001um we're going to start with the pledge of allegiance mr phillips do you want to just introduce yes this is a Mo he's a fifth grader at Maple Grove and he's going he's our spotlight student but he's going to start to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you has everyone had the opportunity to review the agenda and are there any questions or amendments having hear no comment do I have a motion motion to approve the agenda as presented thank you Mr russell do I have a second second thanks Miss Dunigan Smith all those in favor please signify by saying I i opposed the eyes have it the agenda's adopted uh next we have
002a very special reward tonight and I think I'm going to turn over to Mr russell for this it's the shining star award thank you Mr daniels excuse me I woke up horsearo this morning uh tonight for the Shining Star uh award nomination the Shining Star Award recognizes an employee student or community member who has gone beyond the expected to make the synagogue community a better place to be eligible for Shining Star Award the nominee must have exhibited actions that go beyond his or her normal job duties or daily responsibilities the nominee must demonstrate that he or she went above and beyond in one of four areas he or she must have made a difference in the life of someone else fostered a more productive workplace or school community encouraged teamwork and collaboration within the synagogue
003community school corporation or community and initiated a positive change so tonight I would like to nominate Chris Hickeyi program coordinator for Center Grove's Blessings in a Backpack program for the Shining Star Award chris took on the role of program coordinator as a volunteer for Center Grove's blessings in a Backpack program in 2012 2012 this is 2025 all those years volunteering the program provides a bag of food goods to students who have been identified by their counselors as food insecure and receiving free meals this is often the only food they will have all weekend while most would agree this is a worthy program executing it is quite a feat it's a feat Chris has taken on every week that the school is in session for more than 12 years every week that the school is in
004session think about it under Chris's direction Synerg's blessings in a Backpack program has grown from two elementary schools to all six elementary schools they now feed around just hundreds of students every week chris coordinates all of it with the help of her husband Dan she solicits donations lines up volunteers and transports food from the local Meyer every week they've had to navigate changing locations several times due to the growth in space in Center Grove chrisa said she is inspired by students who come to volunteer each week she said she loves seeing them take pride in helping their fellow students and find confidence in their ability to help others chris has two children who graduated from Center Grove she is a managing partner at an Indianapolis law firm where she has worked for more than 35
005years and next school year Chris plans to hand the reigns of this program to a new program coordinator we are very grateful for her incredible service commitment and dedication to our school corporation in this program and feel she is more than worthy of this shining star award [Applause] i came first and volunteers for the last 13 years who come groups of volunteers and I have invited them up for the last two years and they all make it tonight who have just come on their own not just they have charge they walk in and They know where they make decisions about extra stood in wers and spoken at two of our fundraisers and in front of a big group of adult i have to say this is a community effort and I am so thankful when
006I first said you guys let us do it and it's support and my husband and others here and it's important and I thank you for helping us find the next person who's going to carry and she's support don't group is amazing and for those that aren't here and there are two others that have come and [Applause] Thanks for joining us can't take him back he's passed the warranty anyway so true you got to keep him a little bit thank you for that that's uh always a special award now let's move to the Center Grove Spotlight and I'll introduce Principal Brooke Phillips to recognize a student teacher and support employee who are doing a wonderful job at at Daniels i hate to interrupt before we get off that oh sorry what we just saw was a
007a perfect example what a grassroots program can do here in the community because that's what it came from um it wasn't something planned out it just started as a grassroots thing and grew and very proud of that thank you Mr russell appreciate that brooke the floor is yours excited to be here tonight and what a great way to start off the meeting because we benefit from their visits every single week as well so they're grateful for all their efforts but tonight is spotlight night and so I'm excited to recognize some special folks in Maple Grove and so I'm actually start winner because he not only placed first in his division science fair recently he got to go on to the regional science fair to represent the school and won first place in the division regional
008science fair and got to go represent at the state competition i don't know that we've had at least in the 13 years I've been at Maple Grove any student go to the state science fair competition so that is a really big honor that you represented our school so like any good science fair participant he had to bring his board and his promise with him and so I was going to share what it is but do you mind for a moment just telling them what um what your project was about maybe giving them a little bit of an idea of what you learned from it i'm gonna come around yeah we'll come around yeah we're gonna come around see a second to come around and then they'll check it out this is my special waves the
009collab is used in this experiment and my microphone and I put it on my graph and as for the graph the point I was the focal point and that will be a mathematical situ James telescope to take pictures of space and satellites this experiment could be portable building i can also build a Wi-Fi so this is my that I used for my size that I used i just also won a medal for the region science and also awardition he was recognized by the National Organization of Black Engineers so he received that special honor at the state science fair and might I state there was a size component and he could not bring his full model so he had to build an additional model and you know pretty awesome very smart and we just wanted to
010recognize his special [Applause] achievements which I'm just waiting for I would like to invite who is one of our wonderful special education assistants at Maple Grove instructional assistant for many reasons but one she is exceptionally patient she is super kind to all students even sometimes when that's challenging they know that she loves them and she's going to not only support them but hold them accountable for their learning and it's such a fine balance to be able to do both but she does that with such great her and she'll do anything she can to help the other and out of the classroom so for that we are so forunate that [Applause] Last I learned is the correct pronunciation and I said yeah she asked which pronunciation I was gonna use tonight which have used as my
011answer I'll try to get better but just really educator She if you've ever had the pleasure of working with kids from ages five all the way up through 11 it takes a special talent to be able to work with all ages not just one but all ages in an elementary school and she I would say Jenny has a magical way of being able to hold all of their attention walk into a room and they're just you know on the edge of their seat there's their seat on the they're on their toes or leaning forward they're dancing whatever they're to listen to what she has to say to learn about music and you walk in for the fourth thing she just has them and they love music and they learn so much in the music room
012over the course of the time um that they are with her and so the fact that she builds that love and I don't know if you are at very many of the programs those of you throughout the middle school and high school but Jenny is like all the musical performances it seems like supporting her former students and a few that came in tonight's people and they know that she still cares for them so she also does lots of extras at Maple Grove um she is in charge she has singal dance club she's in charge of our talent show our veterans day program our holiday program basically half of you know special [Applause] probably support someone again that's right yeah my neighbor zoomed in once again I always I always enjoy those presentations it was neat
013to get to see the the science fair presentation here tonight so thank you for that learned something too you know I think I learned it and I'll probably forget it as soon as I walk out but it was very very uh good presentation so next we're going to have a report on the strategic planning committee i believe Dr taylor is going to give us that uh or I'm sorry Mrs conrad is going to give us that report i was looking at the wrong uh line mrs conrad I'll turn it over to you welcome to come up here and help out all right thank you so our last update on our strategic plan was at our February board meeting when we uh asked you to approve the survey of students as part of our communitywide survey
014which also included our staff members so now this strategic planning process is about halfway through um as we shared in February we are working with education elements to develop this plan they have worked with more than 400 school districts across the country including a dozen uh right here in Indiana so on this next slide you can see um the structure of this project includes a project team which is Dr long's cabinet um a steering team which includes 25 administrators teachers parents community members and one board member Miss Jane Dunigan Smith uh we plan to bring the final plan back to the school board at the end of or at the end of this process which will be this summer um as I mentioned um we're more than halfway through this process you can see the
015red highlight there is um we're getting close to our design day two um these days are very long they're six-hour meetings and we dig into a lot of information and data and our next team next team meeting is going to be on May 28th and then you can see um moving into June is the uh the wrap-up of the process so looking back um beginning in December we started this process gathering a lot of data that we had uh including demographic information test scores and then all of the various surveys that we had conducted um we did some communication surveys we've done climate surveys and other things like that and put all of those things together for this team to start to synthesize we also selected members of our steering team and focus groups we
016asked our building leaders to provide a list of teachers staff and parents who could participate on the steering team or the focus groups to ensure that we had voices from every building we also reached out to our ambassadors and other members of the community who had expressed interest in this process in February March and April we launched the uh communitywide survey so the survey was in February it was sent out to more than 16,000 parents and community members that we have in our database as well as all of our staff and our students in grades 5 to 12 we also pushed it out on all of our social media channels and website um as you can see here we had over 15 uh 5,300 responses we conducted eight focus groups which included 70 people including
017high school students parents teachers non-eing staff administrators support staff and community members in April and May we brought our steering team together for two full day sessions they comb through the community survey data along with all of the other data we had compiled earlier this year education Elements led the team through some exercises to help identify the values and priorities that came through the survey and focus group responses they then walked the group through creating initiatives for each of those priority areas those priorities are what we used to develop the pillars that the strategic plan will be built on we sent out another survey uh earlier this week to get feedback or last week actually to get feedback on those draft values and pillars and make sure that the steering team is on the right
018track with the direction that we're going and that survey actually closes tonight at midnight and on the next slide if anyone hasn't taken it yet shameless plug can go to our website centergrow.k12.in usps survey and you can take it there education Elements will be pulling those results together for our next steering team meeting that I mentioned at the end of the month and that's when they'll start building out the goals and the strategies that will actually make up the strategic plan so in that survey you will see the draft values um they are built on community empowerment and learning that's what the focus is and you can see some of those um definitions there also the draft pillars are also things that we're asking the community to review they focus on learning belonging and communication
019and as you can see these are very broad statements these are not specific goals yet these are not strategies um but they will be used to develop the measurable goals and uh strategies for this plan so next is this summer we will bring back the final plan for the board and start working on the systems and processes that we'll need to execute the strategies in the plan and then of course we'll be communicating out what that plan is to all of our stakeholders thank you for the update sure do we have any questions or comments from the board i would just say as a part of the steering committee steering team okay thank you member as part of the steering team i think you know the sessions I've been to I had to miss that
020last one but um they really wellrun and I think that the key to that's been one they were all based on the feedback that you solicited through the through the community so one we had a really good basis to start with and then two you know the group that you that we put together to help shape that is a really nice cross-section of the community and I think you know everyone that's there is very highly engaged so um I just think it's been a great process so far i'm excited to see where we land yep you know and Jane thanks for for attending i know we have a lot of commitments as schoolboard members and and having a board member present i've gone to one in the past and thought it was very helpful um
021so I appreciate you you attending and and Stacy as always I appreciate you putting these together sure i know it's a lot of time and effort but it's something we just periodically have to do we just have to reach out and make sure that we're going in the direction that we should be going in and get input from others to to help guide those those decisions so thank you both for and everyone else on cabinet who's participating in that i think it's a very very important process yeah I just want to say Stacy's done a really nice job really kind of serving as the leazison between ED elements and and the the rest of the committees and she's done a even more difficult job of keeping us uh cabinet in line and up up to
022speed on what we need to do and everything so I just wanted to make sure everybody knew what a nice job she's done to to help facilitate that thank you and we look forward to the results yes as do we all right next on the agenda we have time for public comment i see no one has signed up tonight so we'll move on next to the consent items um I assume everyone's had a chance to review the consent items does anyone have any comments or questions as it relates to the consent items hearing no comments or or questions uh do I hear a motion i move that we approve the consent agenda as presented thank you Miss Dunigan Smith do I hear a second i second thank you Miss Counts um all those in favor
023please signify by saying I i opposed the eyes have it next we're on to the action items and now I'm going to turn it over to Dr taylor i was reading the long wrong line i unless you want me to turn over to Stacy Conrad and she can provide a shot so I I'll turn it over to you Jason i would not have done as nice of a job as strategic planning so she by far did better and this is not in any way putting you down but I believe that statement all right uh energy savings project um tonight we're recommending the board approve contracts with CMTA um this is the company that's been executing all of our um energy savings projects this is from the first phase project total about $17 million in that
024full that full first phase um when this is for the roof mounted unit on Sugar Grove and after the bids came in they realized that actually what they had estimated for the budget it had gone down and so they're actually recommending some additional controls at three different locations um and these basically take current pumps that operate at 100% capacity all the time and add some variable speeds to those so that we can reduce the energy cost there so um they've included then a table of the overall savings you'll see year one it starts at $84,000 they expect us to save that um after this installation's complete annually and it'll grow from there um and this will be the last contract that we bring from that first phase um we're pleased to see that work being
025completed and will fully be complete as we enter the fall of 26 and we've already seen some of those cost savings and we'll continue to report and bring those back to the board to show more as the projects come to completion so tonight we're recommending these contracts for approval any questions or comments from the board i just have a couple I guess and and I thank you for for bringing this you and you and your team to us originally because I know we've saved a lot of money that we've been able to to spend on teacher salaries and other things just give us an overview of how much we've saved i don't want So yeah in the the first quarter of 2025 alone we saved $100,000 in actual cost over what we paid for utilities
026last year if we layer on the utility increases we saved even an additional money that we avoided that cost um as you indicated we we directly put that money right back into the operations fund where we pay these utility bills um and that can help us alleviate that transfer back to the ed fund so it does put money truly back in the pockets of our all of our employees especially teachers and as you said this once again is a guaranteed energy savings so they're guaranteeing we're going to hit a certain level that is correct and and if they do not exceed it we will receive that difference paid to us um it's important to note too when I mentioned that number that really is only inclusive of the solar array at Maple Grove between it
027and the transportation building and some of the control changes they made they had not yet retrofitted and turned on some of the other buildings including Sugar Grove and the high school and so we'll see more savings um as we move forward they they probably were about a third of the way done really when we got that amount of savings so great it's great well I appreciate that any other questions or what's the end date that they have to be done by uh expected to be by the fall of 2026 um or sorry 2025 i said 26 earlier too so thank you for asking um it will be this coming fall so really what we had to wait on is Maple Grove will require a all summer shutdown as we change out its HVAC equipment that
028will happen this summer and so when we come back in September we will have all of that turned on when I bring back and talk about the budget yep okay thank you for asking that question because I did misspeak appreciate that M thanks for the clarification any other comments questions do I hear a motion motion to approve the remaining energy savings project thank you Mr russell now that we've pluralized it do I hear a second second thank you Mrs counts all those in favor signify by saying I i i opposed the eyes have it thank you Dr taylor thank you next on our agenda is uh districtwide long-term capital maintenance and equipment once again I'll turn it over to I'm I'm sorry i need to back up we've got a script for this one because
029it's this is uh this evening's board meeting has been appropriately advertised as a 1028 preliminary determination hearing dr jason Taylor assistant superintendent will present information on this topic so now I'll turn it over for the 1028 hearing to Dr taylor thank you Mr daniels we do have some slides that we want to share um before I get too in deep into that I do want to say this is a rather large project that the board we're asking the board to consider um this is a project that's going to span multiple years um it's not something we've typically done but it is something we would like to do given all of the changes um at the at the state level to property taxes um we feel like this best positions the corporation to adjust these projects
030as needed to maintain um the lowest tax rate and consistent tax rate we can for our for our uh taxpayers and so um this actually gives us that flexibility it also includes some projects that we rely on um to allow us to have funding in our operations fund and therefore not taking those funds from our education fund so as we enter these slides I wanted to share that up front and just be real clear why we're asking for such a large project this is actually a lot of little projects stacked over multiple years to add up so um on the first slide you'll see that um we're asking the board to consider and in this package the 2027 and 2028 district-wide projects um we have done this since 2009 um it comes in roughly at
031about $8 million this year it does increase ever so slightly as all the cost of these things increase but this is to purchase and maintain the buildings and equipment that we have um prior to 2029 this is funding that we would have received through property taxes and it would have been in our operations fund back then called capital projects um but since it was removed and the funding stream was removed we've supplemented that from debt service through those years and we would ask the board to continue to do that um for the next really three years as we build the budgets we do include uh security upgrades within here technology equipment and also we purchase our school buses and vehicles out of this these projects in addition to that ongoing and reoccurring need we we've
032we've identified some needs that we have throughout the corporation really to position us best to not do anything larger in the next three years but to do these smaller projects the first one is to finish off the south end of the high school campus as you know we've removed the the Maple Grove Elementary School we are open we have opened the academic pavilion and we'll fully open it and use that facility to start next school year um and so this actually will help with some parking there additional staff and student parking also rework some of the parent uh pickup lines right now that cues out on Morgantown Road and we want to fix that um to improve the traffic flow around the campus um the other thing is actually something similar what I just shared
033with the board earlier is a continuation of our HVAC and energy savings project um this would be the phase two of that it would be additional solar on some schools that currently are not in the project um we've been approached by Johnson County RMC to consider the use of larger battery packs to avoid peak charges and that would be also a partnership with them that we pro proceed through this project um and then condition additional HVAC improvements and upgrades just of the needs throughout our corporation in the buildings that are older that need those those upgrades to be made we've done a great job of upgrading what we have um but we are seeing some cycles where we need to continue to do that um the next bullet then we would address classroom capacity needs
034and this would be throughout the corporation this would really help us to uh um just give some extra elbow room in the buildings that we have without adding major wings or additions um but to rework some of the spaces we have within our current footprint and if we were to add on rooms it would just be one or two um as needed this also helps to offset the awful rword of redistricting down the road this gives us some flexibility in the current spaces we have to avoid something like that and to make sure we're using our space and our square footage as efficiently as possible um and then the final one would just be making sure that we maintain our external co-curricular activities um this is no large major project but this is just simply
035um maintenance and improvements to what we have um additional needs as they are identified can be addressed um and a lot of this would take place at the high school and the middle school level where where those facilities are so that all is in the package and as we move through then um we'll talk about the project funding for this um and there's one slide that has a lot of information the total package that we're asking the board to consider is um 49,500,000 um and we've honestly open the parameters on this slide as much as we can because we do want to be flexible and if we find that we have debt capacity to make a really large payment one year we're going to do that and that's why you see the maximum annual payment
036could be as much as 15 million um if we don't and for some reason this would drag all the way out you also see then the worst case scenarios which would be that um this debt isn't paid off for a long time it's paid off in a short amount we have to explain the the highest and worst case scenario on this chart but that's not our intent here our intent is to bring these projects back to the board individually to make solid decisions like we have for the past um really 15 20 years on these projects um also then we note the most current debt levy rates um and certified max levy rates and how much of the na the the entire assessed value um is devoted in our area toward debt service for the
037corporation and then in the big red box I did want to be clear that we are not anticipating to raise our debt service rate for this um we actually expect these projects to to allow us to lower it because they'll be so much more flexible in the way that we can package these as we move forward throughout the next few years gives us better control flexibility of that rate especially as a lot of things are changing on us in the next three to four years just a reminder of where that debt rate or that total tax rate sits right now we're at a dollar6 we've been really flatlined and level since um 2009 and you can kind of see that and I also included some comparative numbers there so while you see the Center Grove
038current school rates at a dollar six that's also happens to be very close to the statewide average however when we really focus on central Indiana where there's a lot of population growth and continual growth it's really closer to A18 so we do we are proud that we're able to offer um a very cost-effective education and facilities um in this corporation at that lower tax rate and just narrowing down even a little tighter focus looking at the county itself you'll see Center Grove ranks fourth of all the public school corporations in Johnson County um lagging behind Edinburgh Franklin and Clark Pleasant all three of which have also passed a referendum and that's represented in the blue bar here so their base tax rate is higher than ours and in addition they have a referendum that gives
039them additional operating funds every year and that's reflected in this chart um the final slide is then just some project schedules um obviously we do a hearing tonight we'd ask the board to take action at the hearing in June um we would look to begin receiving some bids on some of the early p uh parts of this project but a lot of this work is going to continue on beyond 25 into 26 27 and 28 um the earliest we'd make a bond payment if we do move forward with some projects later on this year would be in 26 um again um the last slide's for public comment but before we go there I just want to restate that all of these projects will come back to the board at a later date for consideration right
040now we're just basically asking the authority to issue this debt when we're ready to issue it a lot of school corporations do take this model we have not where they will look at a five-year large debt package approve it all at once and then come back later with the projects we do feel like though with all of the changes this is the time to make the change and do that and would not anticipate bringing back a major package again until this work is complete great and that's the end of my comments Mr daniels i'd welcome any questions thank you Dr taylor and I believe before we go to board questions this is appropriate time for members of the public to comment on the 2026 2028 district-wide long-term capital maintenance and and equipping um or any
041of the information presented this evening are there any members of the public who'd like to comment on tonight's presentation seeing no response um I do thank members of the public for attending and and hearing the presentation are there any comments or question from any board members relating to either the presentation or the uh proposed proposal knowing we don't take a vote tonight we'll have another chance at this um at our next meeting where we will take a vote i just think this is being smart uh with knowing what the next three to four years the legislature could be uh and some things they've already done uh we've got to get ahead of the game uh before our hands get tied thank you Mr russell any other comments you know I guess to echo um Jack's
042comments you know it's SP1 makes it a lot more complicated and I know we'll figure it out and and you know abide by the rules so I do appreciate the the forward looking of this and I I appreciate the flexibility that this will provide and you know our our commitment to do everything we can to maintain a steady tax rate so thanks for for your efforts on this and and I know we don't take a vote tonight so um seeing no public comment no other comments from the board um we'll move to the next agenda item thank you our next agenda item is the adoption of curricular materials and I will turn it over to it looks like I got a group on this one mrs shannon Carol Fry Mrs megan Curtis and Dr jason
043Taylor uh will will be presenting pieces of this so I will turn it over to Mrs shane and Carol Fry to begin thank you thank you so um annually Oh Mrs curtis don't feel like you need to be over there that's okay this is Tweedle D and Tweedle i'll leave the Tweedle down um our annual process of reviewing curricular materials to make recommendation to the board the materials or the courses that you see on our list annually are uh cyclical in nature typically going a six-year period before reviewing for new materials or when we have courses that have been new since the last time that we joined in the fall you always uh for the high school review the course proposals that we can add so you'll see a few new things on there so
044um you've had access to this um these this list and and I don't if you don't mind Mrs lastly if you could just kind of scroll through the to the high school one we'll start with the high school there's two pages for the high school thank you you'll see a variety of departments represented here but I really want to highlight a couple of courses that um I'm really proud of our high school for working in you know we have um new seals for our new diploma for our incoming ninth grade for next year um in preparation for that work and also to be able to offer some of these things to our students who may opt in early you'll see things on this list like the second from the end on that list is an
045insurance certification i'm very proud to say that we were are working in um concert with um the um local uh actually not local but the national insurance certification um board and they are going to use their um industry partners to allow us to be able to offer courses it's a set of courses that kids can leave with an insurance certification and go right out into the workforce um or even while they're in high school should they work on that early they could start to work as a side job that would be um different than working at McDonald's or different than working in some of the other great um opportunities that our teenagers have so that's a good one and if you don't mind to go to the next page for that Mrs lassley I also
046want to point out you've seen before I think our Johnson County Advanced Manufacturing Program which is another um partnership Mrs ferguson u really has taken the lead in the high school on bringing that to us there are we're at the point now where kids are entering that third set in the course series and so um there are some materials for that course that we need to adopt and the last one I want to point out is we also will be adding a pharmacy uh pharmacy tech certification this is a unique uh partnership for us because um not different from when we um had during COVID we had some students take classes from Indiana online academy this is KLR is a company that offers even to non- high schoolers um classes in how to become a
047pharmaceutical uh technician and so our students will be able to do that there is a reimbursement process through the state that um you'll hear us do uh take advantage of more and more over the the next few years one is called a career scholarship account and students individually can apply for this and then earn um if they earn that scholarship the state pays KLR directly for those courses because you may notice that's not a small amount on the per student amount so when you see that as compared to on um you'll see on art for middle school at 60 cents a student that's significant so I want you to know that we're working hard to partner with industry and to partner with um the opportunities from the state as a career um scholarship account there's
048also another reimbursement called the inter report which I won't get into but um the those are the highlights of the materials that are on there that I wanted to make sure as a board that you're aware of that we're extending into whenever you see a price for a book that is significant if it's not falling under one of those certifications it's typically one of our dual credit classes or one of our classes where we have a memorandum of understanding with a university who helps make the selection for those books and if you remember paying for books in college they can be more expensive than what we are able to purchase when we're when we're talking K8 so um that is our high school highlights on our high school if you don't mind Mrs lastly to
049go to the the middle school we just have um two items on here the art adoption and um we're pleased to be able to offer the art of education university flex curriculum for our as a recommendation that um is an online resource that is extremely broad and the benefit of that is our middle school art teachers there's one in each so they're covering grades six seven and eight and they have some students that even um will have the opportunity to come again so we want to be able to offer a flexible resource for them and for our students to be able to really um especially you've seen the the key awards and and the things where our art department has brought for our high school so um we're recommending that and then we again have
050gone through the um vetting process with um the middle school author visit and so you'll see that the recommended author for next year is Mr gordon uh Corman and there are a variety of books that um that way the teachers have some selection in which one they will do the students will get to take that book with them and we'll study it along with the middle school author visit so those are the middle school and high school and for the elementary we are looking at really two math and PE um for the math curriculum textbook adoption we are looking at recommending um I ready as the math uh resource for K to 5 to support our teachers and our students and the implementation of our new curriculum um standardsbased curriculum map uh for this 2526
051school year um we are only entering into a two-year agreement um so that we can um be mindful um and support those um identified um standards um for the next two years um and then also the PE teachers are recommending um a digital learning platform called platform which you can see the abbreviation um and so for that one that this is a really a digital tool just basically for our teachers that will help support um their lessons and unit plans um in supporting curriculum for our um students in PE um and offering them a wide variety of different um choices again to support those Indiana standards um we are entering into just a one-year agreement with platform and um as always our process is takes a very long time it started at the in the
052fall um we brought together teachers and administrators um at the at the secondary level i meet monthly with the administrators and check in with the department chairs as well to see whether we're on track how's the review going are we finding a good support for Indiana standards and the course needs um and then that results in um a top recommendation of a few publishers typically which then we take to CGIT and ask about how is this going to compare or um function with our um digital devices etc and um and then ultimately we bring it to you the last thing and important part is that we have had the materials um which have been publicly um on display on display as well as the notice went out thanks to Mrs conrad um as needed to
053a few weeks ago so we haven't had any takers on the ones downstairs but they have been available for those um people to come check should they want to do that the last item that is a K12 um that I'm just remembering when I looked at Mrs christy Ber um is that the public or the um I guess publisher who had supplied our curriculum for the required K12 body safety um information has gone out of business so we're bringing a replacement K12 for that for you this evening as well are there any questions that we can answer about the process or the materials we brought to you today i was going to ask you about public involvement but you brought it up because I did see it several times here is your opportunity too so
054to speak and I'm glad to hear teachers were involved and because Yeah it needs eyes from different directions absolutely absolutely thank you both appreciate it thank you thank you i'm going to share just a little bit about the cost of the curricular materials um since this was taken over by the state last uh in the last budget um they provided us with funding um for our curricular material cost and this is a very similar report to what I brought to the board last May um what was nice this evening is we are just approving materials and not the costs associated with those so that's great we do love a free and fair education um however we do want to be honest and transparent with our cost and with what we're being reimbursed for and so
055I've included a lot of grade level numbers here but at the bottom in the totals you'll see that on average um our cost of curricular materials is about $376 um and when you multiply that by our total student population it's a little over three 3.6 million the state reimbured us at $157 almost $58 at a total of 1.5 million and that leaves about a $2 million shortfall um we have overcome that shortfall um first by allocating one well second I guess by allocating $1 million toward uh the purchase of technology devices to run a lot of these platforms but then also we have had to supplement unfortunately out of the education fund about $900,000 to overcome the rest of the needs um this is something we continue to look at and work on we are
056aware that many of the school corporations have chosen to charge supply fees back to their parents um especially for specialized courses with larger supplies that is something we're investigating and if we do pursue that path we will come back to the board with more information and a recommendation for that um but it is something that we do have to consider given the strain put on our education fund currently um to make sure that we can recoup some of this lost um the shortage and what we really need to provide a high quality education and I think Dr is going to share some other topics too we left her off the list of participants i apologize before can I and then we'll go so $2 million shortage compared to what we get from the state this
057used to be a a charge that went through to the parents right correct and then the law changed where they said no the state's going to pay for this are we seeing others school corporations in similar situations where they have we are a significant shortage we are and most of them are high performing school corporations throughout the state very similar to us would be a lot of our peer schools not all but some and you mentioned the supplies if we charge that back have we quantified what that might mean to the No just one example from other schools would be about a $30 fee and it would be for those consumable things that a student might take home however it could be things like frogs you dissect or uh cosmetic kits or whatever it may
058be there's a lot of examples they've given us um in which we're trying to lay that on top of what we are charging right now or what we're not charging to see where it's where it fits we do want to keep it as low as possible no I I appreciate that i appreciate you looking because you know I know the state said they were going to take it over and pay for it and correct doesn't look like it's quite happened correct has not met our needs but thank you i appreciate that so I didn't mean to interrupt you Dr sims i just want to ask kind of just to add a layer on top of that knowing that we're looking at these numbers and knowing that there are going to be some adjustments that we're
059going to need to make particularly when we look at the education fund moving forward we are really looking at things through the lens of not entering into long-term agreements for resources so you heard Mrs curtis specifically mentioned that we negotiated a two-year contract or agreement for I Ready versus a six-year agreement which would be very typical of the textbook adoption process um and and the one-year agreement for PE because we're looking at that through the lens of what what are the resources that we truly need to support our staff and students moving forward so really looking at things through a different lens if we have programs that are being duplicated or resources that are being duplicated looking at that through the lens of what's the product or the program or the resource that is truly
060necessary for our students um to to have an excellent education and for our teachers to have the instructional supplies and materials that they need so it is going to be a shift in thinking it is going to be a process um that's going to take us some time to wrap our hands around when we think about all of the pieces that come together when we talk about curricular materials because it isn't just the textbooks it's the consumable items and it's some of the supply pieces that our students and staff are used to having in the classroom so it is going to be a process we are aware of it but we are trying to look at some things through a different lens um particularly as we look at the adoption of those resources at the
061elementary this year no and I I applaud that because you know when we see that kind of a number we want to say where can we what do we really need what's what can we live without and are the things we charge through so I thank you both i look forward to a follow-up report as to how both those processes go and I don't mean to be the only one to speak does anybody else have any questions or comments no I agree in days of your you automatically went five to six years the challenges are different now they are and in conversations with some of the representatives of the companies that we're working with it's also trying to help them understand our perspective in partnering with them to educate our students um some of them
062are coming to the table and having great conversations with us and some of them don't necessarily see the things from the same perspective so it it's going to be a paradigm shift all the way around because again that five to six year cycle allowed us to offset some of that cost over a period of time um and we just don't have that flexibility any longer so there's just some conversations that are needing to be had so that we all understand what the needs of our staff and students are so that we can continue to provide the resources that are necessary to implement curriculum any other Mrs couns thank you both appreciate it do I hear a motion to adopt the uh curriculum as as presented i move to approve the curricular materials materials as presented
063thank you Mrs digan Smith do I hear a second second thank you Mr russell all those in favor please signify by saying I i oppose the eyes have it thank you all for your presentations appreciate it next we'll get to the school calendar for 26 or 2025 and 26 dr taylor um you're lucky you get to present again yeah so earlier this week uh we did receive notification from the Indiana Department of Education that we had once again received performance qualified waiver days those are days that allow us to submit um our instructional time in minutes instead of 180 days at the end of the year and so we're going to continue to use that flexibility going into the next school year and with those two waiver day we're planning to add two waiver days
064very consistent with what we've done in the past couple years so we will start the year with one one waiver day which will change the first student day from July 30th to July 31st and we will insert a second waiver day on January 5th thus in turn changing the first student day back for second semester to January 6th um we also on this chart added the official start date for preschool they start a little after the rest of the students that's indicated in pink on this chart on August 6th and we did change graduation date that's something we had missed last time we brought this calendar to you um put it on its correct and traditional um Sunday following the last week of school it was a week later on the the current public document
065so recommending these changes very consistent with the uh current school year and looking ahead to next year we will be able to start in August and end before Memorial Day and all things will work themselves back out in that cycle so so I'm sorry is graduation on Memorial Day weekend is it okay okay I follow you yeah this is another year where Memorial Day is very early and so it makes it very tough for us not to start in July right um so we've tried to minimize that as much as we can um but it does correct itself in the following school year okay does anyone else have any questions or comments as it relates to the proposed calendar no I was just asking Jane when we run into leap year was going to be
066fun gives us an extra day so uh hearing no questions dr taylor thank you for the presentation do I hear a motion i move that we approve the 2526 school calendar thank you Mrs mrs downigan Smith do I hear a second i second thank you Mrs counts all those in favor please signify by saying "I I opposed." The eyes have it thank you still doesn't still doesn't meet Scott's expectations missed it by a day no it does for students it does i'm just saying that was his I heard right from him but um I need to talk to you after meeting but you think about it I mean we ended a few days earlier than we did last year so correct it's still correct so we're good yep i know so that closes uh our
067our items on the agenda that we needed to vote on i'll make a couple of public announcements first uh May 23rd 2025 last day for students everybody have a safe and enjoyable summer after that let's hope uh graduation is June 1st 2025 at the uh high school graduation will be at the Race Gilman Stadium the executive session June 19th will start at 6 followed by a regular board meeting June 19th at 7 and then uh that June 19th meeting will also have a good for the Grove after it for members of the public to come and and share their thoughts um with with the board so I'll I'll go around the horn mr russell do you have any announcements tonight not at this time thank you Mrs donigan Smith i do not mrs counts dr
068taylor Dr simmers Dr long I do want to say that uh we answered the question that everybody wants to know is are you smarter than a fifth grader uh we were invited to um uh Maple Grove to have participate in a contest with the fifth grade class and I'm not going to tell you how we did but the answer is no we're not smarter than a fifth grader so just leave it at that but we were smarter than some of the other cabinet members sounds like some kind of small traveling trophy needs i think maybe it needs to come out of this toilet i'm going to recount i like that i like that too thank you and I I have no public announcements tonight except to tell everybody have a safe uh safe enjoyable graduation
069in summer so thanks everybody for their efforts tonight do I hear a motion to adjurnn we'll count that as everybody all those in favor signify by saying I i opposed meetings adjourned