001No, I'm gonna through a whole year. Our high school principal. Thank you. I'd like to introduce Alex Van as our uh student spotlight tonight. And so he's going to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Alex 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. Next item on the agenda is the adoption of the agenda. Is everyone had an opportunity to review the agenda? And if anyone has any questions, please ask now. If not, do I hear a motion? Mr. President, I move that we adopt the agenda as presented. Thank you, Mr. Alexander. Do I hear a second? I second. Thank you, Mrs. Counts. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed.
002The eyes have it. 5-0. Uh, next we'll go to the Center Grove Spotlight and Mrs. McMahon will uh present that for us on behalf of Center Grove High School. Good evening. Um, Alex, if you'll come up to spend a few minutes talking about you. We are excited to celebrate Alex Fan tonight. Alex is an exceptional student, but an even better human. Throughout his time at CGHS, Alex has been an AP scholar with distinction, a national merit finalist, a rising star of Indiana, a top 20 student, and most recently a 2025 academic all-star. He is actively involved in HOSA, where he was a Samsung Saul for tomorrow state finalist, a member of Business Professionals of America, where he qualified for nationals in web design, as well as several other clubs, including volleyball, which you can't see
003because he has his uniform on under his outfit. He needs he needs to get to his game. Yes. I told him to do like a Superman moment like here we go. Um where his leadership is recognized and valued. Alex is a well-rounded student who has excelled in the classroom and in extracurricular activities. But more important, he is a good person who is known for always being kind and for having a smile. Alex will either attend Princeton University utilizing their ROC program or Harvard University next year where he plans to study computer science or computer engineering. We're very excited and proud of Alex Van. Congratulations. Next, I'd like to introduce Shannon Fritz. To summarize Shannon Fritz is easy. She is a rock star. As the guidance director at CGHS, Shannon shines and she's a workhorse. Shannon's
004leadership is tangible. She has keen insight to her team strengths and weaknesses, which allows them to develop, grow, and succeed, all of which benefits our students. Whether it is supporting our ELLL newcomers through lessons on credits and GPA or finding ways to ensure that our students have access to programming, she is creative. wellconnected with community partners and most importantly she is always student centered. We are so grateful to have Shannon here at CGHS this year. We stole her from Whiteland but they're still friends with us. Um she has been a fantastic addition to our staff. Um she's very well connected with industry partners which we are excited about as that is an area that we really felt like we needed to grow. Um and I can't say enough good things about her. She is truly
005an amazing person um as well as an employee. So congratulations Shannon. And up next, Laorray Lampton, our support st our support staff member. Laorray is an unsung hero in our front office. She is our assistant treasurer who wears many hats, most often the ones that people don't like, such as textbooks, professional development forms, and substitutes, including much more. Regardless of the task, Laorray always gives 110% and works to ensure that the processes flow smoothly for our staff. She is always positive, professional, and efficient. Our staff, teachers, and substitutes all love LAR and truly appreciate all she does day in and day out to help CGHS operate smoothly. And if you ever come in in the morning, Laura is there probably what, 6:30, maybe before, and we have all the subfolders laid out. It's like a
006master puzzle. um we just know that we don't really have to worry about that and that takes a huge stress off of us. She's very organized um and she's proud of the work that she does and when people come into our office, you know, whether substitutes, um students or parents who are asking questions, she's always positive and our staff just loves her. Always has a smile on her face. So, Lorray, thank you. And now and then you can get to your body. Yeah. top. That's what I thought. [Music] Good luck. [Laughter] Good luck. Good luck tonight. Thank you. Always good to hear the spotlights from the different schools. Next on the agenda, we have a presentation with respect to a Nobel Prize teacher summit. We're going to hear from Dr. Harp. I'm looking forward to
007hearing this one. Sure. Let me just introduce you. That's all right. Dr. Harp, of course, is our principal at Middle School North. He was awarded the Indiana Association of School Principal Scholarship to rep represent Indiana and the United States at the Nobel Prize Education Summit in Stockholm, Sweden over spring break. The scholarship was highly soughta. It was a sight highly soughtafter opportunity that more than 50 school districts competed to receive and Dr. Harp uh was awarded that and he's here tonight to share his experience. Thank you, Dr. Long. I'm uh still enjoying seeing Alex up here. I was his principal in elementary school and his sixth grade principal. So um but as Dr. Long said, thank you. Um had a great opportunity to go to Sweden for the Nobel Prize teacher summit um fully funded
008by uh education um education first tours and um he had to apply for it and interview for it. was happy to uh represent the United States and went with 12 other uh principles from the United States and eight Canadians. And then there were u principles from 35 different countries uh that we were able to collaborate with. Uh we saw lectures from Nobel Prize winners and we were able to go in and out of a lot of Swedish schools. Um so why Sweden? Uh well Sweden is known for um reducing achievement gaps. And even though um they in spite of uh reducing those achievement gaps, they still they still have shorter days, they have less homework um they give their uh students uh a lot of autonomy. And I can't wait to show some examples of
009that. Um, and they have a they're known for reduced stress and improved u mental and physical well-being. Um, the other thing is they do a really good job of making sure that affordable high quality preschool is available to everyone. Um, they have a strong focus still in those primary grades of play and development, those social skills that are so important. Um, and then Something else is pretty neat is is sustainability and environmental education are a huge emphasis there. Um you don't see rappers and trash in their hallways and gum on their gym floors. So um I had four main takeaways I'm going to talk about with you guys. Um and I'll start with you know our global impact. Um if you go ahead to that next slide. Um, I was really surprised uh when I
010got there. Um, on the plane I was trying to study some uh Swedish words and uh expected to have to have my phone out translating for me. Um, when I got there, I was shocked. I was shocked to learn that English has now become the global language. Um and we were there and the first thing they did was about 80 of us in the room and um from 35 different countries and every single person stood up, introduced themselves uh said what they do and every single one of them spoke in English. Um and so that was very very surprising. um our museum tours, our restaurant waiters and waitresses, everybody was speaking uh English. So um I was sitting at a table and with uh principles at this table about eight different countries and um we
011were talking about um all kinds of things and I asked them you know what are your movies like and they said what do you mean? I go, you know, what what are they like? And um someone from London uh quoted, well, your movies are our movies. And then there was someone from Uganda who said, "And you sound like the movies." So, um I just thought that was really neat. And what I found was um you know everything that we're doing over here, social media, how we dress, phrases, politics, um how we look at economy, um the whole world is watching. So much closer than what I ever knew. Um and uh one one of the principles uh said this. It said the number one export of the United States is your culture. And so I
012never knew that. Um, but it definitely told me that what we're doing in our schools today with with our kids in the United States is is more important than I ever knew. And so I'm proud to be an educator. Um, they also are unified around democracy. Everybody there is focused on democracy and they talk about America as the model. and one of the speakers at the uh Nobel Prize summit uh this is a quote from him if democracy fails in the USA it's gone throughout the whole world just never thought of it like that right I thought USA we do us they do them that is not um the the u the reality at all so um the next thing I I brought back is just the Swedish uh school system and I thought I
013would share how that's made up. Um, so they pretty much have three main levels. Um, there's a a nursery school, uh, which is ages one through five. They said about 90% of their, uh, population attends nursery school between ages of one and five. Um, it's optional. Um, but it is subsidized by the government. And again they have that emphasis on social play um early learning uh in in language and etc. Their compulsory school or what we would know as as mandatory attendance is um grades one through nine. And so that starts at grade six is kind of like their kindergarten. Uh I'm sorry at age six. Uh grade one is kind of like their kindergarten. Uh they focus on that transition uh before for kind of their formal schooling between ages uh seven and 16.
014Um the first year that they get grades is their sixth grade year, which is pretty much our seventh grade year. Um they do get uh A to F grades. Um and they also the big difference there is they um learn kind of the basic education uh things in grades uh one through eight grade uh nine they use their grades and their national test to apply for high school. And so they apply to a high school that that they want to go to. So if they want to have a trade uh there might be a a high school that's focused on u you whatever um you know engineering for example or there might be a high school focused in the in the medical area. Um there might be high schools that are just focused on research
015and so they are competing to get into high school. And so what that does is it makes their middle school years just really important not not just to the adults but to the students themselves because if they don't get into high school um with their grades and their portfolios and stuff um they don't they don't get in high school. They just go to work and so there's a lot of onus on uh the kids you know getting into the school that they want after middle school. Um their high school is called gymnasium and again I just kind of explained that. Um and then they do have universities and colleges uh for 19 plus. Um the school schedules was the third thing that I really picked up and this is a big one. Um and and
016something I'd be interested in seeing, you know, what would this look like within uh America and Senator O's uh culture and expectations. Um but basically uh kids will have a main class and then they'll have a break and then they'll have a main class and then they'll have a break. Um and so uh they usually take a a morning uh they call it fica break and so it's usually 15 to 30 minutes it's outside um regardless of weather. Um, one of one of the principles at the elementary schools uh said that they even lock the door even if it's uh 20 degrees below. They'll lock the door and the kids go outside and they play outside. The very interesting thing about that is um and I'll be talking about that on the next slide is
017um those breaks are they call it lightly supervised but from what I observed they're unsupervised. Um there's a big focus on uh student uh self-reliance and I'll talk about that next. Um they'll have a lunch break usually 60 minutes. Um they don't want to rush lunch. Uh they'll they'll give the kids you know typically 30 minutes and then they go outside again. Big emphasis on going outside taking breaks. Um then they'll have an afternoon uh break as well. That's kind of like the morning fica. Um and this uh the next slide is probably uh well this is an example schedule kind of like what I talked about. Um they don't have bells and this is all three levels. Um kids kind of come and go following a staggered schedule. Uh there's no mass like exit
018or arrival. Um you know and and the teachers all share uh a room kind of like this. And you think about like um in the business world go into a room and you have cubicles everywhere. Um the teachers all share a room like that and they collaborate and support each other. Um and then they go to the classrooms. So no one has their classroom. Um they go and serve the classrooms. So um the next slide is is really the one that um out of anything I really picked up a lot here. And so this first uh picture is of uh a library. This is a an elementary school library. Um there's about six to eight chairs in there. And what they do at this elementary school is um they teach their first and second graders.
019Um like groups of six to eight at a time. They take them in there. They teach them how to choose a book at their level. They teach them how to um use the card catalog system uh in Sweden. And then once they're convinced um that the kids can do it um and I witnessed second graders um and they said, "Now go to the library and check out a book." And uh I watched second graders leave the school by themselves without adults unsupervised. went to the public library, checked out their own books, came back, and made it back on time in 30 minutes. These these were kids walking through the streets of Stockholm, uh the capital city of the country. And um and they did it on by themselves. And so then the next thing I
020I have here is a picture of lunch. And and the first picture there is kind of like a typical buffet style. You can see um there's a lot of fresh fruit food um salads, things like that. Um on that particular day, their main entree was tomato soup and that was the only choice that they got. Kids uh got their own plates. These are first graders, second graders all the way up through sixth grade. Got their own plates. Um put the appropriate proportion on their plates, sat down, um knew where to put their knife, fork, spoon, all of these things. And uh when they finished uh they were able to get back up and get another appropriate second portion. I didn't see kids piling things on. I didn't see kids wasting any food. Um and then
021they sat down. And so I asked the principal, um do do you guys have food allergies? And the principal said, well, yeah. I go, well, how do you handle that? Um, I think she pointed out and I try to zoom in on the sneeze guard there. They have a little cards taped to the sneeze guard and uh the principal said if they're allergic to a food, they need to read the ingredients. And if they read in an ingredient that they're allergic to, they don't get the food. And so one of the things that is so different is, you know, here in the states, we will uh get doctors and parents that will tell us, you know, here's what they're allergic to, put this in your system, and then we make sure that you you know,
022the the responsibility is on the adults to make sure that that happens. Um, and a lot of that stuff is is differences in culture. But the big thing that I that I learned is um that real focus on students and their self-reliance and um you know, how do we uh help our kids um be more self-reliant leaders? Um I'm not saying we need to send them through the streets of Indianapolis. That's not going to work. Or the streets of Greenwood. Um walk to our library to get to Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um but yeah, so and I think that's that's it. Um all I brought to share. There's so many things that I saw, so many things I could get into in more detail. Um but uh happy to take any questions or anything. How big
023were the schools? Yeah. Um their class sizes were about 14. um 14 usually. Uh their schools um the biggest high school that we saw was about the size of Middle School North. Um and uh but most of them were very small schools, very small classes. Um the picture right there is of a sixth grade classroom. Um there's only like 14 or 16 desks in there. Um, and when the kids were in there, I think 12 desks had kids sitting in them. Um, the other thing on hanging on those desks, uh, are their laptops. Um, they don't allow kids to use any technology until sixth grade. And there culturally, it's almost um, it's almost offensive to see a young kid with a phone or an iPad or something like that. So very different um cultures. I
024noticed also said 178 day school year. Yeah. Yeah. Very I mean ours is 180, right? So very similar. Is that in talking to others is that kind of a worldwide trend? Is that a European American thing? Do you know? Yeah. One one of the things that I I took away from that and then not only do they have fewer days, but they have shorter days. Um, and then they have all those breaks within their days, right? So, uh, in Sweden, it's like, okay, if I have a glass, if the glass of water represents our student and they're learning, right? And I got this picture in Sweden, I'm gonna I'm gonna pour until that glass is almost full, right? And I'm gonna stop. I'm going to let that kid uh go back, sit down, take a
025drink, right? And when that kid's ready, they'll come back up and I'll I'll pour a good appropriate glass for them. And here in America, what we do is is we put, you know, our culture is work harder, do more, work harder, do more. Um, we'll put that glass in front of a kid and we'll take a five gallallon bucket and we'll pour that water and it keeps pouring and that water just overflows uh in that glass. And here's what's happening. that glass isn't accepting everything that we're pouring into it, right? And so their philosophy is look, what can we reasonably expect a kid to learn and know and be able to do in amount of time that that their um attention span will allow biologically, right? and and then let's let's then take our break
026and that's how they focus on mental health and wellness. So very differentiz that that collecting teacher efficacy that professional development is very much part of Absolutely. Yeah. So, um they don't take standardized tests uh every year like we do. They'll take a a benchmark assessment like in third grade and maybe another benchmark assessment in sixth grade. Um any tests that they do are formative. They're focused on formative. So the tests are about figuring out what a kid knows now. Okay, now let's teach him the next thing. What's the kid know now? Now let's teach them the next thing. Um ultimately in ninth grade is is when their big national test occurs. And those are their uh scores then that they used uh along with their grades in ninth grade only um to get into the
027high schools if they want. Are are the athletic programs funded through the school or is it all That's a great question. Um, so the schools don't have athletics. It's all outside and they think it's really strange that we do. Yeah, they do. They think it's very strange. Um, they do have um some music courses. Um the level that we do music is uh it's like a specific high school choice, but they'll have music classes and things, but um what I've noticed though is they are more focused on the breakup of the of the academic day and and you know, and so music and crafts and um theater, things like that are part of some of those other classes that will help break up some of those heavier courses. The way their club sports have been
028described to me is they said one, we can't believe it's an emphasis in your schools and then two, we can't believe it ends for most people after their 12th year because their clubs since they're independent, they don't track the school 20s, 30s, what have you. The clubs continue on. It's kind of a a social club more than it is. So, it's just a different focus. Yeah. Yeah. Still think it's strange though that they have to decide at that early age their path. Yeah. Whereas we let the kids go through high school and they're choosing their path in college. And I kind of like and sometimes they still don't know, right? But my understanding I studied over there when I was in undergrad in Germany and my understanding was one of the kids in the where
029I was living she had to make that choice because she was heading into high school and the mom was all stressed. Yeah. And the next kid was coming up gonna have to do it soon, too. The whole idea of how can this child who should be a freshman or sophomore in our high school have to choose a life path then? And it's really hard to change. At least in Germany, it could be different where you were at. It's very similar. They did have some schools that were more like a general studies kind of school, but um most of them are the trade specific or career specific high schools. And uh very interesting thing is is over there Um the the schools are funded by the municipalities. So uh Stockholm for example funds all the schools
030and um the money follows the student right. So um what they're noticing is they are having a lot of independent schools pop up and um people are turning them into businesses and making money. Um and so the schools are comping for attendance um in Sweden. Uh and in some ways um there obviously pros and cons to a lot of that. Right. Right. The big thing that I saw though is is the um the ownership of students and the the self-reliance and the belief in what they can do at early ages. So I assume the students have to there's no public transportation as far as buses. They have to get themselves to whatever school. So, no. Uh, so there's no transportation like busing like what we have. Um, in Sweden, most people walk, a lot of
031people ride bikes, and then you'll um drive a car, right? Um, I I didn't see any buses when I was there. Um, what I saw was most students, regardless of the level, they were walking and walking to school and many of them by themselves through the streets of Stockholm. Any other questions or thank you, Dr. Harp, this was an awesome experience. Thank you for sharing. Thank you. Yeah, learned a lot and there's some small things that I I think I'll pick up on and maybe talk to Dr. Long and Dr. Simmons about what what could we do, you know, at North, maybe do some research or some studying in small groups. So, appreciate your presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Next on the agenda, we have I'll turn over to Dr. Long. Thanks, Mr. Daniels.
032Um, we've shared this before uh numerous times and we just wanted to make a final report tonight. Again, there's no board action necessary for this. We just kind of want to give you the last bit of information and share some of the feedback that we've gotten from our staff as we've discussed this and our guiding coalition and and what our uh I think what our final schedule will look like. Um, we've talked about this numerous times. Our why, you know, we we we started off with this and if you remember, I told everybody I I made a presentation 17 years ago on changing the start time and if if if not slow, at least I'm persistent. Uh, we're still talking about it 17 years later. But our goal was originally to adjust the sleep time
033to better uh align with the sleep cycles of teenagers. Um, we tried that. It didn't really work very well for our community. It kind of popped back up that maybe we could slide a little bit and it would benefit our secondary uh students uh without doing any harm to our elementary students. The other thing that we heard when we looked at our student schedule was, can we find a way to make it consistent? The early release on Wednesday was a was problematic for some of our parents um for daycare reasons or other other issues. And then the the thing that really blossomed out of this was, hey, we can develop this schedule and have a some additional teacher time uh that'll help us balance out our our prep periods and give them some time to
034collaborate together. And and we'll see in the next slide that uh Hattie has done a bunch of research and collective teacher efficacy has a an impact of 1.57 on the effect. Uh and I tell everybody that you know we always hear about well class size is really important but the the effect on on class sizes was like 0.20. So having time for teachers to have collective efficacy is far more important than than the class sizes. And so that became our challenge is how do we develop a schedule that gives our teachers that time to work together. Just to follow up on that there's some surveys out there. the educators for excellence in 2024. Only 46% of the the the people surveyed thought that their their profession was collaborative, which meant the teachers had the opportunity
035to work and learn together. And and really sadly, only 26% reported that it was dynamic, meaning the teachers had opportunities for growth. And so we took that on as a challenge. and 64% of the teachers surveyed picked having time to collaborate as the the top activity they wanted in their profession. So we um Jason will talk a little bit more about the rest of this, but we've shared this in newsletters, we've shared it at the board meeting, we've shared it at a couple of different work sessions. So Jason can kind of hit the highlights of this. Yeah. And I think the chart in front of you is one we shared when we talked about the student start time changes. And really what's changed is we've gone back to each of our building level guiding coalitions
036a couple times and again to our corporation just to get some input back from all of our staff groups about this change. Um on the next slide just as a reminder these are the start times that the board did approve at their February meeting. U Miss Conrad's begun um executing her communication plan on this to ensure parents have all of the pertinent information they need to be ready for school to start next year. Um as we entered this conversation, it's an interesting one. This is really a conversation about minimums. We talk about the minimum amount of time. We totally entered this conversation and still fully acknowledge that many of our teachers work well beyond these numbers. But we do have to have a basis of comparison. And so what's in front of you is a
037comparison of the length of teacher workday um and the number of teacher work days uh for 26 schools that are like us both in size or demographics or in proximity. And you can kind of see where we fell on the average there. Um our elementary teacher day is currently 7 hours and 15 minutes. Our secondary is 7 hours and 7 and a half hours and the average of the schools is 7 hours and 40 minutes. Similar comparison there on teacher days we ask our teachers to work 184 days and 185 is actually about the average of this list. Again these are minimums. We fully understand teachers work beyond this. Um on the next slide then just kind of talking about some of the changes. So we did an initial survey and we got a lot
038of feedback from our staff kept having those meetings and conversations. Um and as as as Dr. Long mentioned earlier, it was very important um when we found a big opportunity here and that came out of that um additional time with teachers by shortening that student day. We found that we had some time for additional blocks of time with our teachers. And today we're going to talk about two different blocks. Um but you can kind of see this is the feedback as it came in. This this really came in from October till about the February time frame when we were building these out both from our staff and from our admin. And when we look at the next slide then those two new blocks of time that we really identified is we didn't want to give
039up the PLC process. We currently have the early release time for that. And so Dr. Simmers and her team has worked very diligently on this chart and are working with principles um for next year on this but kind of gives a structure a little framework for what a PLC or PD day could look like. There'll be some blending of the two. So there's a lot of professional learning that happens during a PLC day and vice versa for PD. And so this is just kind of the framework that we'll start working from, but they're going to work on laying that out and making the best use of that time to get that collective teacher efficacy that Dr. Long talked about. So since our meeting in February when we you can go to the next slide there,
040Kristen. Thank you. Since our meeting in February, we spent more time talking to our teachers and actually received a piece of input from a guiding coalition member about um have we talked about maybe trimming a little bit more time off the teacher day and blocking that together for something that we might need in a more purposeful way. And one thing that has been kind of sticking out in this whole conversation is we currently give our teachers release time to complete some required trainings. The state of Indiana requires a lot of training required trainings annually of our teachers and even on the every two and threeyear increment they require more and additional training and so we giving that release time right now takes them away from face toface time that we could leverage on w student
041waiver days or on professional learning days that they have. And so what what we actually came up with was a nice proposal that trimmed five minutes off of each PLC and PD day. Um we then kind of block all that time together. We get about six hours in a school year. some years or more, we're just going to use six hours for for our purpose and and that's the time that we will give to those required trainings. So, we get back that face-to-face time that we really want. Um it does then give teachers some time to execute these trainings and hit the deadlines that we have. Many of these trainings will be completed either online or at home. Um but there will be a few that might require especially the suicide prevention training. There's a
042face-to-face component on site every three years that we will bring them in and count that toward this time. Um, but again, the accountability here is just completing and hitting those deadlines that Miss Brown and her department work on um, so much. So, what does all that look like? Well, I wanted to lay out then the three schedules starting with the high school. On the left's our current schedule, and you'll see where that um, the different color blocks. So, again, Miss Conrad really wanted to dress this up and make it look nice for you, but we chose to keep it in a format that we've been using with our staff this entire process. So, um, it's not as nice looking, but it does get the job done. Um the time in the purple is when teachers
043are actually responsible for supervising students. They're not in their classroom maybe teaching a lesson yet, but they're traversing the building. They're coming into the classroom doing some bell work. That's what you see when you see purple. Same at the end of the day. It's it's the release time. Um in the middle is that blue block of student instructional time. And then anytime you see a red block, that's just teacher time. And in the past, that was our early release time on Wednesday when we would have our PLC's. What's changing is as we look at the new proposed schedule and really what we're what we're we're planning to move toward, uh you'll see five consistent blocks of time for the students now with that teacher supervision and their blue blocks of instruction. But outside of that,
044you'll see two mornings that start a little bit earlier. Um and that's our PLC and PD day. And we're kind of identifying the Tuesday the PLC day just so we can do some things K12. Um but that some PLC's might meet on Thursday and vice versa. that when our our teaching and learning department supporting the buildings, they're going to support them on Tuesday, which is what we kind of have now with the Wednesday early release. So, that's really the template we have applied. You'll see at the bottom the calculations and that 10-minute weekly reduction of time for the teacher day. Um, when we move on to middle school, it's really easy to talk a little bit about because it's almost the same as the high school except there's a slight instructional minute difference at the
045middle school. Um, the high than the high school. And so that gives us an opportunity for just a little more PLC, PD time or supervision. Um, and so you'll kind of see those blocks that fall a little bit different at the middle school level. Um, and again though, the overall reduction of teacher time is that 10 minutes weekly. And then when we move into the elementary, there's a new additional color block here. So we still have the base that's similar to the high school and middle. Um, however, we did identify and I shared that on the chart earlier that, you know, we have those two different work days for elementary versus secondary teachers. We also have heard for quite quite a long time that um elementary teachers do require a lot more prep time. They're
046prepping typically for four, five, even seven lessons or topics or subjects a day um if not more. Um and so what we what we chose to do in this model is actually block that time into three 25 minute chunks. Um and so you'll see that as additional prep time for teachers on the in the the green chart. Um that will be time for them to work and prepare for that school day outside of the PLC or PD time. be time to meet with their grade level colleagues or anyone else they need to to meet with in the building. Um we also did hear um some feedback and you saw it earlier about could they still have morning activities and we're going to offer flexibility with that prep time so that can still happen. Um again
047you'll see that then that's a slight increase in teacher time instead of the decrease because we did add some time on the elementary and then finally wanted to just kind of relay for our school-based support staff. So these are typically IAS pair professionals folks who work around the student day and the student day only. Um, we we kind of put together some draft schedules. This will tweak and change a little bit as the buildings discover they need few more people in the AM than the PM or vice versa. They'll communicate that directly with their um with their staff to make sure buildings are fully covered, safe, and supervised. Um, most of our other staff like our food service, our custodial staff, they'll just slightly shift their schedule if it does require the student day change
048to to shift that a little bit. Lunches will start just a little bit later every day to accommodate that later student day. Um, those are really the changes for our staff. Um, we've already communicated some of this out and we will continue to um, work with folks individually to make sure they have their child care needs covered um, and that they're ready to to meet these meet these new times next year. I think that's it. Dr. Yeah, I just want to add that I I know some people have questioned uh, the reduction in student time or the student minutes and really feel like we could be more intentional with our instruction. Well, I think with our the the collaboration time and professional development, we'll be able to provide a higher quality of instruction and I
049think that will offset more than offset the the reduced time. I don't know if Lynn's got anything to add. Agreed. And and being able to use the PLC time. Thank you. The PLC time and the professional development to really build the capacity of what that instruction and that curricular those curricular aims are. Again, we're building that collected teacher efficacy, which we know has that high correlation to improve student achievement. So, I'm less concerned about the the loss of those minutes as being much more intentional and purposeful with the time that we do have in front of the students. And Davin's presentation has backed up that not it's not necessarily about the amount of time that we have. It's what we're do. It's the quality and it's what we're doing during that time to improve student
050achievement overall. So again, I think we can build capacity by having that time and I'm excited to be able to offer some job embedded professional development that we haven't had a structure in place to do so. Great. And even with pulling back some time, we're still ahead of what the state requires. That is correct. We're still ahead. Just uh kind of a point of order. I want to make sure everybody's clear. We took a vote um at one of our prior meetings on the student schedule changes and that was approved by the board for the recommendation of of the administration. The teacher start times isn't an issue that that the board is voting on. It's an issue that the administration has the authority and and has made a recommendation that that we do support, but
051we're not technically taking a vote. And I do want to thank the administration. And I want to thank the teachers and all the stakeholders that participated in this. Dr. Long talked about 17 years ago starting in on on the change in sharp start times. That was more of a flip of the high school middle flipping with the elementary. And I know there was time, there was effort here. This is a shift. Everybody realizes it's it's just moving back a little. And in that shift, the time, the effort, the meetings, the input, I don't know how many different schedules they've they've shown to us over the time. I don't know if it got to 100, but it got to 50. The effort that's been put into this, this wasn't taken lightly. This was taken very professionally,
052letting everybody give input, and I'm happy that everybody had that opportunity. Not everybody's happy with changes. Not everybody's happy with any change, but I can say that the administration did a did a wonderful job of of trying to put something together that that works the best we can for everybody. Um, knowing that you can't always please everyone. And I think Dr. Long hit it on the head. You know, we challenged them whatever change they made, make sure it's students first, make sure it's best for students. And as Dr. Simmers and and others have told us when we look at the additional collaboration time, the additional prep time, that's what's best for students. So, I I applaud everyone in their efforts and uh let's let's let's make this work going forward. So, I that was a
053long speech. See, you don't let me vote. I have to say something. Anybody else have anything else to say? I went first. Usually, I go last. No, I would just add this is going on around the state and around the country. Uh many schools did a total flip uh of elementary and high school. Uh we we worked on they worked on what best fits the Sen Grove community uh with that. There's even one school here in in the state that went to a 4-day elementary. Now imagine that. So uh kudos to coming up with a good thing that fits our community. I I think the only other comment I have is I'm I'm glad to see that we're we're finally finding a solution to the early release on Wednesdays for the last decade that's driven
054me insane. Um and everybody who submitted comments, I think there was 489 comments and some of the material we got. And I I I know I and several of us, if not all of us, read all 489 comments. And um appreciate everybody's comments, everybody's input. Um I know this team here took all those comments very seriously. We and I think we cracked the joke. We're going to go to Roman numerals because, you know, as as this materialized, they were getting feedback. They were making changes based on the feedback. um you know that they were getting and and when they saw opportunities to refine that's that's what the team did and that's that's a sign of a good process and and great leadership when you guys are are willing to to do that and take that
055kind of feedback. So um I'm not sure we quite made it to Roman numerals but we were getting awful close because we were running out of letters and numbers. So anyway, great job. Well, I would tell you that Dr. Taylor was really instrumental in taking all these ideas from our teachers and our the community survey and our administrators and and coming up with the you know there were probably maybe 10 12 different options that we had and just constantly being able to refine them and still meet the needs of of what our objectives were. And so he he was really good. He he can knows his way around the spreadsheet. I think you kind of tax the cell a bit on this one, didn't you? Any other comments or from either admin or board members?
056Thank you. Appreciate everybody's involvement. Thank you. Um, public comments is next on the schedule. I see that no one has signed up for public comments. I'm still waiting for our our favorite dog to sign up and come up and bark at us someday. So, Hopper, we we need to get a paw print or something. Two bars. Next, we'll go on to the consent items. Um, everyone's had a chance to look at them. Does anybody have any questions or comments on the consent items? Hearing no questions or comments. I'll ask for a motion. Mr. Pre, Mr. President, I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented. Thank you for trying, Mr. Russell. Thank you, Mr. Alexander. Thank you, Mr. Russell. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed. The eyes have it.
057Thank you. Next, we're going on to uh our one action item for tonight was which is the organizational plan for Center Grove Community School Corporation Board of Trustees. And um in that, I believe, is this something Dr. Long you're presenting? Yes, sir. Thank you. So, I you know, when we have a action-packed agenda like we do, it's hard to to fit things in. But, um, tonight we have one action item, but it's a it's a required action item for the school board to take. Indiana code requires the board to either reaportion districts or adjust their boundaries if necessary or reertify the organizational plan if no changes are needed. uh this must be completed no later than December 31st of the year following the denial census which was 2020 for us and the statutory deadline to
058meet this requirement is June 30th of 2025. Uh the statute goes on to say that if the board does not reertify the organizational plan by this date, members are not entitled to receive any salary or fees until the plan has been reertified. We recently received a reminder from the county clerk re regarding this requirement and the upcoming deadline. Because Center Grove Community School Corporation Board of School Trustees consists entirely of atlarge members, there's no need to balance electrical electoral districts or change our district boundaries. So we're this is a repeat. This just shows our organization as a school board. Uh it shows what our officers are and uh we are recommending approval of the organizational plan as presented. Thank you Dr. Long. Any questions or or comments? My understanding Dr. Long, this is as you
059said a requirement by statute. So this is in essence just a kind of a form document. We already did a reorganization. Uh we do it every January. We comply with the rules that are in here. So this is just kind of formalizing that. and the census has has uh redone since we don't have districts, right? There's no reason to redistrict. I'm not talking about your children. I'm talking about redistricting of of election um groups so that you know one one board member may be from one area another. We're all at large. So this is really just a technicality as I understand it. Do any other questions or comments? All those are Do I hear a motion? Now everybody's silent. Yeah, I move as presented. Thank you, Mr. Russell. Do I hear a second? I'll second.
060I hear a double second. Thank you, M. Donigan Smith and Mrs. Counts. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed. The eyes have it. Thank you. Thank you. Now, on to announcements. Uh we will have a public works session on May 7th, 2025. We will be holding that in the Center Grove High School Media Center followed by an executive session um which will not be open to the public by statute at the same location which will occur on May 7th. Our next board meeting regularly scheduled is May 15th here in this room at 7 o'clock. We'll also have an executive session before at 6 o'clock. Um, Mr. Russell, do you have any announcements? Just legislature finishes up next week and hold your hats on. There could be a lot of major changes
061to public school. Thank you, Mr. Russell. Mrs. Dunan Smith, do you have anything today? No. Mrs. Counts? No. Mr. Alexander? Yes. Um, had our Central 9 monthly board meeting um last th Tuesday, Thursday, last th sorry, last Thursday, one of those days. Last week, last Thursday, um had a um the spotlight program was the early childhood developments. Three Center Grove students out of there was probably 10 or 12 there came in and and presented with what they want to do. three future educators are in the program over at Central 9 or um looking forward to early elementary teaching opportunities. Um on the CN9 front, we are um actively reviewing the contract for um Dr. Kovatch, the director over there. So we are in the process of doing that with him. Um and things are things
062enrollment at C9 seems to be up quite a bit. So there's a lot of interest in Central 9, not only from us, but from the other eight schools. And I saw on Facebook, we had a few synagogue students that were part of teams that went to some state things and won. I can't remember. Yeah. It's a contest they go to a lot. Business Professionals of America. Um there was another one too. Um Oh, culinary. Um and one of the and medical was the other one. POSA was the other. So, yes, I I didn't hear I I just saw quickly, but I saw CG was listed couple times. Um and then on the redevelopment commission front, um we will be getting their annual dollars spent TIFF reports. TIFF reports. Thank you, Mr. D. I'm draw. So,
063um, should be getting those soon. I think the RDC is giving the update on that, um, the next board meeting on Monday. Thank you. Dr. Taylor, do you have anything to add, Dr. Simmers? Dr. Long? No, just uh, real quickly, I you know, the gayla was last Saturday. What a great time to have uh, down at the garment factory in Franklin. I thought that was a really neat venue and lots of people there. That was a lot of fun. Uh last Tuesday we held our first uh strategic planning meeting. Uh and we followed that up on the 30th of this month with our second meeting and a great turnout. Um had good feedback and I think we're making good progress and just that's about it. I do have one other I'm sorry you lost your
064chance. Yeah, this is a good thing. We need a motion. I think it's kudos to to Dr. Long and the staff. Uh they're getting out into the buildings a lot. Yes. um and seeing what's going on with the kids and talking with the kids. Uh and I think that's just a a great thing. Kids need to see you guys. So, could have commented on that, by the way. Got Dana's attention. All right. I have nothing else to add tonight. So, do I hear a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Do I hear a second? Second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. The eyes have it. We're adjourned. Thank you.