001right thank you all right I am going to call the regular board meeting for Thursday May 23rd 2024 to order uh the first item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance Dr Hart thank you I'm so proud to introduce uh daythan Shram an eighth grader Middle School North who will be leading Us in sing the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge ALG to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands naice all right up next is the adoption of the agenda Madame President I move that we adopt the agenda as presented thank you Mr Alexander do I have a second second Gary Gary thank you Mr Robinson um all those in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed motion passes 5 z uh uh recognitions and presentations
002Dr Hart would you like to talk about middle school north thank you Mrs counts and uh Dr Long members of the board uh tonight I want to start with Dayan sham I just can't wait to talk about him so um daythan is an eighth grade student at middle school north and he is a man of many records uh one may include the longest uh running Middle School student ever he started taking Middle School classes as a fourth grader and during his middle school years he's already earned a lot of high school credit we're very very proud of daythan um he is he's just uh during his time he's been a wonderful office helper he's helped us in in many different ways helping other students complete their work he's always got a smile on his face
003he's always uh got a kind word for everyone he encounters um his his uh positive presence is not to uh diminish his excellent academic record it speaks for itself but his willingness and joy to help others just really stands out uh Dayan assists other students in addition to his academic and personal contributions Dayan is a leading musician in our Orchestra and he also broke a 12year School record for three one meter Dives and he beat that record by 18.5 points so we're looking forward to watching him in high school and hearing about his future success as he grows up and we're very proud of daythan congratulations next I'd like to uh speak about Melissa mcart uh she is the second secretary to the principal uh and she's added tremendous value to our school uh since
004joining our school just uh midye this year so she is awesome at uh working hard asking questions uh problem solving as needed she's very willing to help uh her positive attitude and constant smile make it just a tremendous different difference at our school and uh she uses energy and enthus ASM whether covering classes sometimes for us planning staff events helping us modernize our protocols and improve efficiency uh and so much more so we have greatly appreciated having her and she's become a leader right away so congratulations Mrs bber and finally Amy Harmon who just rushed here from the high school watching her daughter get Awards tonight so thank thank you for being with us uh Amy is an eighth grade special education teacher and Department leader uh she's known for pro proactive thinking and excellent
005communication skills She's Been instrumental in restructuring our special education program to be more rigorous and content specific ensuring tailored support for all of our students with a positive attitude she inspires both teachers and students and her leadership has been pivotal in integ ating many new staff members at our school this year Amy's dedication to ADV advocating for students and staff along with revamping and streamlining our special education protocols embodies the true essence of a leader who represents the great work at Middle School North very well congratulations [Applause] Amy I think Stacy may want to get a picture awesome okay up next we have our teach teaching and learning presentation Dr Long thank you tonight from the teaching and learning Department we have Dr Brent Kenzie to present about connected learning Dr Kenzie oh and and
006others don't you don't just get one you get us all that's a tough act to follow for sure I want to thank Dr long um Dr Taylor the board for um giving us this this time to talk a little bit about our connected learning team couple things on the agenda number one is to just introduce ourselves and number two to go through and Report some of the work that we're doing in our schools I am Dr Brent Kinsey I am the coordinator of connected learning I'm Sarah wiling I am the Global Campus e-learning coach and I'm housed at the high school I am Jamie Le better I'm the technology integration specialist for the district so I manage all of our apps and supplementals and train teachers in use all of them I'm Amanda Moore I'm
007our district Innovation coach so I work primarily over at The Innovation Center and work in stem and computer science and we also have Anita Beach back here who is our Innovation Center assistant and our biggest fan of here so she's I often get asked as coordinator of connected learning they kind of turn their head and say what what exactly is that what's your work and I ask him how much time do you have and I'll explain it to you um it's really where education and techn technology get smashed together and I think at one point there was a a smashing point and now it's just kind of all all one it's all one big space and it just keeps growing so uh one of our goals tonight is to show you how big that has
008become but what an honor it is to be able to affect all three of the gears how we teach what we teach in the work that we're doing in our plc's uh in Center Grove schools to provide exceptional educational experiences for all of the kids and to work with our staff as well absolutely um so a big part of our work is every summer we host a an entire day of professional development for our teachers where we're able to pay them to come and learn with us and in the summer of 20122 and the summer of 2023 we had a total of 162 teachers between those two summers attend our Blended learning professional development where we really focused on purposeful use of technology and choosing technology to enhance learning and engage Learners rather than just
009choosing technology to be on technology um that led to um in the school year of 2223 we were awarded the digital learning Grant from the doe so we were able to pay teachers to continue learning with us throughout the school year and we had a cohort of Blended learning uh teachers who uh met with us and the author of the book that we were doing a book study on throughout the school year they met with us four times and um were able to become Blended learning leaders in their schools um so it kind of helps uh get our you know our word out there about Blended learning and make our jobs a little bit easier um and that also led to three elementary schools participating in Blended learning PD reaching out to our team and
010asking for us to come in and do some Blended learning PD throughout the 23 24 school year and we are excited for um 30 more teachers to join us for Blended learning PD this summer so um my work is primarily Global Campus um school year and summer school so we're getting ready to ramp up summer school so it's going to be kind of crazy for a little bit um we have seen some pretty big growth happening in our Global Campus program since covid and I don't know we don't know if that's because of covid and students getting used to doing digital learning um but we have seen some record growth so we can kind of see on here um my first year inste of Grove was the 2122 school year and we have we've added
011um 300ish enrollments and then um and that means multiple students or one student taking multiple classes so we've had a lot of enrollments during the school year and then our summer school numbers are just increasing I updated the number today um I'm pretty sure that's already changed and increased more so we're going to have even more for this summer so it's really exciting to see the growth um and see what we can do with with our Global Campus program great and then from digital learning our work also encompasses um stem so one of the major parts of our team is running the Innovation Center so this year we had more than 4700 students visit the Innovation Center throughout uh the school year and that was over 78 different visits so students are able to come
012and explore stem uh at our Innovation Center with handson learning um and we have everybody visit from uh Elementary School through Middle School um including some special visits that we started planning this year um to reduce some uh sensory input for for some of our special education students so uh that was new this year as well also uh computer science is part of our stem integration so um from our tech labs in our elementary school some purposeful integration of computer science there through Robotics and online coding also uh at our middle schools looking at how um computer science can also be integrated in classrooms there we also have different kits that can be checked out through the in Innovation Center to be used in classrooms and then an exciting uh upcoming thing that we have
013uh this summer is that we will be working with our elementary science collaborators to create integrated stem opportunities with our reading curriculum so starting next year our elementary students will have two guaranteed opportunities to integrate their stem learning with their reading Series in their classroom two times throughout the year I'm also the leader of our media par PLC so I work closely with the uh nine ladies that lead our libraries in the buildings are wonderful um while we spent the early part of this school year working on media legislation with House Bill 1447 we quickly moved on to the author visits at the middle school which were which was fantastic we coordinated that visit with other uh local school corporations they're also doing a U book study on developing digital detectives uh this is a
014very difficult time to raise kids as some of you I know in The In Crowd here have kids our young kids are exposed to a lot and so our our team is is working on a book study to look closer at information literacy in helping students to identify um where they can be safe and and not safe in interacting with digital uh media and we're also looking at how artificial intelligence is changing education and how we can leverage artificial intelligence to really impact our students and our teachers so I was able to work with Dr Nelson uh recently to help uh look at how we can use um artificial intelligence and then also look at responsible use and ethical use and how we can incorporate that in our handbook for the upcoming school year um
015at the high school we have the opportunity in April to host our first ever what we called AI Campground um we were able to use the prep period meetings that the high school has scheduled and every teacher came in they were able to have discussion learn about different AI tools um it was it was quite amazing and so we're using that work that we did at the high school um to help us plan a summer option for teachers we have halfday summer paid summer PD that we're offering teachers this summer and then also we have been uh implementing some lessons for elementary and middle school students as well not only learning about uh how to use AI but what AI is so here's an example simp Le lesson of element for elementary students about computer
016vision um and related to pixels which is something that uh is quite interesting for students and then in Middle School um we've developed a couple units that we've tried in stem class and then this is an example of machine learning integrated into a science classroom as the teacher was teaching about um atoms and molecules as you can see I have we have a fantastic team and I appreciate all of them being here and Anita as well um we uh work hard together I think that the biggest thing is our our work takes us in a lot of different directions and we found that I think connected learning is a great name right because we have to stay connected we are much better when we work together so I appreciate appreciate the time are there any
017questions that we have for us I not necessarily a question but more of a kudos to to your team for thinking about AI I was just at a ibmi conference this week and we were having a lot of debates over the ethical use of AI in several several different Market verticals and and how do you do that so the more we can expose the kids to the correct way to use AI I think the better off will be in the long run so it it's being debated at the professional level so I can only imagine the challenge that you all have in and trying to teach how to use that so I yeah I appreciate that and the direction from from cabinet has been wonderful we've slow rolled Ai and I'm very thankful that we
018have we're doing it the right way I'm conf appreciate that com I've had the privilege of uh visiting a couple of times and playing with kids and it just always amazes me that you have around a hundred kids that have a sack of the same stuff and you will get a hundred different designs of whatever they're supposed to make uh from the lessons so very very enjoyable to watch the Innovations going on there and it really does show the kids connectivity thank you thank you very much thank you thank [Applause] you all right um action item 6.1 Tracy do we have any public comments we do not all right moving on uh consent agenda does anybody have anything they'd like to discuss on the consent agenda no do I have a motion Madam president I
019move that we approve the consent agenda as presented thank you Mr Daniels second thank you Mr Alexander all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed okay motion passes 5 Z and Dr long has some uh presentations you'd like thanks Mrs counts I appreciate the opportunity tonight if you're a hockey fan this is a little bit like a line change um we're uh we're bringing in a whole new lineup tonight uh for me it's it's my privilege to introduce uh Dr Lynn simmers uh Dr simmers has been a um she's going to be our new uh assistant superintendent for teaching and learning uh she's been an assistant superintendent for curriculum and for about 14 years years and in a couple of different School corporations she started out teaching at lakon elementary school in
020Manchester Indiana and has worked in Warsaw and decal and all over Fort Wayne both north and south and we've lured her down here to the the south side of Indianapolis and we're very pleased to have her Dr sers welcome thank you pleased to be here thank you Dr Taylor yeah and I'm pleased to introduce two new members of our cabinet joining Dr long and myself and Miss Conrad um I'm going to go in a little different order here I'm going to do Christy Burger has been named as our executive director for student services um she'll take over some of the responsibilities from Dr long and Dr Nelson um prior to that she was our director of social emotional and behavioral well Wellness with the Indiana Department of Ed she was our director of school counseling
021and mental health since 2021 we're so excited to have chrisy on our team working with us um can't can't think of a better person that truly loves and cares for the whole child and she's going to bring that to our team so we're really excited to welcome her [Applause] we told them that headlocks were also hugs in our meetings and then our other new team member that I'm pleased to announce is Dr sorry Kaylee Brown is going to join us as our executive director for human resources and we're really excited to have her she's moving up from our special education department where she was our elementary special ed director since um she came to us from Rise Learning Center in Perry Township prior to that has been just a great teacher and a good lover
022supporter and career for our kids um with the with special needs and um honestly couldn't be pleased to work beside her you know she's someone who oversees all of the different job um positions that we have the different job types and positions that we have in our district so I can't think of a better person to come in and work with our support staff our teachers and our administrators ready to go um right now so excited to announce Kaylee and then we're going to invite her up to announce a few people after we hear from her and applaud [Applause] okay I will say I do not have something to read so this is going to be a little bit off script but that's okay I'm so excited to get the opportunity to introduce two new
023wonderful women to our special education department first I'm GNA introduce Mrs Kristen rman in the back I'm gonna make you stand um you probably know Mrs Rodman as the current principal at suar she has a lot of wonderful experience in special education though so her prior years of teaching experience were an essential skills resarch she's also been a dean of students at a middle school she's been an assistant principal at one of our elementaries and again she's currently serving as principal at Sugar Grove so they are very sad to be losing her but she's going to be so wonderful bringing all of her skills and her passion into special education and I couldn't be more thrilled welcome and then next we have Amy Selby she is coming to us with a lot of wonderful um
024special education experience as well she is actually serving as the executive director of special education in Hamilton Southeastern schools before that she served in multiple special education leadership roles in different districts um has also been a building level administrator so she is coming to us with a lot of knowledge and we are really excited for her veteran skills that she's going to bring to the team and I think that she and Kristen are going to work great with another great job Kaye thank you there aren't more people to introduce if you're waiting for that that is that not enough but I just want to tell you how how proud I am of our team you know it's been five months we've worked really hard together uh and everybody's pulled pulled their weight and more and
025I I couldn't be more proud of the team that we've assembled and honestly even though it's the end of May I'm really looking forward to the start of school when we have everybody in their right places and ready to go I think you'll be really pleased with what we're going to bring to uh the Center Grove Community Schools so great we're excited welcome okay up next um moving into our action items 8.1 uh we're going to accept bids for the 20124 2025 food service and okay thanks I'd like to introduce somebody that's not new um do Valerie Miller is our director of food uh and nutrition services and she's going to talk to you about uh our um our meal prices and accepting bids for our food and and milk cover everything yep okay that's
026it uh good afternoon or good evening thank you for the introduction Dr long um and the opportunity to present our recommended contracts for the upcoming school year we are members of the k12's um leading Indiana Co-op group grou um and Center Grove food and nutrition services is recommending purchasing from the following vendors so US Foods is going to be our Mainline distributor pending approval U pza produce for produce Dairy Farmers of America Alpha Bakery commercial Foods velvet ice cream smartmouth pizza for our branded Pizza currently at the middle schools and then uh Smart Systems for our sanitation and were washing needs for your information click our kic follows USDA Indiana procurement requirements so you know even though we belong to co-op we're required to have the board accept these bids um try to keep Kaylee
027and I both out of trouble or Kaylee um Valerie I'd like to keep Kaylee out of trouble too but that's going to take more than just than Val and I so um try to keep Val and I out of trouble uh we need you to approve the uh the bid with with the changes I think there's a 60-day grace period and then you better Nam what's her name one of them we can throw Kelly in there too if you sure we've called Kay about everything so okay you want to you want to vote on that first or would you like to discuss any questions I don't have any questions I mean this is in line with what we got to do for the co-op yeah it's what we have to do are they similar pricing
028to what we've had have they gone up yes uh so this current year we've been with click and we have seen sign ific uh not significant but a good chunk of um discounts and rebates through the premier contract with US Foods as well as um we are on the board of directors for kic so we do receive like kind of like a stipend for being board members oh nice so it does it is advantageous for us to be part of the co-op but have the has the price have the prices gone up from last year prices have gone up yes but in general from when we were with uh GFS we have been saving money okay yeah so the co-op saves us but like everything like everything else we are still seeing we're still seeing
029increases yes which I will bring up later on too that's the next action right yeah Coop can't help that Madame President I move that we accept the bids for the 2425 Food Service as presented thank you Mr Alex second thank you Mr Russell all those in favor sign saying I I right any opposed no okay motion passes by zero and then on to the meal prices you probably anticipate my question so yeah yes yeah 100% um so the food service department always strives to provide meals to our families at an affordable cost um over the year over the last year additional sources of funding have decreased as of June 30th of 2023 so last summer um the keep kids fed act ended this act provided our program with additional reimbursement for each meal served 40
030cents for each lunch served and 15 cents for each breakfast served um this is a $439,000 loss in reimbursement based on the meal served to date so this year we did not receive that reimbursement like we did last year um in addition to reduced reimbursement cost the food the food cost and Supply costs continue to increase we believe that the 10cent increase that I will propose here in just a moment will offset the prices and food of food and supplies um price increases were provided for the 2016 school year and 2022 school year our department does not take these increases lightly and we are always working towards better processes and procedures to extend our program dollars um so if approved the pricing would be as followed elementary breakfast and secondary breakfast would stay the same
031for a paid student it'd be $1.70 reduced rate is always going to be 30 cents our staff and adult visitor breakfast would be 270 our lunch prices at the elementary level would be 260 for a paid student reduced would be 40 cents secondary paid would be 280 reduced would be 40 cents our pre prum lunch would increase by a quarter to 350 and our staff adult visitor lunch would be 480 all the cart pricing milk would be 60 cents Elementary extra entree 210 secondary extra entree 230 and a premium secondary entree at 285 question I guess I have more of a of a question and yeah maybe I I just didn't catch this in years's past what's a premium lunch um so last year we Ed we introduced this premium lunch tiered category to offer
032um increased options for our students that are more of like premium quality just at an in increased higher price so um earlier I had mentioned our smartmouth pizza which is a branded Pizza program so that it operates at the middle schools currently um it's a personal pan pizza that's um pretty much made to order um they use a dough they sauce it they top it and they do all of that in housee oh so the the cost of the products is just a little bit more expensive than our normal entree items thank you for that explanation that wasn't no problem you're welcome to come visit I might have to come for lunch yeah come come for lunch for lunch August August 1st next year it's come a long way from we just got a tray
033and you you ate what was on the tree exactly yes wow make your own pizza though man okay all right any other discussion and it was only 25 cents all right do I have a motion Madam president I move we approve the school meal prices for the 2024 2025 school year as presented thank you Mr Daniels do I have a second um doesn't matter um Mr Robinson thank you okay all those in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed okay motion passes 5 Z thank you thank you you uh action item 8.3 we are going to take a look at the 2024 2025 school calendar thank you Mrs counts um on May 9th we were um notified that we received the flexibility of the performance qualified waiver days um so I'm bringing back
034to the board something that we've done for the prior at least two years maybe longer um where we start each semester with a waiver day um we will use these days to provide um in service to our teachers along with our our support staff who typically we can't um work with on those teacher days so this gives us a chance to work with all staff um the two dates that I'm recommending are July or that we are recommending July 31st of 2024 and to begin the second semester January 6th of 20125 so students would actually come back one day later than than both of those dates this will have the first student day um landing on August 1 2024 for this school year and Miss Howard has the calendar up as a visual to help
035with any questions on that I all entertain questions too sorry you didn't just have to figure it out on your own thank you any comments no okay have a motion Madame President I move that we approve the 2425 school calendar as presented thank you Mr alexer do I have a second second thank you Mr Russell all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed motion passes 5 this communication will go out to the parents tomorrow next week okay okay action item 8.4 uh to approve the supplemental Personnel report Dr Taylor yes in accordance with Indiana code 20-26 d5- 111.2 I'm recommending that the board approve the supplemental person Personnel report this evening any discussion on that anyone do I have a motion Madame President I move that we approve the supplemental uh Personnel
036report as presented thank you Mr Alexander do I have a second second thank you Mr Robinson all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed motion passes 5 Z thank you um action item 8.5 Energy savings project Dr longw thank you tonight we're asking the board to approve a contract with cmta uh it's our third uh guarantee Energy savings project that in uh includes solar panels at Middle School Central and solar panels on the EOC the contract amount is for $1,975 1889 that comes with a first year guaranteed Savings of 86,228 that covers all of our um guaranteed Energy savings projects um except we're still looking at the possibility of trying to figure out a way to do it uh put solar panels at Sugar Grove sugar gr um but we still have
037some work to do on on the roof there before we're committed to that so that would be a separate contract it would be time and it probably wouldn't be until next spring about this time next year okay we should know their other stuff has done for us by then sure sure well and we're at that point with the uh the roof at Sugar Grove it's the the original roof um we're going to need to replace it soon so we're trying to evaluate whether it's it's worthy of replacing a year or two early so we can put solar panels on to to capture that Energy savings can take the weight it needs the roof would need to be replaced before we would add solar panels on there and we think it's got about 3 years of
038life left on it and so um we're weighing that whether the the payback is is good to replace it a year or two early versus just waiting three more years do we know if they've updated the solar field at Walnut Grove yet they have um they have finished that um I'll share a picture later I don't have it with me but they've done a lot of nice work it looks really good and it's now working the way it was you designed uh I think it's too early to tell whether we've gotten any utility bills that would show that that we'll provide an update for sure what we'll provide an update be nice to working great okay do I have a motion Mr pres or Madame President I move that we approve the Energy savings project
039as presented thank you Mr Daniels do I have a second mad second he should have said Madam Daniels you missed your chance I was going to call you Mr Armstrong didn't didn't happen second thank you okay all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed okay motion passes 5 Z thank you yes thank you okay um announcements so tomorrow May 24th last day for students June 2nd is the high school graduation and then our next round of board meetings and executive sessions um and good for the Grove so please tell folks to come back if they want to come and talk to us about anything on June 20th um we'll start I guess Jack do you have anything that you'd like to talk about I think that's it Mr Alexander I no updates
040on Redevelopment commission things but Dr Long I'd like to thank you and and your cabinet and the new additions to Cabinet I know the last fiveish months or so have been a a whirlwind of activity and changes and you know know your your your team has stepped up and stepped in and I I want to thank everybody for stepping up and and filling filling some gaps that that we've had and um we are on I think on the on the home stretch on getting the superintendent contract ironed out I want to thank Madam president and uh Mr Daniels here for leading the leading the charge on that so I'm excited for the next school year and the and the team that's being assembled and couple other couple other pieces to put into place but I
041think Dr Long's got a pretty good idea and vision for where we're headed I don't want to be repetitive that's what I had down was to thank Dr Long Jason and Stacy so thank you sorry no you're good um but I think you know you see a lot of new faces you see a lot of faces are stepping up into new positions I think it's exciting I think I think with Dr Long moving into the role that that he's moving into he's going to set us on a good path going forward so welcome to new faces face is stepping up excited to work with you in new roles we got a lot ahead of us but we're going to get there I wanted to say congratulations to Dr Taylor and um what's it Kathy ster
042yes I received a letter from the Indiana Association of school business officials so you both have um completed your Indiana asbo certification program for uh your certification for chief business officer so congratulations yes yeah that's awesome it says 102 hours of instruction it was time well spent learned a lot very very very good great okay I'd like to uh Dr sim Simmons I think we're really going to come out ahead you're you're fantastic love what I've heard from you so far and really looking forward to working with you especially right here I'd like to uh uh congratulate two people haven't been mentioned Trace McMahon and uh Jason wisman a middle school principal for Art District of the year and vice principal at the high school and we know how Tracy does such a wonderful job
043with the early college and everything and Rob I am going to be repetitive um for Dr Long Dr Taylor and Mrs Conrad to uh be 50% down the last five months uh you three have done a phenomenal job we have not missed the beat at all and uh uh what you did you've really stepped up in the gaps and everything and uh I think the cabinet team that you formed will be an A+ cabinet team so I wanted to thank you for that and the last day of school is tomorrow not that we wanted that calendar