001I pled alance to the flag of the United States of America and to theic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all that's a great way to start a board meeting I'm glad our our Roc comes and and does that for us periodically so so thank thanks to all of them for for their time and for the Pledge of Allegiance um let's start off can I get a a motion to adopt the agenda Mr President I move that to adopt the agenda removing the grading report number 5.2 will there's been a request to move it to a later uh board meeting do I hear a second I second all those in favor please signify by saying I I oppos passes 5 Z thank you next uh we'll do the
002uh Center of Spotlight with Middle School Central good evening my name is Jason wisman I'm proud principal of Middle School Central and here to recognize some of our staff members first I want to call up Stacy painer Stacy's joined by her family she's joined by her family uh her dad actually is a teacher in the building Mr Anderson Mrs Anderson was a uh office worker in the in the school at one time and then her husband Mr painer is also a teacher and then also her sister is a teacher in the building so Family Affair at Middle School Central so Stacy she's a sixth grade special ed education teacher prior to that she was a sixth grade teacher um she's been a special education teacher for the last couple years she has 13 and A2
003years at Middle School Central 17 A2 years total in Center Grove um Stacy is a caring and DED dedicated teacher who genuinely invest in her Student Success she leads by example serving as a patient mentor and creating a classroom where every student feels valued and supported her ability to inspire and uplift makes her a gifted educator and a pleasure pleasure to work alongside thank you so much I just like to add that they had fun Polar Plunge just past weekend the whole family Family Affair there too right next I'd like to invite up Deb price Deb's joined by her family as well as uh some current and former uh teachers that worked with her as well so I think the support for our Middle School people was just absolutely great so Deb is an eighth
004grade special education instructional Aid and she has six years of service um at Middle School Central um along with Stacy's and Debs I had asked the teachers that they work alongside to give me some of these word kind words and then um of course I you know chat GPT them right into one nice concise concise summary after I added some of my own edits but um Deb is Deb is a dedicated and compassionate educator who goes above and beyond to support students she takes the time to thoroughly understand the math curriculum to better assist them demonstrating her commitment to their success her patience kindness and ability to build strong relationships create a supportive learning environment where students feel comfortable and encouraged she tirelessly answers questions provides individualized support and fosters confidence in those she helps
005her positivity and dedication have a profound impact on both students and colleagues making her an invaluable part of the team no problem thank you Deb unfortunately is going to be uh leaving us this this year it's going to be your last year so we're sad to see her go I know the eighth grade uh well yes you're not yes you're retired thank you yes thanks for clarifying yeah she's not yeah she's retiring but yes we were sad to see her go but we're also proud of her and she's worked hard to earn that so yeah next I'd like to invite up Olivia bangle I asked her to shower but she just came straight from the basketball game and threw on the sweatshirt they won it was a rivalry game versus middle school north and Olivia
006Olivia Olivia did a great job we I I know her parents they're both Educators and uh joked with them earlier in the year she's accomplished something I've never accomplished as a coach after a basketball game this year the referee complimented her on her great sportsmanship and Leadership so when a referee recognizes a player during the game and recogniz and says that afterwards wow that says a lot right there um some of her teachers said Olivia is the epitome of a student athlete excelling both in the classroom and on the court with unmatched Talent leadership and work ethic she leads by example always giving 100% effort while remaining humble kind and empathetic her teammates and classmates look up to her for her guidance and motivation as she is always prepared positive and willing to help others
007we are incredibly proud of her and have no doubt that Olivia will accomplish great things congratulations Olivia congrats I also joke with her that the news is here for her so that really made her nervous but jum in there Jas everybody [Applause] up so I appreciated the answer I asked Olivia how much she scored and she said I'm not sure and I said well how much did you win by she said probably over 20 so that's the team right there more important about how the team did than how she did so that was a fabulous answer it wasn't a trick question but a fabulous answer so uh moving moving on now we've got a report from on climate and Survey by uh Christy burer hello good evening everybody I'm here to give a quick update
008around our climate and culture survey that we took earlier in October in November and so just wanted to give some reminders and background if you want to go to the next slide Kristen um just about what school climate is and what we were looking for in our survey so first we surveyed um our students our staff families um and we really wanted to look at the perception of the norm goals values relationship ship teaching and learning and also our organization structures that's what really creates climate and culture and so that's what we were hoping to look at there are five domains in this specific survey um of climate that we look at and the first is safety then we're also looking at teaching and learning interpersonal relationships our institutional environment and the leadership and efficacy
009in our buildings so I'm going to share just our district um summaries and so you'll see I'm going to go through the different uh domains here but you'll see our students response is the blue staff is red and our family is the green and on the next slide you can see um how many responses we had so um when we worked with this company they said to really shoot for 80% for your students so we were on track with that um we would have loved to see our staff a little bit higher but we know this season it's our staff gets a lot of surveys and so we we're encouraged by the 60% we received that's actually 618 responses from our staff and then when I first saw the family percentage I was like gosh
010that feels kind of low but they said that their goal is 10% so they were really impressed by that and so we were over 1,200 of our families responded and a lot of secondary which they also said we don't normally see that so that was exciting to see the response that we had from our families so I'm going to go into the different domains here and at the top you'll see um what's the scale and so if it is red in the background that would be a negative perception if it's yellow neutral positive obviously is what we want and that is for 3.6 and above and so one thing I did want to point out is in all of the there's five domains but there's 14 dimensions and all of the dimensions except for one
011we were in the positive range so I think that's really exciting about the work that we've been doing over the last few years um I'm not going to go through all of this but I do want to highlight um District wide what are we looking at as far as celebrations and then what are the areas that we need to look and dig a little bit deeper to see what we can do um to support our students and families so a strength of ours was physical security and I know um when Dr long and I were looking at this we were like oh man safety is kind of lower than we thought but the physical security which we've worked really hard on was our one of our highest points so we're really proud of the work
012that that has been done our lowest um for the entire survey which we weren't super surprise was that social emotional security and so that's when we're talking about how do we feel treated at school do we feel like we have the skills to handle some of our emotions when we're disregulated and you'll see that was kind of the lowest and the one that was in more of that um neutral space another area for growth and this is something that our administrative team is working hard on is that Online safety so we know with the Ever Changing social media and our students being online how can we be more intentional in providing um those strategies for our students when they're posting things researching things how do we really come around and support them in those space
013you'll see our students rate in the themselves a little bit higher um which isn't super surprising there but with our staff and family that's definitely a place for us to look at as a district so then we'll move into teaching and learning and teaching and learning um these were really great we were excited to see the scores again all being in that positive one of the things that stood out to us though as a district and a cabinet team was looking at the support for academic learning where our staff rated us at a 4.6 and our students and families were lower than that and is that because our students and families aren't aware of the resources they don't know how to ask for help um or what is that Gap there and so how do
014we make sure that again we're making sure that our students and family are aware of the different supports that are provided for each of our students um just as our staff is the next two domains we kind of put together is relationship and environment and so we put these together because they obviously go hand inand so again I'm really proud of our scores all being in the positive range uh we want to celebrate that school connectedness we know that that's one of the foundation skills for all of our students and families to feel like they belong in our community and all of those were positive so we're proud of that work we'd like to dig into that teacher student relationship again our staff rating that higher than our students and our families um and how
015can we look at that and dig a little bit de deeper again this report that I'm sharing is just the overarching our teams are able to look at the specific questions and kind of see which questions we were a little bit lower in so you can move to that next slide Kristen yep both of those were positive pretty s similar amongst all the stakeholders which is always great to see and the last one is just about our district leadership and efficacy and our school buildings so this is only a staff question um and those were both positive so we were excited to see that so then that takes us to where do we go now what's our work um so our goal is that 80% of our students and families will report strongly agree or
016agree in the positive range that they feel welcome safe and supported in Center grve Schools and so I'm going to give a little overview of where we are on that goal um on the next slide so students first you'll see we're really going to celebrate teaching and learning um those interpersonal relationships and the environment we've already met that goal or passed that goal so we're excited for that safety again is the goal that we're going to focus in on and again not the physical safety more of that emotional safety and that Online safety for our students and the next one is our family responses and we have two areas to work in in this space um again the safety and those interpersonal relationships our parents um rated that teacher to- student relationship a little bit
017lower and also peer conflict which ties into that emotional security so I'm really proud of the places that we are excelling and the last time that we did this survey was in 2019 and there were a couple successes from that um first was in 2019 our students only rated us at 52% positive on physical safety and this time around it was 86% so we're really proud of that growth over the last few years and for parents in 2019 um they rated us at a 69 positive percent and it's up to 75% um this time around so again really really excited about the growth that our school buildings have really been working hard to do and that kind of leads us into our next steps so we've collected our data we've looked at the data um
018our building levels have started to dig into the data I know several of our buildings looked at it um on waiver days and we're able to take some of that information to their guiding Coalition um and even get some parent feedback for that so we're excited tonight's step four sharing with all of our stakeholders um and then as we continue through this semester we will work with our admin team um they'll work with their guiding coalitions to create a goal and a plan around students staff and families and we'll put that into our school Improvement plan um so that that keeps us accountable to continue to work on our climate and culture of our buildings so just a quick overview of the work we've done um we're excited to see how this plays into the
019strategic planning we've been working hard on um and just wanted to bring you all an update does anyone have any questions for for chrisy Burger great progress thank you it's very uh very good to hear the physical safety Improvement I know the district's invested a lot in a lot of different areas and to hear that being acknowledge and recognizes is good to hear so thank you Mr Daniels if I could I want to mention that we've provided this all this data to our strategic planning uh the people that are helping us with our strategic planning because we want to take as much data as we can get uh to to help develop our strategic plan and Mrs Conrad's done a great job of gathering all kinds of data and shared that but this is going
020to be one of those pieces that we share with them as well great keep it up any other questions or comments Now we move on um to the public comments and there are three individuals who have signed up they have to be on specific agenda items I have April McCracken and and Angie langum who've signed up without both okay time change thank you so we have three people who've signed up to speak tonight and I'll just go in the order they signed up we'll start with uh will hibner and when you when you speak if you could identify yourself um by name and address we give you three minutes to speak Mr Alexander his secretary gets to be the stop clock he'll he'll give you a little warning about 30 seconds in awesome um but
021thanks for coming and we look forward to hearing from you awesome uh so I am will hner I'm a science teacher at Middle School Central I appreciate the opportunity to talk in front of the board today um I uh obviously have a vested interest in the the well-being of our students the performance of our schools um you know the students that we have in our classrooms and so when it came to the uh proposed start start time changes uh decided to go back to the research that this all kind of sprang from and went back to the American Psychological association's initial report done in 2014 uh to look at the benefits of such a uh delayed start time and so reading the report looking at um the recommendations that teens should receive 8 to 10
022hours um citing that teens under that limit um are risking higher risk of depression suicide substance abuse car crashes which are already the leading causes of death amongst teenagers so um based on the the medical professional opinion I see that this is a valuable step forward uh the recommendation in that um study was that start time should start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. which is obviously starkly different than we have so the proposal is one that interests me I feel that it is in the best interest of students of families the community the schools um the performance of our students their long health um but I don't think that it goes far enough um the cited reasons for adjusting the schedule include um student health and well-being include balanced schedules um reliable uh schedules for
023adults and families and then additional teacher time for preparation for coursework and since we are balancing a couple of different conversations um regarding schedule changes and in the the school's um rebalancing classes I feel that this the proposal as it stands might benefit from some additional feedback from teachers I know that we've had many opportunities to speak to this um but I know also as Christy Berger just said that that feedback from staff can be waning we have a lot of surveys that come to us and they don't all get answered uh in the hub up of what we got to go um the surveys that we did respond to uh I saw the results that the board will present um shocking to me that the number of people who are strongly in support I
024also support a later start time I just don't think that the 20 minutes is worth the upheaval that it feels the corporation families um 30 seconds all of it will will need to go through so um I guess the the end of it all uh is that you know for me as a teacher that start the the additional time is beneficial um I'm concerned about what it will mean for the rest of our school day so my summary let's do it but let's let's go for a longer time let's do it right the first time thank you for your time thank you next we have uh April McCracken forget what I'm supposed to say April McCracken address 4083 Brock May North Drive here in Center Grove uh full disclosure I am my last child is
025going to next year so I don't really care about this um she has a seat waiver and it's really not going to affect me personally but I was on the committee last time we did all this so I do have a little bit of a vested interest in seeing how this goes and I do believe that there is great benefit to our elementary kids starting earlier and our secondary kids starting later I too I want to stand up here and just say what he said um I love the fact that we're doing this so and I want to be here and I want to be an encouragement to our school board to go and to to make the necessary changes however I do think when I saw the 920 Elementary start time I thought Eads
026what are we doing I've been a substitute teacher in elementary school I've talked to a lot of elementary school teachers and going later is I'm pretty sure that's not what they would love um and then the high school just being a half an hour I feel like okay we're we're bandaid on but we're not really making a change that we can stand behind so I would encourage you to look at this again too and to think I know last time I went to a public work session and transportation needed 45 I know buses are issue I know that and so timing with the buses is a hard thing last spring she said we need a 45 minute turnaround now I think it's gone to 55 I'm not sure why there's a 10-minute change that happened
027over the course of a few months um I'd like some push back on that I would push her back on that and find out why exactly there's that difference and then it seems like we're just making it seems like we're making it more complicated rather than simplifying it I mean I would love to see and let's start Elementary at 8 o'clock and high school at nine o'clock and just keep kind of everything the same and I know you guys are probably frustrated with a lot of the people that you're having to try to please but first of all our priority is kid education um we know that so what's best for our kids well the studies are clear the Sleep things talk about what's best for our kids then teacher support we love our teachers
028we want to support our teachers how do they feel about this I haven't met one that likes it yet and I've talked to a lot of teachers I've had a lot of teachers in my lifetime here at Center grve and I have had great experiences and I think we need to listen to them we don't want to make our teachers mad and then it's the parents in the community I feel like maybe we're trying to figure out a working parent situation for them when really that's on the working parents to figure that out honey grve I know is an issue because of the high schoolers working at honeyrove but honey grve is a business I think honey grve needs to figure it out so and that really shouldn't be our concern because we're not as
029a school corporation in daycare so I would just encourage maybe a little more doing more of a flip um like we had talked about before thank you thank you appreciate your comments and then uh lastly Angie langum did I pronounce that right no that's okay I apologize I can't I have I have Sloppy writing that's great so langman Layman sorry it that's that's all right no Reas at all you can't read my writing I'll um 5753 Sommerset Boulevard Bargersville uh my first time up here was October of 22 supporting the flip so I feel like this a long time coming I I have nothing more to add to what they said I just want to say thank you I know it's like I know you put a lot of time in I feel like you're
030going to you're going to have 40% of the people that are for it 40% of the people that are against it and 20% that don't really care I just want to say thank you for your time I know you're trying to work it all out let's just take this home I'm ready to be done thank you thank you for your input so that is uh that are all the public comments for the evening now we're moving on to uh consent items has everyone had a opportunity to review the consent agenda and I'll offer before we ask for a vote if there's any questions on the consent agenda if not do I hear a motion I accept the consent agenda as presented thank you Mr Russell do I hear a second I second thank you Mrs
031counts uh all those in favor please signify by saying I I oppose the eyes have have it now we're on to action items and our first action item is a first reading of proposed policy revisions we're not taking a vote on these policy revisions tonight this is just a first reading and I will turn it over to uh to Dr long to conduct the first reading thank you um Mr Daniels tonight is like you said is a first reading we don't take any votes on this and I do want to acknowledge that uh you all received some questions about that and I will get those answers out to you and to Mrs Keaton who sent the the the questions to us um and we'll have that that well before um our March board meeting when
032we ask you to approve these um just going through just in general uh we'll kind of scroll through all these these are a summary of the changes um if the board has any questions you can just keep scrolling uh we'd be happy to address them if you have questions later if you'll send them to us uh my team and I would be happy to to look into those uh questions and get back to you but this is just our first shot at taking a look at them and and this is a a summary sheet of of those changes thank you Dr long does anyone have any questions this evening for Dr long on the proposed policy revisions usually on policy revisions because we're trying to align with what changed it state right you know once
033the the state laws changed uh the company that we use Neola provides us an update that that helps keep our policies in line with with state law and majority of these are because of those changes yes any other questions thank you Dr long um and we'll be you'll be asking for a vote on those in March yes thank now let's go to uh student start times and I believe this is going to be a presentation by by several Ro administrators starting I believe with Dr Taylor with me I'm sorry with Dr that's right thank you thank you so good evening everyone and thanks for being here tonight we're going to present an important issue that affects uh students teachers and families which is school start time uh research shown that early start times can negatively
034impact students sleep health and academic performance by making adjustments we have an opportunity to enhance student well-being engagement and success throughout this presentation we'll walk you through the process uh the survey data the stakeholder communication and our recommendation I encourage you to consider how even a small shift in start times could create a meaningful impact on students and the entire School community so we want to talk a little bit about our why we talked about uh U uh later start times align better with natural sleep cycles for our students well we understand that having a much later start time for our secondary students would be better when we proposed the the flip in start times back in 2007 and again in 2023 the flip would have changed the start time for elementaries to earlier than
035the secondary students this concept was rejected by the community and our staff mostly due to C9 being unable to accommodate the change in staffing issues oh and with staffing issues before and with our before and after school child care provider it's important to understand that a slightly later start by itself won't improve improve academic performance it will however give us some flexibility for additional teacher time while we continue to work on the details of what a teacher day looks like so looking at the history as you can see uh we've been contemplating a flip uh in start time since 2007 and I realize I know that dates me because I made that presentation in 2007 as well as 2025 um but we made that presentation because we know what the research says about adolescent sleep
036habits in 2016 the committee convened again to look at start times they presented to the board 11 options with no recommendation in 2021 we dusted off those options and determined that there were probably two logistically viable options a flip of secondary and Elementary start times and a slight shift of the current start times in 2023 we again dusted off the flip option to see see if we could fine-tune that but after conferring with uh C9 in our before and after school care providers we determined it still wasn't possible a later secondary dismissal time was also problematic for our school ecas in the availability of bus transportation Dr Taylor will Now cover uh the timeline and input that we received thank you Dr law as Dr mention we fully understand the magnitude of this change and
037that's why we chose to leverage multiple rounds of input from multiple groups of stakeholders before arriving at this evening's recommendation Miss Conrad's done a great job of laying the timeline out since really last spring summer um I do qualify April is spring especially in our state we're lucky it's spring um but the the graphic on the screen does detail our 10-month journey um I'd like to highlight that the board did hold two Public Work sessions on this topic one in May and again in August um and it was held um repet ly in our as a monthly Topic in our leadership meetings um with our administrators throughout really as you can see there June July and Beyond until this month up until this month and in a over four of our guiding Coalition meetings which
038is a group of employees that we pull together to represent all employee groups and stakeholders within the employee ranks um to provide us input um it brings everyone to the table including teachers staff and administrators at both the corporation and then the buildings also have that same that same level and Dr long is going to share some information on those building ones in in a future slide here um following this evening's meeting um we would like to communicate to all parents to give them five months to adjust to this their family schedules as needed to accommodate this change we also plan to continue conversations with our staff um throughout the spring regarding their workday as Dr Long mentioned this offers and affords us some new opportunities to rethink um the time that we use with
039our teachers outside of that student day um and we will also then continue into next year looking at the structure of our student day and the components that make up our student day um this is something that's been a he a topic discussed at our high school and both middle schools and they are looking at some structural changes but due to the scheduling process already kicking off they really didn't feel like they could be ready for a for for next school year um with those changes so we will continue to explore explore those and um bring some information back to the board as as necessary moving on to the next slide please so um Miss Conrad did a great job of putting this chart together and it's been out in um publ we we did
040make a couple tweaks of the presentation just to kind of highlight some things a little differently but um on this chart you'll see um three different areas um the first area in orange represents our current schedule um and you'll see we we've also included an average number of minutes um per day that does account for the reduction of about 45 minutes for early release time on Wednesdays that's why those averages aren't even numbers or fives or tens um but it kind of shows how many instruction minutes we'd have in a a day and then a week by looking at that column um The Proposal this evening would shift 20 minutes later for the start time of our elementary students um with a slight reduction in total weekly minutes it's listed as five there in the
041blue um a 30 minute later start time for our middle and high school students which would also reduce their student Day by approximately 11 minutes um and 55 minutes then throughout the week um this would eliminate early release days on Wednesday and all students would be dismissed only 10 minutes later than they are this current school year and you can see how those times then correlate between the orange and the blue columns um we did hear a lot of feedback on both of our surveys about the instructional minutes and so we wanted to include some information on that we pulled data from 30 comparative School cor School corporations high schools and their feeder middle schools and elementary schools and you can see the average minutes there and we are almost in line with those um
042all by far exceeding the required minutes by the state of Indiana those are very low and typically schools that would run at the required minutes are schools that um need to keep that short of an instructional day just to to keep the doors open and and and maintain costs and so many schools as you can see there in average um are exceeding that 400 minutes a day with students and we'll be right there in that that that window next slide please and Dr um that's still you y yep so um we did send out a survey it was open for about one week um a little over a week and we uh included a parent and Community survey along with the staff survey I'm going to cover the parent Community input first um this survey
043consisted of um some fixed answered questions some structured questions and also an area to provide open input at the end of it and so we'll actually look at some of the fixed answered questions to start with um we did ask for input we received over 3,000 responses great great response rate um and we've broken those out here as as the scale indicates from strongly supportive um to the left neutral in the middle and strongly unsupportive the reason for three different charts is we start with the elementary school day at the top left middle school on the right and high school at the bottom um and we've also added in there the supportive and neutral percentages and you'll see the secondary schools are almost identical and the elementary school is uh just under 70% as a
044response either supportive or neutral um or strongly supportive uh another structured question we asked is which benefits do you anticipate from the elimination of early release day um you'll see that the uh more consistent Family schedule LED these responses followed by improved student learning routine and better work life balance for family go to the next slide please parents and community members were also asked to select from a list of challenges they anticipated from the new schedule wanted to give them some choice and some things we thought we we anticipated we might hear um you will actually see that none of the above led the response responses followed by work scheduled conflicts and morning Child Care needs these are concerns we expected to hear they've been common themes throughout um and we have actually engaged um
045on those questions specifically and we're going to share some answers to those as we move through the presentation tonight that's the end of the parent Community input Dr Long thanks Dr Taylor um before Dr Taylor goes on and shares some more staff input I'd like to share the process that was involved in gathering staff input but first I want to address a rumor that was circulated that we didn't share staff input with the board I found that insulting to my team and deeply disappointing to me that's not how this Administration works we prioritize and value communication and collaboration and when change is imminent the best approach is to seek Clarity communicate openly and work towards understanding rather than fueling uncertainty asking thoughtful questions helps everyone navigate transitions more effectively in Fuster trust instead of division
046I can assure everyone that the board was given full access to all 926 parent comments and 245 staff comments in the survey as well as the overall data Coen pal made several had several leadership principles one he called the 4070 rule he said never make a decision with less than 40% of the information available and don't gather more than 70% of the information available anything less than 40% is just guessing and anything more than 70% you're just delaying there is a certain magic to to to commitment and action and if you wait too long you're going to miss it our team has done a great job of collecting input from a variety of sources looking at staff communication I want to make sure that everyone knows I want to highlight we shared out this proposed
047changes in the corporation newsletter six times we sent email to staff four times like Dr Taylor talked about we we tucked in guiding Coalition four times we surveyed our staff twice uh we sered the surveyed the parents and Community we've had two Public Work sessions with the board and then Dr Taylor also mentioned building level guiding Coalition and leadership team meetings this was discussed a number uh a total of 25 times at the building level uh so tonight's not something new it's something that we've given everybody the opportunity to provide input for um and so Dr Taylor will now kind of cover the staff survey results um we received 418 staff responses it's about 40% of our total staff teachers um support staff and administrators the chart on the screen displays the level support for
048these changes again we've included percentages based off elementary middle and high school and we've also summarized supportive to neutral in the response percentages again the high school middle school show a similar level of support above 74% with the elementary closer to 60% with with the highest responses being in the neutral designation slide please staff members were also asked to select from a similar list of questions like we did parent and Community the first question was a list of benefits anticipated by eliminating early release you will see that none of the above LED these responses followed closely by a more more consistent Family schedule and improved student learning routine moving on staff members were also asked to select from a list of anticipated challenges with the new schedule you'll see that morning Child Care needs LED
049these responses followed by the impact of before school activities and work schedule conflict after reviewing the input we found some common themes which we've already addressed and our frequently asked questions on the start times web page and I will share a few of those and highlight them as we move through the slides uh the final structured question that we asked is which aspect of the changes concern staff members the most you'll see that the early arrival time for meetings led to the responses led the responses followed by personal schedule adjustments while this evening we were focused on student start times we wanted to be transparent and sharing this information that we will continue conversations with our staff in the upcoming months and we will focus on changes to the staff schedules with their input some
050of those frequently asked questions that are on the website that we really wanted to share because they they became repetitive themes is what is the impact of am clubs and tutoring and this was really specific at the elementary level um where we will have teachers um either on a prep or in a meeting situation before the student day and currently that's when our clubs take place uh we took some great input from our principles and they're going to work with those Club sponsors to flex that time um especially on those Monday Wednesday and Friday if that's what we land on prep times um we are kind of looking at some other days for PLC and PD that we'd want to protect and have our teachers working together to better the the to improve the instruction
051during the student day um we will continue to discuss the potential AC need for academic tutoring and any possible solutions we can have there also considering some of that flexibility as we move forward at that Elementary level another big thing that we do that does take place before the school day are case conferen as often um for students with special needs and we are exploring a lot of options but one we wanted to highlight that we thought really could get some traction is using some rolling Subs during the day to make sure those meetings could happen in a way that we wouldn't have to pull teachers before the that work day um but we could maybe pull them out for just a short period of the student day handle those case conferences and then and
052move on we could do a number of case conferences each day which would be a great relief to our special head staff that often shares multiple students grade levels or even buildings um will there be child options for families who need it yes honeyrove is aware um excuse me sorry um Miss Brown and I met with their leadership yet this week again after a meeting that we had prior um they are aware and prepare for this change brought some great solutions to the table um and they are willing to accommodate even by opening a little bit earlier if that's where we end up landing and needing help for our for our staff member and their fam's needs um and also providing some care during those longer meeting days um and then will the new schedule
053lead to afternoon fatigue in young students it could it may not the research is somewhat split on on elementary students and the impact of starter end times or even the length of their student day what we do know is what we hear from our teachers and what we heard and our instructional administrators in the buildings are already working and thinking about what could we do later in the day as I said earlier we're talking about 10 more minutes at the end of the day yes we're starting 20 minutes later but we're only ending 10 minutes later even prior to that our buildings were already working on this how do we keep students engaged later in the day and those academic subjects um that is something we will focus on and make sure that students are
054um ready and primed to learn for the entire 400 plus minutes that they'll be educated um I believe I've answered all those frequently asked questions Dr long did I miss anything this evening thank you in that case I'll turn it back over to you okay thank you nice job Dr Taylor um you can go ahead and go to the next slide Mr Mr Daniels while this proposal does not require board approval we sincerely appreciate the board's ongoing involvement and input into this process dating back to 2016 I would have said 2007 but none of you guys were around on the board then but especially over the last the past 10 months as many of you know during my time in the Army I had the privilege of crossing paths with General Coen pal W station
055in Germany another one of his leadership principles resonates strongly tonight if you try to please everyone you please no one his philosophy on leadership underscores the importance of making tough decision prior prioritizing the greater good even even when it means not everyone will agree I'm deeply grateful to the staff and parents who have provided input throughout this 10-month process and I also want to recognize the hard work and dedication of my administrative team and the cabinet in reaching this point this decision is not the end of difficult choices but rather the beginning if we are truly committed to improving our academic performance and serving our students and Community to the best of our abilities we will make more changes but tonight I recommend adopting the student start times as presented and we're only asking you
056to approve the student start times not addressing staff schedules thank you Dr long and Dr Taylor for the detailed presentation and and answering of the a lot of the questions frequently asked questions I guess I'll start with the with the rest of the board does anyone else have any questions or comments based on what you heard today I just have a comment I I would like to thank you Dr long and the team for bringing us along I mean obviously I'm I'm the Newbie on the board so I've only been here for the past six months but this is something that you've been kind of educating me along the way so I've understood where we've been and where we are um and I do want to underscore your comment about us seeing the entirety of
057the survey um I want you all to know I read all 926 coms comments plus the 245 um and and it was it was I think it was great that because I can tell that you listened to what was in those um and the fact that we're really focused in on the school start times the student times tonight um reflects that you guys are listening so I appreciate that thank you thank you m Mr dunigan Smith anyone else have any comments I guess I I just want to add a couple of things on top of that Jane I I think I agree with everything you said um and I've received the board's received several emails and we've responded to those and we realize that this has an impact on everyone we're not taking this decision
058or this vote lightly that's why we hear about it starting in 2007 I think Jack may have been on the board then but the rest of us weren't I held a microphone but any anyway I got an earful over on the side but with with that being said we didn't take this LLY they started in May with this this IDE of a shift instead of a flip engage stakeholders teachers community members went with the whole gamut of what's best for number one the students what is best for the students is the number one purpose number one reason why we're all here and I just want to say they've done a fabulous job of going through all the data going through all the research and trying to find something that works and I just want to
059once again thank them for their efforts and it's all I have to say thank you thank you anyone else I think it's also important to note that there it's this isn't something where we threw it against the wall and we're going to hope it sticks the there have been how many different versions of this too many to number we switch to letters okay so I I mean that just goes to show the work that even all of our principles have put into this and administration everybody so thank you all for everything that you've done to to get us to this point I'd like to Echo the comment of our speakers tonight I I sent out an email earlier today to the board kind of echoing that same sentiment we've got to start somewhere this is
060a starting point um I think there this will will catapult us into continuing to look at this topic and research this as we move forward and um I think this is this has been some great work by the the cabinet the principes the staff I I appreciate all the time um that that the the cabinet and the principles have spent on this I know you guys have have spent quite a bit of time Dr Long's been updating us on on your conversations and meetings so Dr long has done a great job of keeping us in the loop with all of the stakeholder groups and reading all of the 96 comments um was kind of enlightening too and kind of echoed the same sentiment are we are we are we hitting the right button I I
061noticed that theme a little bit you know should we continue to to look a little bit deeper into this so nice work thank you so I just want to clarify just make sure everybody's crystal clear on this we're voting on start times for the students we're not voting tonight on teacher schedules the administration is going to continue to have conversations on teacher schedules there will be some changes to teacher schedules because the start times have changed but that's not why we're here tonight we're here tonight to talk about student start times the shifts for the elementary the middle and High School whether it be 20 minutes later 10 minutes later on the arrival release or the 30 and the 10 for for the the high school folks so do I have a motion um to
062approve the new student start times for the 2025 school year Mr President I move to approve the new student start times for the 2526 school year thank you Mr Alexander do I have a second second thank you Mr Russell all those in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed the eyes have it 5 thank you thank you not every day we get [Laughter] Applause I think it's because Mr weissman's here you you the won the basketball game your player comes talks about the team and not herself it's all good so uh next we'll move on to the next agenda item and it's uh this even evening's board meeting uh has been appropriately advertised as a 1028 preliminary determination hearing I'll turn the microphone over to Dr Jason Taylor uh to present information on
063this topic thank you very much Mr Daniels I want to share some information about a couple projects that we'd like to ask the board to consider um there will be no formal action this evening this is simply the first step in this process in which we receive public participation on these projects um this is a uh one bond package that will be sold for two different needs and two different projects and so the first one we're going to discuss is Middle School Central um this is a construction project that we'd like to begin as early as this summer um the over half of the the amount of money we'd placed in this project would go towards Renovations of the um heating ventilation and AC systems in that building um they are still original or not
064original they've been they are original to that building um which would put them um in the last century I can even say can't I um and so they they they're in need of replacement they're up on their schedule um we did a great addition Dr long LED that and we've got a great new set of classrooms um we also um we're able to upgrade the furniture and technology in the rooms but we have not touched the systems um we've also not renovated the finishes and floor coverings throughout the building we'd like to do that as this as part of this pro project um we did give the East gym some attention we need to do the same in the west gym um including a nice refinishing of the parket floor that's in there um we
065would like to explore and and we are intending to add an additional restroom in the lower area uh the lower level what we've realized is the new edition that we built was was built to have another Edition north of it and we're probably not going to need that as fast as we thought we would and that next Edition included the restroom and so we're actually going to identify a room and try to put one in to the new addition um on that lower level and will be a big relief to the teachers in those in those grades um and Mr we's been shaking his head over there I can see is fully an agreement um we we have explored changing the office area around quite a bit at that building but we're not going to
066be able to do that in this package um we will redo the finishes in there we will add some space for offices as their support um staff in that office need to grow um but no major Innovation at this time and then um it is due for some exterior paint and some mold remediation just on that ephis product that's at the top of it so that's really the the the nuts and bolts of the Middle School Central project um the next slide we can I clarify one thing please please please when we were talking about the West gym we were talking about the West gym at Middle School Central not the West gym at the high school you are exactly correct sir thank you I want to make sure I update that on the next
067presentation to clarify thank you I want to make sure we clarify that um the second part of this package would be something that we've done since 2009 is our district y goo projects um and we have a slide that just kind of summarizes that we're actually asking the board to take action on this um next month as I mentioned this would actually be for our 2026 budget we're just doing it now ahead of time to get this out of the way get it included in our debt projections um so that we're ready for that um this we've used this um to supplement our operations fund which is not funded at the levels it needs to be to keep up with our growth in this in this Corporation um but we would use this These funds
068to purchase and P purchase and the maintenance of equipment um building Improvement projects site development projects a lot of those things are Paving they're asphalt they're sidewalks they're roof Replacements those types of projects when I talk about those security upgrades purchase purchase of our technology equipment and then purchase of school buses and vehicles um turning it over to myself we actually used to tag team this doct along so we need to probably fix these slides um there's some required information that I I I I do need to share as part of this 1028 hearing and and this includes the maximums on the funding for this and so you'll see we're actually asking for a $17 million um project at Middle School Central this will not raise the tax um rate um we have put this
069in there to remain at a level tax rate and I'm going to show you some charts on that as we move forward it also includes a maximum lease and bond amount maximum we might pay um all of these things will come to light and will hone in on them as we go out to actually sell these bonds um but we are planning to maintain a level debt rate even though in some of these areas we have to say it may or may not exceed that amount um the next slide does the exact same thing it's $8 million though for the districtwide projects this is the same amount we asked the board for last year for 20125 we're continuing with that same amount into 2026 again no tax rate increase due to this project at the
070this time um looking at our tax rate just want to just wanted to remind the community we've held a very level tax rate we did increase it by two cents a couple years ago as we did our Energy savings project that's already starting to pay off as we saw at the last board meeting um we would maintain and estimate to continue at that tax rate at a106 um C in 2026 with these two projects included when we look at the next slide we always like to compare our tax rate to those in Johnson County other school public school corporation Johnson County you'll see on this chart Center Grove even with that tax rate um which again won't change um came in at a 0643 this year um and so that rounds down to the 106
071that puts us fourth on this list you'll see the three corporations Above Us edinberg Franklin and Clark Pleasant both have a base tax rate and gray that's higher plus they have an additional operating referendum in the blue that raises their tax rate above ours still a great value for your buck here in Center Grove um finally the project schedule again um we will have a second meeting I am so sorry I need to update this slide um but it will be in March um it's we're currently in February um we would ask the board to take action in March we would then do bid submission in April and May and I'd bring that those back to the board for approval we will begin some work in the summer some of this stuff has some lead
072times and it's going to have to be next summer but we're going to get done what we can this summer and even some during the school year as we have some flexibility in the building um we will complete all of this work by the end of summer of 26 the earliest we'd make a payment on these bonds is 2026 we are monitoring what's happening downtown at the general assembly that's why I say that's the earliest there's a chance these may not be paid until 2027 a depending on length of construction and B depending on any legislation changes that might cause us to adjust the repayment schedule on this so we'll continue to Monitor and watch those that is all the information I needed to share tonight Mr Daniels but we do have an opportunity for
073public comment and the script accordingly I appreciate that Dr Taylor and thanks for your efforts um this is the appropriate time now for members of the public to comment um on the 2025 Middle School Cent districtwide uh Geo projects if any of the members of the public would would like to comment please come to the podium seeing no comment we'll close the uh public hearing are there any questions from the members of the board remember we're not voting on this tonight this is just a presentation that that Dr Taylor put on but are there any questions from any members of the board for Dr Taylor or anyone else on this issue uh not so much a question but it it's a good thing that we're moving forward as uh there is concern what go bonds
074will be here in the near future and the control that's going to be put on to them um so I agreed Mr Russell I appreciate you actually asking that um while we use the term go Bond on this we may actually sell these as a building lease project we did that last year as well we again will watch that legislation and make that determination when the time's appropriate great Point great question I appreciate that always trying to be flexible yep any other comments or questions from anybody else on the board I hereby close the uh 1028 public meeting so next we're on to announcements I have a few announcements to share um our next executive session will be March 20th at 6: PM our next regular board meeting will be after that at 7 o'clock
075here in the boardroom that is also a good for the Grove evening so if anyone has anything to share with the board the good for the Grove will start immediately after the regular board meeting and spring breaks coming up March 24th through April 4th everybody have fun and be safe we are also looking to schedule a couple of Public Work sessions here in in the near future so keep your eyes open uh as we get those dates settled and and advertised uh as far as announcements that's that's all I have for tonight uh Mr Russell do you have any comments to add at the end of the I would Mrs counts do you want to talk about GA Gayla y I was going to but you can if you'd like to go ahead so um
076it's my turn it's my turn um so everybody get out there and buy your uh Gayla tickets it is at the Garment Factory this year so it's close to home which is amazing um April 12 thank you for that head nod um and then hopefully everybody's signed up for trivia night tomorrow night as well um because you know I mean we're going to be pretty fancy so hopefully you know people come with their aame for that so anyway there I I hear I hear a g section of the board has a has has a table to compete oh I got high expectations of you guys oh we're gonna win we have a table we'll see how competitive they are I think Jane's telling us she's gonna carry the team so we're looking forward to that
077if I we're looking forward to that Jane do you have anything to add no I'm good thank you Mr Alexander yeah um and unfortunately uh sorry uh Jen I can't make it to trivia night tomorrow night I got some prior commitments um central 9 um we seated three new board members um two weeks or last week um we are an elected uh new officers uh to the board um Kevin metler from Greenwood is the C9 board president this year um two Center Grove students were recognized at the board meeting uh for their um uh internships um that they have received through central 9 um so it was very impressive to see two of the three students being recognized at our board meeting Center go students so great that's all I have sir you know I
078never give Dr Taylor or Dr simmers a chance to speak is there any announcement or statement you'd like to make tonight think we've heard enough from me tonight I'm good thank you Dr long no don't Mr Daniels I take back to Jack I'll take my turn uh I recently did as part of a I'm region a director for Indiana Schoolboard associations and we just had our uh ISB at the State House day where we were able to have panel discussions with legislators both sides of the aisle U very intense at times um it's it's no doubt that public education's under attack I don't know how else to put that um so just keep your your eyes on what's going on there uh because there could be a lot of major changes coming down this this
079next couple of years here for public education thank you Mr Russ wish I could have better news and I I just have one thing to add I'm a I'm a non- voting member of the Bargersville Redevelopment commission I have been now for some time keep your eye on Bargersville with the new exit there at 144 there's a lot of interesting and good things planned I think for all of us the Daily Journal I know ran an article for a development that that they're planning and it uh was was very good to see a town like Bargersville starting to get recognize and I think there's going to be some some good things coming from them here in the future so any other questions comments Woody criticisms uh do I have a motion to adjourn some [Music]
080move all those in favor signify by saying I I 5 Z we Jour please don't leave until you sign your paperwor