just completed day 21 of our virtual learning journey that we have going on here and I'd like to share an

102update on some of our successes and some of our challenges thus far so starting with our access so let's look at student access so in order for our virtual learning to be successful for students need to have that internet access obviously they need to have access to devices they need to have an understanding of how to navigate canvas which is our learning management system as well as how to use Google tools to communicate their learning so our social workers our counselors and our administrators reached out to families to ensure that they have internet access and if the family do not then the school personnel help them to facilitate this access through various internet providers and we are very fortunate that several internet providers in our area provided internet access for free for 60 days and

103then some of them after the 60 day period they offered a very reduced cost to Internet and so we're excited to say that we were successfully able to help all of our families that were not previously connected to internet to get connected to internet during our virtual learning time so our families also had the opportunity to check out mobile devices if they needed a mobile device to use at home and some of our families needed maybe this to augment the devices that they already had at home we also saw a surge in some device checkouts when older brothers and sisters came home from college and they were also doing online learning and so we had another surge of some mobile devices so so far we have checked out 2526 Chromebooks for students who use at

104home and to put that into context you know we have about sixteen thousand five hundred students and we have about ten thousand families so that puts that into context of the numbers that have checked out those mobile devices we're also providing ongoing support to our families on utilizing their Chromebooks and troubleshooting technical issues as well as navigating canvas Google tools with information on our virtual learning website for families we have a very robust website out there that it has all kinds of schools for our students and our families to use and they also have the opportunity to seek additional help by submitting a virtual learning support ticket and so far our technology and our curriculum teams have responded to two 1487 support tickets and I just haven't want to mention that they do that very

105quickly the turnaround time is just amazing our technology team is just wonderful and the support that they give to not only our families but then also our teachers and answering kayako tickets so our data does indicate that a hundred percent of our students who use canvas for their coursework has successfully access canvas since we began virtual learning on March 18th so we do know that our students do have the access to be able to use the tools for the virtual learning it's moving on looking at another big piece in this puzzle is our communication so in order to ensure success in our new reality communication is essential and communicating virtually with students and Families can sometimes be challenging and you can see I demonstrated that as my internet went out completely right before I was

106supposed to do my presentations so we use canvas learning management system as our virtual learning hub for teachers to primarily communicate with students so this is the tool that teachers use to put their announcements in canvas each day that includes an explanation of the activities with the specific instructions clarifications of what assignments should be completed and submitted directions on where to go to find any necessary additional resources resources such as links documents and times when the teacher is available to answer questions and these announcements are posted by 9:00 a.m. each day many of our teachers link videos of themselves explaining the expectations and the announcements to their students and this is especially helpful in our elementary classrooms one of the things we're seeing is a lot of videos the teachers are doing many lessons with

107those videos and our teachers are really doing a fabulous job of collaborating together and working on developing those videos in then using each other so for example in first grade a first grade student may see all first grade teachers doing different parts of the lesson and so they're dividing and conquering and doing a fabulous job of that teamwork that our teachers are very much known for so communicating with the parents and the Guardians all is also key and our teachers are using traditional forms of communication that we've always used such as newsletters on the phone and email and they're also adding in our new virtual world a virtual check in meetings and virtual question-and-answer sessions with parents this is specifically helpful in our elementary for our youngest learners our kindergarten and first-grade Tom students and

108we just had some last week we had collaboration of our different elementary schools where our teachers and different grade levels had the opportunity to come together virtually and share the different tools that they're using and many of our teachers did share especially in community where they're having these question and answer sessions or check-in meetings with parents I'm communicating they felt that was very helpful so the next piece of this is talking about our connections and one of the biggest challenges in our new virtual environment is connecting with our students and helping our students to connect with peers and we know that is so vital in their social emotional well-being that they have those connections and you need to have the relationships before any of that learning takes place and so by music virtual videoconferencing our

109students have the opportunity to see their teachers as well as their classmates in a whole new light they get a small glimpse into their home and if they're lucky they might get an opportunity to see the teachers family their children or their pets as well as their classmates families and pets and so that has been an outcome that in the traditional classroom you didn't always get to see other than maybe in photographs so our teachers are utilizing many creative ways to connect with the students and many teachers are hosting their virtual morning meetings where students interact with each other seeing a class song express well wishes play a short game there and these are might be activities that are similar to what you might see in the classroom but it's through virtual conferencing teachers are

110also this is a great thing and meant we have many teachers that were sharing they're doing these they're hosting Lunch Bunch or chatting shoes where small groups of students have the opportunity to interact with the teacher and their peers and just connect on what's happening in their everyday lives and that's such an important piece of them being able to see each other and talk with each other and it's all on a more of a social level teachers also have students create videos of themselves may be sharing a talent or an interest that they might have so it might be a talent in building Legos or an interest you know a talent in dancing or playing the piano and then they upload those videos into what we call flipgrid and the other students are have the

111opportunity to view those so they get to see their students their peers doing bit many different things that they are interesting to them also our teachers are offering virtual one-on-one meeting times with the students so the teachers can connect with the students individually because you know our teachers miss seeing their students in person and our students miss their teachers and we keep hearing this over and over again just how much they do miss being in the classroom each and every day and they're so creative our teachers are so creative and helping ways to help our students to connect in that vital to our social emotional well-being for our students and so you're just really thankful that our teachers keep trying new and different things that help them to connect so looking at engagements again teachers

112are utilizing several different tools to virtually engage our students in active learning and this is really a change we have a lot of active learning that goes on in the classroom but when you're thinking about building those lesson plans virtually there's a lot of different strategies that they need to think differently about so some of the things that our teachers are using is students might be assigned a discussion group in canvas where a small group of students have a book club discussion or they have an opportunity to solve a juicy math problem teachers use padlet where students have an opportunity to share their responses in a full class discussion in real time students might be asked to upload a video of themselves reading a book or they also might be figuring out a problem and

113thinking aloud and then the teacher has the opportunity to come back and view that video and then share feedback with the students and they can really see if the student understands the problem or if they where their learning is breaking down so the teacher can come back and share that help that student to understand how to solve that problem teachers are using Google Forms that students fill out at the end of lessons so they can check for understanding and they have a very quick exit ticket so they can play their next lessons to know where the students are at and where they need to go next we also have teachers engaging small groups of students can individual and also small group conferences to check in on learning and some some of our students are receiving

114one-on-one virtual instruction based on their needs and some other examples our teachers are embedding small group challenges into lessons where students engage in friendly competition they might be using tools such as Kahoot to have these competitions and our teachers are engaging or creating those engaging virtual learning opportunities so that our students are continuing to learn however keeping the students engaged in learning in this new reality is challenging and some students are thriving in this new environment because they love the opportunity to set their own schedule they love that they can do their assignments on their own time because many of the assignments the students can do them asynchronous where they're all doing them at different times there are opportunities for them to come together as a group but those are not required necessarily unless they're

115taking maybe an assessment at the secondary level other students are not thriving in this environment they excel more with more structure in their day and one of the things that they might be struggling with is learning how to manage their time in this new environment and as I mentioned earlier a hundred percent of our students who use canvas for their coursework have successfully access canvas however only about 95 percent of our students are continuously staying engaged and we want to make sure that all of our students are staying engaged so our teachers our administrators our social workers our counselors are all working tirelessly to ensure all of our students are engaging in that learning and not giving the students the opportunity to opt out you know typically when we're in regular session usually this time

116of year engaging our seniors in that coursework be challenging we are still seeing those challenges and engaging our seniors but we're also seeing challenges of engaging other students in their coursework and we don't want to give them the option to opt out we still have several weeks of school left that we want to continue the learning and so when teachers are noticing that students are not logging into canvas or turning in the assignments the first point of contact is that the teacher reaches out to the students and the parents through a phone or email to ensure the students are understanding they have the tools to make sure that the student is safe make sure they find out what is happening and what supports they might need and if the student needs additional support then the

117teacher alerts the social workers the counselors and the building administrators to help to problem-solve in a small number of our cases we've also utilized our SRO SROs to do home visits to ensure the student Safety's or just to check in on our students so another important piece of this is collecting feedback and collecting and utilizing the feedback has been essential in our virtual learning journey and one thing we've heard from our teachers and our students is that everything seems to take much more time in our virtual learning environment so collecting that feedback from our students and our parents on the amount of time it is taking the students to complete the assignments and then using that information to adjust has been key during this time and it's also essential for teachers to provide concise focused

118and informative feedback to their students teachers do this in a variety of ways to include written feedback just as they might do in the classroom and also in some cases recording feedback a video of the teacher sharing that feedback for the students and the teachers are providing live feedback to students through one-on-one conferences or small group conferences as well so our virtual learning journey has not been perfect and we're continuing to learn along the way and to improve however you know I've never been proud of our entire school community and how well we've all persevered I see perseverance daily and our students taking ownership of their learning and finding creative ways to connect with their peers and their teachers I see perseverance and our teachers learning new strategies to actively engage our students in virtual

119learning I see perseverance and our families supporting their children in virtual learning while juggling working from home and family life I see perseverance and our social workers or counselors our instructional coaches and our administrators in finding creative ways to support our students families and teachers in this new reality and I see perseverance in our technology staff and tirelessly ensuring that all systems are working and one system fails it quickly figure out the issue and get it up and running and so despite all of the challenges that have been quickly thrown our way these past couple of weeks and the challenges that we know are yet to come I know one thing is certain that our school community will persevere and so with that I will answer any questions you might have well thank you dr.

120Dudley and dr. Beresford for this very timely and important update I know it's a concern for all of those on the board as well as parents and community you know we have I think we've demonstrated that we've all stepped up to the challenge again I just want to thank the technology department teachers and administrators parents and and families for helping their students learn in this new environment I will open it up to questions I'm going to start with Lynne and then we'll continue in the normal rotation and then if you want us to skip you will we can come back III don't have questions but I do have comments from my personal experience I see my daughter every day Monday through Thursday very engaged in finishing her activities and I'm amazed here by the variety

121of activities the amount of engagement they're her teachers putting to keep her continual learning and then and this is definitely very beneficial so students do not lose learning during this hard time and I really appreciate the work by our district this is by comparison to the previous history that I live in which is also a high performing district my friends comments is that their teachers are not doing anything and some teachers already putting the entire all the assignments for the rest of term just leave them to students so I'm very happy and very moved by what CCS teachers are doing for students thank you thank you and Leila yes I'd like to reiterate what Linda's saying I have two boys well I've got three all very different learners and they have been challenged and it

122really has been a very positive experience for us as well one thing whether I was really happy to hear Amy that you were touching on feedback and how we're growing and learning through the feedback and what I was you know my question for you and maybe dr. B maybe even Christy I'm not sure whom where are we housing these lessons learned through this experience it would be really they'd be sad if we aren't you know growing and getting better through this entire experience we really hadn't had a learning days prior to this and we jumped in wow we just divided in and our teachers and administrators have been doing amazing things I don't I personally don't feel like my children have much of a slide and God willing everybody else's children are on the same

123you know launch pad and they're growing and learning along the way as well but how are we as a district growing and learning through this experience and where are we housing all this information so we can continue to get better sure so you know one of the benefits of this is we you know we were thrown into the and we had to swim and our teachers are swimming wonderfully with you know we've been using canvas now for four years and we've had some teachers that really embrace that and we have other teachers that maybe we're just doing just the communication in canvas but now they have to use that tool and what they're finding is that you know it's really powerful and how they can once we go back to being in class how they

124can continue to use that tool and as I said our teachers are creating a lot of different lessons a lot of videos the teachers have the opportunity to share keep those courses they keep them in their canvas course so this year their canvas course would go inactive but they would still have opportunity to go into that course and have access to all that information and then canvas also has another tool called canvas Commons which teachers can upload into the canvas Commons and they can upload it just for karmically teachers they can upload it for teach all teachers using canvas and so we have do have a lot of teachers that are uploading different lessons for example our early literacy lessons we have a very large number of video lessons that we have uploaded into the

125Commons where the teachers are able to then pull those down and put them into their own individual canvas courses and we're also keeping a lot of the learning pieces and the ideas in our Google Docs and we have Google folders like I said our teachers are we just last week we had district sharing by grade level in our elementary schools and then the teachers are uploading different ideas and different lessons into Google folders as well to make sure that we can continue using this the learning because right now we are a hundred percent virtual in the future we don't know what that will look like but we do know that we can continue to use technology to really amp that learning even if we're back to completely normal and so it really has helped our

126teachers to engage and then also our students to engage and to use that new technology so that that's a very positive piece of all of this has come out one other question we've reduced the elementary week to three days a week and the high school to four days a week has that had a positive effect I mean I know my kids are happy with it but his how has that been going so the elementary day is on it's still four days a week but on Monday it has new content but it's if they can continue to engage in different enrichment all different activities and they more SEL pieces and that has been a very positive effect for our students and then the high school in the middle schools because they're on that block schedule they

127meet in their classes twice a week that's why they're in the four days and then the teachers have that Friday as a planning day that has really helped with their well-being as well because as many of our families are doing and they're juggling helping to support their children at home many of our teachers are also juggling that and that has seemed to help the mental health of our teachers as well to have that day that planning day and as I said when our teachers are really seeing is that everything seems to take much longer virtually where you might be never planning and using that feedback and having that time to really plan and work with your team teachers as well I would just add Leila that our principals are doing a great and shepherding they're

128their staffs and they're collecting information and they're sharing with one another as well and then they're sharing that with our teams here and the people are in this meeting every area is communicating and working and working it and trying to figure out the best ways to do things differently than we're used to and so it's been really impressive and I know it sounds like a broken record but the collaboration that goes on in this district is amazing you know all the social workers have been meeting all of them in through is to azumed format and are collaborating with different ways to support kids and families and and tracking people down to see you know where they are and what they need and dr. Dudley's group has just been a real good obviously not perfect but

129we are figuring it out kind of piece by piece and and that one thing she shared that I've ever quite often is that kids we thought might not be engaged or have been very engaged in this setting and some that we had anticipated would remain engaged we're not and so there's a big question mark there how do he you know how do we navigate that how what do we need to do and and and we'll keep working the problem but we got a lot of talented teachers administrators a you know that are just doing a wonderful job and I appreciate it it's tough it is a tough setting I think another piece to Leila for your question we wanted to also so much is coming out everybody and we wanted to really help manage that

130communication and so what we implemented that seems to be working well is we have a daily administration log that we put new information into one document and we share that out each that they have access to it where they can refer back to it and that seems to have helped rather than getting a million emails because as you know everybody's getting a ton of information at this time so that's another way we're capturing all the things were learning okay thank you Thank You Leila thank you dr. Dudley dr. Beresford Pam any questions I just have to are is being utilized at at all in this process not they not really there may be some where they may be on in classrooms like when the kindergarten class meets the ia might come in so that they

131can see their instructional assistant in that classroom because they miss that adult as well are IAS dr. o strike just recently put out some Safe Schools training so I don't know dr. strike if you'd like to speak to that absolutely yeah so those employees that are not expected to work at this time but are still getting paid bus drivers for example bus assistants instructional assistants we have assigned not only the mandatory training for next year through Safe Schools but additional training related to their positions and their work here in the district so they received all of that training they're working on that right now while at home at this time well thank you my second question do the counselors contact students on their own or do they just get referred to a counselor by a

132teacher both so the counselors and our social workers they have their students that they know that they know will need extra support so they're reaching out to them on their own and then they're also reaching out to students that maybe they don't necessarily know but they're the teacher is saying they need extra support so they're doing both okay thank you and share with you Pam every every Wednesday when we were doing food distribution there's social workers are in the line and there's 16 bags of groceries and they're driving them to homes and dropping and they're you know they're an amazing group thank you thank you hi I'm dr. Julie dr. Oh strict dr. Beresford Katy any questions yeah I just had a couple comments um again as a parent it's an amazing view that we

133have my middle schooler who I will admit was not that great with doing homework has had to learn the hard way about how to work from home and get things done and our grades are going up and so that's really given her this boost of confidence that she needed and I'm that's amazing my son has an IEP for speech it's incredible to see his speech teacher on a zoom with him and he's like the road is rough and I'm ready and doing all these amazing things through technology so that that does not that he can continue that on next year and then too this is tough it's tough for these kids it's tough for the teachers it's tough for parents I know that my husband and I are both trying to work from home full-time

134and keep our jobs and our sanity and all these wonderful things and I know that one of the great things is that we acknowledge that that's the case that this is hard and we didn't ask for this and I really appreciate the great wisdom and the grace that is given from the teachers when you know you can email and say you know what today is just really not working well we're gonna try again tomorrow and I just really appreciate that flexibility and everything as we kind of go through this uncharted waters and I think the teachers for that and for the administration for supporting that and you know just kind of a shout out in a virtual hug to all of you that are kind of going through the trenches I really appreciate on what

135you're doing so thank you thank you Katie for for those comments and other board members thank you for your comments as well next we will move the next report is an update on construction and the construction of the new Elementary School's mister McMichael I will ask Li Miller with the Skillman corporation our construction management firm to provide an update for the board you Thank You mr. Rick Michael ladies and general the board we appreciate the opportunity they provide you a construction update for the two new Elementary School's karmically schools Clayton Road Elementary and Carr elementary school I am alive Miller with the Skillman corporation senior project manager serving you district-wide across all the construction projects hopefully you can hear me all right and I'll keep the presentation brief so I know it's getting late and

136past 9:00 I'll go ahead and share my screen remember to see my semi screen excellent so this is our first construction update for both school projects as a reminder both projects are twin month projects closer in elementary school started last fall September last year so we're about a little over one third of the way through the project that school is tracked to be turned over June of 2001 Cartman elementary school we complete a permit the fronting process and started construction last month and are well underway to start you till ities and other underground work at carmella mentor each school first those clicks Mariel entry progress to date we've completed site demolition and the mass excavation of the site I'll step back a lot of the work we've done so far at both sides was underground

137bringing utilities to the sites putting concrete foundations in place improving the soils under the building both under the footings and under the concrete slab on grade so especially it clicks in elementary school you'll start seeing the building take shape and we have some photos that we'll get into later the presentation some highlights we complete at Clay Center Elementary we've completed the cement stabilization for soil on the building pad so that provides strength to the soils for the building's sit on some specialty foundation systems due to the poor soil conditions we had at the site all the concrete footings are in place and we've started the underground utilities for the building and we've erected about half of the structural steel and as of today approaching 3/4 of that this is an aerial view to give you

138a point of reference Clay Center Road is on the right side of the site north is to the bottom left the new athletic field would be in the upper right hand corner for the baseball and the football field you can see the buildings about half completed as far as a structural steel erection and you see the balance of the footings off to the east out of sight this might not mean much to a lot of people this is the sanitary sewer main extension this excavation is about a little over 30 feet deep so this is a huge endeavor to undertake takes a lot of planning a lot of coordination for the watering that the shoring system that keeps the excavation safe for our workers there's a lot of work a lot of effort a lot

139of time so I think this picture really shows some of the work as far as the underground utilities we're doing right now and the projects we are making this is a good image of the structural steel erection for the building this is taken from the north side of the site looking to the south you see the buildings about half pathway done as of today we're about 3/4 the way done and once the all the structural steel is set we'll start with the metal roof decking and also the concrete black walls plane works for the next two to three months at Clay Center Elementary we plan to complete the structural steel framing as long as mother nature works with us all the steel bar joists a metal deck installed starting the roof the next major milestone

140we hope to report on earth is the building is weather tight so that means the roof is on the exterior walls are up and the building is pretty well protected from rain and increment weather that allows us to start some interior walls and drywall work inside you'll start seeing the exterior concrete block walls go up starting about two weeks we look to complete all the underground utilities under the building footprints that's the plumbing and electrical work that's under the building and then start pouring the concrete slabs on grade and we completing the rest of the site utilities the water the storm sewer and the sanitary sewer Carmel elementary school that building started less once worked our progress to date we've completed the site demolition install all the temporary construction fencing which there's quite a bit

141of that to protect the adjacent neighborhoods keep our Tabriz inside the fence and keep on lookers outside of the safe distance and then we've installed all the temporary construction roads next week we are mobilizing to start some of the specialty foundation systems you'll see some really interesting construction equipment on site if you wander over there this picture is taken from the south looking north fourth Street is on the left side of your screen in the foreground you see come a library in Carmel High School all the flight demolition has been completed as of this week all of the cement stabilization life stabilization will be completed that that brings extra strength to the soils for the building itself so we have a nice solid foundation to build upon next week we'll be starting foundations the concrete

142foundations and the AG repair system that support those foundations here you see some of the equipment staged and our construction fencing is installed there's a it's hard to see from the pictures our construction roads are in place to the on the west side of the site as a reminder from our presentation prob about a year ago now we do have construction fencing that separates the bus loading unloading area from our construction drives and there are gates in place so we can control construction deliveries during the school day hopefully one school gets back in session this fall in regular session not elearning plan work for the next two to three months we will continue with our Mac's activation we will start digging for the underground storm sewer detention system that's on the north east side of

143the site that still hold the stormwater which the requirement that we have to control that on-site and slowly release that into the storm sewer network will start the concrete footings and complete those the aggregate piers which support the concrete foundations will be started and completed structural steel that's going to be a big one that'll be coming late May so in those delivery show up and then all the other gun utilities the sanitary main extension the water main extension and the storm sewer system all that work will start taking shape mid-may and hopefully come June July of next year the buildings will look like this I like that's the goal that's the intention for us when CSO architects at this time if there's any questions I'll entertain those if not I'll give it back to Carmel

144school board well first of all ui1 thank you for the very exciting and informative report and second we appreciate you hanging out with us for a couple hours - till we got to you before I open it up to questions for the board Roger do you have anything you want to add or should I just let you I answer questions I just let Eli answer the questions I believe that he covered this but we are on schedule so the the current Rick has not had a negative impact in terms of the construction work that we're doing all right Thank You Pam any questions Pam you are muted right now yeah I got it so Roger what did you just say that the did you say the virus doesn't have any effect on what's going on

145or what did you just say essentially yes that we the the current crisis has not had a native impact on our construction projects and certainly including these two large projects they are on schedule as originally planned okay that's good to know and let's see where are we with the purchasing or the accessing of that house that's supposed to give us an entrance to Carmel Elementary we're really not we have attempted to purchase the house on two different occasions most recently you know we tried a second time and and the owner of the home is just not at this point willing and interested in selling her house and we're now very quickly approaching the point where it will be it would be too late given the schedule for the school to continue to pursue that well

146where will we put the other entrance then well the current plan for the entrance is on the west side essentially as it is now it's it's configured much better but it'll be the traffic will come in on the west side oh okay thank you Thank You Katie any questions you no questions thank you learn any questions no questions thank you thank you Leanne Leila any questions just one quick question has there been any cost savings with this the epidemic or the guess the pandemic I know gas is a lot cheaper are there other things that might have decreased in price so we'll save some money through this are you referring to the construction projects yes nothing that immediately comes to mind the you know the construction bids are already in and so certainly that will

147be the majority of the cost we have not we will still have furniture and furnishings and a few things like that but nothing of in terms of the scope of the project nothing of you know major expense as far as future expenses I was thinking maybe really cheap prices on steel or something okay well we're past that because we you know we have accepted bids potentially that could benefit the contractors but well they will not be changing their prices as far as I know okay that's all Mike thank you okay well thank you Eli before we let you go dr. Beresford any update thing that you'd like to add to the construction report no it's just getting exciting I see the bones going up out there on place in a road and and they talk

148about soil stabilization you know that's the foundation and those you have to have that good foundation and then so once that gets going it will go up quick looking forward to seeing seeing it happen thank you dr. Beresford Roger and Eli thank you very much for the report next we will move to the monthly financial update again mr. McMichael you know let's see if we can get this going here okay I assume everybody can see the screen and I'll begin we're through March now and so rowdy to our education and referendum funds we are on track with where we would expect to be you can see from the report that our ending cash balance Wilkin is continues to decline and that will continue until we start receiving the local levy the primarily from property tax

149I think the board is aware that potentially well not potentially that taxpayers have the opportunity to delay their taxes up to 60 days unless they have had those taxes escrowed so we're anticipating a delay in receiving all of our property tax but it will be a delay which is not assuming that we will not receive the taxes it's just that there will be a delay but so it's really a cash flow issue but we have sufficient cash balances in our in our combined funds to to handle the cash flow so I we will not find it necessary to take out tax warrants or temporary borrowing and if you compare 2020 or the Education Fund a referendum fund you can see that our cash balance at this point is is better this year than it was

150last year that too is not surprising one is as our we would expect are the actual cash to grow to some extent because our budget it's larger and so that was you know that's a part of our planning because we mean we we look at our cash balance from a percentage standpoint not not just a cash standpoint relative to our operations find its again we're three months into it it's not this fund is not does not track as as closely as our education fund because there are you know any number of non personnel expenses in our operations fund and so it depends on you know the timing of those expenditures and that can vary from one year to the next but in addition to that we had accumulated cash in our operations fund to pay

151a deficit really that we had in our insurance fund that was needed to support the early retirements any program and so we got that caught up this past year and so if you were to compare our cash balance beginning in January of this years compared to previous year it's it's down you know a couple million dollars or so and so that that reflects through as we go through the year so again it's we're on track with what we would have what we have projected and and are not surprised that the balance is is less this year at this time than it was last year and you can see here on our bank reconciliation we had a balance of just over thirty three million dollars and and then the the last report is is just the

152funds report which shows the cash balance in various funds so with that I'd respond to questions that you might have Thank You Roger for that report we'll go to questions from Katie first no questions thank you win no questions Thank You Leila no questions Thank You Pam any questions no already asked them earlier so no questions thank you dr. Beresford's anything you'd like to add for that reporter any questions you have Oh sir thank you all right well thank you Roger next we will move to reports we have a legislative update Leila you lalla we can see your screen you're just probably muted you okay am i unmuted now yep you're good okay thank you I have now two screens and I was lost so sorry a 20/20 legislative report is a liaison I'm presenting

153that this this evening we've just finished the second regular session of the 121st Indiana General Assembly just a just a small little recap it was the short non budgetary session but there are little cost savings and some of the acts that were enrolled it opened January 6th concluded March 11th than during those ten weeks 903 bills were introduced 168 were actually enrolled in of those thirty-three enrolled acts impact K to 12 public education pretty significantly not all of them impact karmically schools so we're really going to be focusing on ten specific acts that have the most impact and we're going to break this up into several different meetings tonight we're just going to be talking about the three that have had the most impact so far and with enrolled acts they can go into effect

154at any time some well most often it's July 1st of the year that they've been enrolled sometimes these bills will be effective upon passage and then there are some that are retroactive and we'll be touching on all three of those this evening as a reminder since we know that we together we achieve our mission Carmel clay schools will provide opportunities for all students to realize their potential in an ever-changing world and as dr. Beresford referenced earlier this evening our guiding principles start with students are at the center of every decision and end with fiscal responsibility is fundamental to achieving our vision and with that having both of these in the back of our minds is how we approach our legislative session and how we look to see what ways we can engage our legislators to

155be the best at getting better so this year as a reminder our legislative goal was to partner with our state and congressional legislators for the purpose of being credible resources to help them in developing initiatives to improve what is the general and uniform system of common schools as well as minimize the under unintended negative financial consequences that typically happen when the best intended policies are passed and through various discussions with our legislators with our board as well as administration there is a number of areas of common interest that we focused on this year we did essa compliance deregulation Student Support Services the public question otherwise known as a referendum and dispute resolution and accrual accounting and I'm happy to report that several areas have been addressed with this legislative session so we're quite excited as

156I've reported earlier we have a number of state legislators and congressional leaders that we have had extensive dialogue with and meetings dr. Beresford and I have met with everybody on this list or well and continue to have conversations I'd like to add that my Kershner as well as Pam Niles have been with me on a number of occasions as well and have met with our state legislators and our congressional leaders with me which has been very helpful the team approach has been very effective so the three that we're going to be focusing on tonight the first is Senate enrolled act two many of you might have heard this as the hold harmless law and this was one of the very first to be passed governor Holcomb signed this bill on February 12th and it is

157a retroactive bill and this bill addresses the use of the 2019 and 2020 I learned scores for our state accountability grades and it gives school systems of flexibility to use - 2018 ISTEP scores now we were very fortunate that we had great I learned scores not as high as a ISTEP but overall caramel clay students perform very well and being that our state assessments have been canceled this year I'm not quite sure if this will be extended that remains to be discussed but what this will do and does do is it allows time for our professional educators to align the instruction to the new proficiency standards that the state tests are measuring the suck in this house enrolled act one thousand two this otherwise is known as a teacher evaluation law and what this bill

158does it eliminates the statutory requirement that the I learned scores must be used for teacher evaluation I know we were very much pushing for this hour during our discussions it's very important to us in Carmel clay schools to D couple having student performance impact the teacher evaluation and their achievement scores which we don't have them this year so this is probably another area that will be extended but those the decoupling is very important and we are thrilled to see this particular house enrolled act move forward this one was actually effective upon passage so this went to effect March the 21st signed by governor Holcomb the next bill is pretty extensive it's the school freedoms after the dreg law for this house enrolled ACT 1309 close i simply included the areas that really have the most

159impact for Carmel clay like I said it's a robust act what this deregulation bill does allow it gives the State Board of Education the authority to streamline the process for school employee training including the timing frequency and the method of training so we were very much pushing for deregulation and this has provided it gives oversight to the State Board of Education which is excellent the other area that the State Board is allowed to do it can grant waivers to schools or a group of schools that apply for flexibility to the rules so if there's a rule or a statute that we would like some flexibility to not push forward as long as you can prove that it improves student performance and outcomes that it would offer flexibility to our administrators to approve efficiencies in school

160operation that if it would promote innovative education approaches for student learning as well as advance the mission of purpose of our school or the school districts that are involved we can apply for these waivers so this is a really exciting addition to this enrolled act the other areas that actually are cost savings for our school system are the first points here this enrolled act allows our school corporation to publish simply a summary of our annual performance report as well as the annual financial report in the local newspaper with the description of where to find the report the full report online prior to this enrolled Act being passed it was stated in statute that our school system had to print pay for an ad in the local newspaper each and every year the entire annual performance

161report as well as a financial report and this will be a considerable cost savings to us since most everything is done electronically any way that we can just publish a summary and then have additional information on where to find that online on our school website interestingly enough this particular accents there are so many components various parts of the law are effective this July first some were effective upon passage and still others and it was they impacted actually charter schools and freeway schools those don't go to effect until July 1st of 2021 so this particular law has all sorts of effective dates this was went into effect well it was signed into law then on March the 18th now what we have for future review and I'll break these up into Senate enrolled acts and then

162house enrolled acts we've got several Senate enrolled acts SCA 273 Indiana Behavioral Health Commission then we've got 295 various education matters 319 which are practitioner an accomplished practitioner licensed 346 students with disabilities and then SCA 398 various education matters there are two other house enroll or two house and world acts that have various components that impact Carmel clay schools and so we'll be unpacking those at a later date as well house enrolled act 1065 various tax matters and then 1066 various education matters and so with that I am opening up for any type of questions well thank you Leila for that very informative report and update we appreciate all your work from before the start of the session through this session and through the report today and going forward before I open it up for

163questions to the board dr. Beresford would you like to add anything to waitlist comments one other than what just said I really appreciate Layla's leadership and the whole board really in your involvement in legislative matters because in order for us to be efficient and and to make Indiana a teacher friendly state and you know changes have to occur legislatively and and I think we were a good resource for our lawmakers and there was some influence there and you know I think we're making steps very positive steps towards again making this a teacher friendly state so appreciate your work well I would like to just add in a big plug for dr. Beresford he's continuing to have conversations with our state legislators there is a number of different areas that need to be addressed given these

164new virtual learning situations and that we are no longer in the school and he like I said is continuing to have some conversations to get some emergency bills and waivers passed that will support our students well thank you both Pam do you have any questions for the legislative report I know I do know I thanks great job Leila oh thank you thank you Katie any questions my question is just kind of Leila is just kind of your feedback on do you feel like with what we did a little bit differently with our legislative priorities this year do you feel like that was successful like how do you feel like that worked for us I feel like it was very successful I'm it gave us flexibility to have far greater and more in-depth conversations and I

165didn't feel like we walked in with an agenda that was do this for me do this for me do this for me we still have an agenda we still had several areas that we wanted to be sure we addressed and those conversations happened but it was I think it was an easier way and a more friendly way to approach the conversation perfect thank you for sharing thank you when any questions on legislative report I had the same questions Katie and I'm glad to hear there are a new approach to getting engaged building relationship with lawmakers well thank you thank you well thank you both I mean we know a lot of this is about building relationships and part of the reason that we shifted our focus a little bit was to be able to be

166a resource to the legislators that we've had great relationships with in the past and continue with and we're fortunate as a district to have great elected officials that not only listen to us but you know turn to us when they've got questions so thank you both next we will move to the superintendent's report dr. Beresford but you gotta unmute I hear that was gonna happen I think I heard that clock ringing that I know if that was the hey Beresford hustle up here but I tell you what I'm gonna do I've got two meetings worth of things to report and so what I think I'll do is I'll publish those in the board update and it's total and you know this to kind of some headlines for you how about that we'll cut it down

167but we will get the detail into that that board update so I'm just gonna go fast I want to congratulate senior Angelo Lee who was named at at 2020 academic all-star there's only four kids that forty kids across the state to get chosen as tax gimmick all-star so that's a big honor for Angela reminder that 2020 census is going on synapse gotta have big impact on finances around crime over ten ten years or more Wellness Center congratulations Roger his team and they got national a national recognition at the world health care summit and they tied for first place in the mid-size group received health value award and keep popping there so if I can give a virtual clap for that once again Carmel has named best communities for music education by NAMM ninth consecutive year

168and Carmel place goes with only four percent of districts across the nation jury sees that award and so to get that nine times in a row you know our music department amazing just amazing don't forget the Carmel education foundations educator Honor Roll so a teacher's appreciation week next week one way to show that appreciation is you can nominate a teacher and donate on their behalf to the to the foundation and then they give out great idea grants and there'll be information on how you can do that you know on the in the report I like Carmel High School highlight again I earned a pacemaker award which is the poll surprise of scholastic journalism and they were first place in website large school first place in their kovat nineteen coverage online news feature or pack feature

169package there second-placed in print news magazine and tenth placed in the special edition that they did earlier in the year last week was National Library Week and we wanted to celebrate our media specialists and assistance and they've been doing some amazing things in this virtual world supporting our teachers and and you know you know people is wondering what would the media specialists do they jumped in really helped a lot with canvas and a lot of the the technology training with that was great Carmel cares initiatives has been fun hasn't a great idea I think it came out of Carmel High School one of our assistant principals yeah had the vision and shared it and it grew and grew and grew Courtney Taylor's been real involved with that and this week's theme is exercise your body

170and mind and so we want everybody exercise your body in mind and share it on social media with the hashtag Carmel cares and did some good things going on with that and that's good for your mental and physical health along those lines I think this section is called cool things people are doing and what it was Ryan Osborne's basketball team I don't know if you guys caught this they they made up this bingo game and the bingo game is very interesting because it says like shoot 100 free-throws and record it with time-lapse video and post it and then it says thank a nurse doctor health care professional make breakfast for your family run two miles before the Sun comes up just a lot of interesting things keep kids engaged and and keep them you know

171keep them busy and in a positive way which was good cherry tree used a 3d printer to make what they call mask relief hooks and belts instead I go around the ears so there's a plastic strap and I just help our our medical folks of proud of those guys High School's does some really cool stuff graduation boxes are going to be delivered to every graduating senior with cap and gap so you get their pictures go on their grad raishin pictures go on and then distinguished committed graduate attire the official graduation program student compositive and a special gift butshe won't i won't clearly the man because it's a surprise and kind of a cool thing about those our bus drivers and a staff member are going to deliver it to their but they're their afternoon bus

172stops and to deliver them they're gonna use you know appropriate social distancing to keep everybody safe and we need to remind students be safe be smart stay apart make sure as you come to your bus stop keep six feet apart and there's plan and that's being communicated but how cool is that then we're back to wh je 93.1 on your FM dial and they had major successes in the state and radiant national radio competitions they were the indiana radio school of the year and then they were runner-up national radio school of the year at sixteen national winners to individuals state winners twenty five national runners-up in nine state runners-up along those lines are my high school's athletic program were awarded the best all-around high school sports program for 2019-20 school year awarded them what they

173win is called the MaxPreps cup and what they do is they take all the athletic programs in the nation and they have a scoring system and we've been in the top ten a bunch but this is the first time we've won the entire thing so there that's a big shout out to the athletic program and the coaches and the athletic directors nice for bruce wolf to go out as a the best athletic program and the in the nation along with of course jimmy ins keep our directors a great job their graduation big topic of conversation working on three plans one is to if this order gets lifted in time we could have a regular graduation percentages probably aren't great for that to happen but I'm always optimistic Plan C is to have a virtual graduation

174they're going to make the virtual graduation regardless of what happens so that's kinda like our safety and it'll be kind of cool to have that even if we're able to do something else that'll be something the kids will always have and I think it'll be it's going to be a pretty cool thing and then Plan B is kind of a little bit everything they're using all kinds of creative ways to to to celebrate and have some kind of a ceremony and they'll probably be catered to whatever the rules are you know by the state for social distancing if we're able to do some kids have been submitting cool things that they've heard or they thought about or they've seen on social media as there's a lot ideas getting cooked around but I really appreciate the

175the Carmel high school administrative staff because it's hard enough to just plan one graduation and they're like working multiple scenarios trying to figure out what's what what can we do to make this special for the class of 2020 and that that Greyhound nation they've got going on over there I'm real proud of them and not to be outdone by that there's planning a summer dance for juniors and seniors because we didn't get to do prom but they're also doing it a virtual problem it's going to be on May the 2nd and they're gonna have a DJ and a mix of music and light show online and then they're also gonna have celebrities who will visit and these are like real celebrities now like you know Roger McMichael and Tom Ostra it's like you know big-time

176stars like Aimee deadly at the but it has I think it's gonna be pretty cool but Sony has transfer students get dressed up and dance night away of course there's been no clothes dancing it's all least six feet apart so so we'll be keeping your distance like a junior I danced here finally my penultimate announcement is we're very pleased to present the distinguished and commended graduates for the class of 2020 and we'll have that 137 seniors were chosen for this year and they've got criteria for folks to make that and then Madeline Saylor's was awarded the top distinguished graduate honor so she'll be given a speech at graduation and that we just want to all celebrate these seniors any chance you get these coming weeks because we really want to show them that we love

177them and and we are proud of them and that they're amazing group to be able to keep going in this environment my bell ringer is simply to talk a little bit about the Carmel Youth Assistance Program karma get the Assistance Programs annual gala was canceled because of the virus and this is a group that does the summer summer lunch program Summer Food Program for us so their their funds are down very low and given this environment last year they fed over 200 kids already over 500 have signed up for summer meals that's 11 weeks of meals so on their website and this will all be in the board update there's various ways that you can donate or you can do some different activities there's places you can shop that will donate parts of the you

178know what you pay to that to make sure that all of our kids who are on free and reduced lunch will have food security this summer so let's but still we can to support the the Carmel Youth Assistance Program as they do the summer meals and that concludes my abbreviated superintendent's report thank you well thank you as always for the very informative and uplifting report about all the great things that are going on do any board members have questions for dr. Beresford seeing none we will move to announcements before we close out the meeting as we've heard we will continue with virtual learning for all CCS students and administrators and families and staff it takes a village to get this done so we appreciate that may 18th is our next school board meeting it is

179a regular session May 21st will be the last virtual day for students followed by May 25th Memorial Day probably not much significance to the school year anymore and then our next board meeting will be June 8th currently scheduled for a workshop session in 955 I think all the board members for participating I think our administrators I think all of you in the audience who have stuck with us this long it was a long meeting but I think it was a very informative productive we talked about a lot of things we learned about a lot of things as always great things are going on here in Carmel clay school so with that may I have a motion to adjourn the meeting so move thank you second okay thank you I assume all are in favor please

180signify by saying aye hi meeting adjourned thank you and good night thank you