001all right I'm going to call the um board meeting for Thursday April 18th um to order and the first thing to do is the pr Pledge of Allegiance everybody will stand I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all okay action item 3.1 is the adoption of the agenda do I have Madam president I move that we adopt the agenda as presented thank you Mr Alexander do I have a second I'll second thank you Mr Russell all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed all right motion passes 5 Z and up next we have The Shining Star Award in Dr Nelson good evening I am honored to introduce you to Mr
002David Marquez he is a sixth grade teacher at Middle School North as well as a coach and middle school north teacher of the year for this year so um last month he noticed a student who was struggling to breathe and a student was making the choking um action and Mr Marquez uh effectively did the heick maneuver and saved the child's life from choking at school so this evening we would like to present David with The Shining Star Award this is an award that our school Community gives to someone who goes above and beyond um and in this case uh he saved a child's life and so thank you so much David for all that you do for our students and thank you for making sure our students are safe at school every day we're proud
003of you congratulations and David um I'm gonna have this family stand um David is with his wife Kristen who is in the back and then his father-in-law Mark so thank you [Applause] con all right and up next we have the CG Spotlight and this month it's Center Grove High School so Dr Henderson great thank you for the opportunity to be here and to celebrate some of the wonderful things that are happening at Center grve High School um as I'm sure you're aware what you're about to see this evening is only a small sampling of all the great things things that are happening at the high school but um we certainly appreciate the opportunity to come before the board tonight and share uh these successes with us so the first thing we're going to start out
004with is we have um a featured certified staff member a featured support staff member and featured students and then we also have some various organizations that have had some great achievements uh collectively and individually for students and so we're going to have some other folks come up and just share a little bit about those achievements as well first of all I'd like to um identify uh Kathy campara Kathy is here in the audience this evening right up at the front Kathy if you would stand up Kathy happens to be Kathy happens to be a certified staff member at Center Grove High School in charge of our special education department she is our special education case conference coordinator and department chair and uh is very responsible for not only supervising the department but ensuring that all
005of the teachers in the building are well informed about the kinds of services that we provide to students and making sure that um we are delivering exceptional educational experiences to um lots of our exceptional Learners in our building so uh we certainly want to take a moment this evening and recognize Kathy for her contributions and hard work at CER Grove High School up next is a former certified staff member who has actually returned to the line of duty in a support staff position so this evening we'd also like to uh recognize Carrie Moore kri serves at the high school as an enl aid she was a former teacher at the middle school level and came back to the trenches to serve students at Center Grove High School as an aid so we are extremely grateful
006that she has brought all of her years of experience and expertise um back to the classroom and is supporting our students um in our enl program so we wanted to take a moment this evening to recognize Carrie up next we have two students who have achieved something that isn't directly connected to school but certainly is uh an example of the kind of students that we have here in our Comm community and we're incredibly honored this evening to recognize a couple of students who have won Congressional Awards so Congressional awards are the highest youth honor that Congress can bestow upon a citizen and those awards were established to recognize initiative service and achievement among young people so the recipients must set and Achieve goals in four program areas voluntary public service personal development personal fitness and
007Expedition and exploration each of those program areas has a specific set of criteria that a student needs to work within can't be a for-profit business can't involve proti for a church can't be something that you're receiving high school credit for or being paid to do there's lots of criteria associated with each of those um program areas the program's open for all individuals from the ages of 14 up until their 24th birthday so we have two students here um who have received Congressional awards that we want to um to recognize um for their service to community and their personal development those two students are Zoe Carpenter and Audrey Boer so as you can imagine students who participate in this program are really really busy so Zoe's not here tonight but Audrey is so we certainly want
008to take a moment to recognize [Applause] that all right awesome moving on to the rest of the program here we have have Megan Kramer our director of our Student Services Program who is here to present some information to you about some individual Award winners that we have at the high school as well sure okay can I first have Austin Lynn and Nasser sanari up here please okay just you and me tonight looks like hang out right here for okay so um are you Nasser yeah okay all right so Nasser is one of our two um National Merit Scholars and the College Board recognizes them to um be considered for this these two students have demonstrated outstanding academic performances in their coursework as well as Community involvement so there is a lot that goes into it
009so we're very very proud for the both of you [Applause] okay and then can I have Alan when okay so Ellen has been the nominee for Indiana academic allar Allstar for Center gr high school every High School in the state of IND indana gets the opportunity to submit a student that we think is wonderful and would represent us well and so she was chosen as our regional Allstar so we are very very excited for her um a little bit about the program like I said every high school has the opportunity to nominate one student um out of the entire school so she was chosen for ours and these um nominees are selected based on criteria such as number of ADV classes taken standardized test scores extracurricular activities in both academic and non-academic leadership and Community
010Service as well as involvement so she is exceptional in a lot of ways and so we are very excited to have her be our All-Star while we're getting that photo taken I'm going to call uh Debbie Nolan back up to the podium to talk on behalf of our students uh with BPA I'm going to ask my students to join me your list I do I'm good so thank you so much for recognizing um business Professionals of America this this year we had nine students that while competing at our state competition are qualified to attend the national competition which will be in Chicago this year in just a few short weeks in May these students have shown academic Excellence increased their team weeks work skills and displayed a really strong work ethic like many of the
011other students that we have here tonight they are involved in multiple activities so we could not get all nine here um but I'm very proud of the ones that are here today so first I want to introduce Mahendra mandala he has been our chapter vice president for two years and has been very involved in recr recruiting new members he has also ran for and won a state officer position this year he had to give a speech in front of over 1,400 students at the state competition and run a campaign to win those votes next year he will be our state BPA vice president NRA Place third at state for prepared speech has qualified for and will be attending Nationals in Chicago he's also going to step in for a member who can not go for
012website design and they need at least two members to compete so he's going to jump in and help website design team so they can go to Nationals so because he is our prepared speech winner I'm going to ask Mahendra to come forward and pass it on to Mahindra to give us a little background about who else is is here this evening and a little bit about BPA all right before I introduce the state winners I'd like to talk about what BPA has done for our members this organization has given our members an opportunity to shape their future by participating in events that relate to their chosen professions with all these experiences our seniors have transitioned into the very professions that they competed in during their years at BPA with this real life exposure they can
013easily enter their careers with confidence and a deep understanding of their industry by participating in PA we not only develop our communication skills our work ethic and most importantly our leadership skills but we also gain practical knowledge and experiences in the fields we participate in BPA is full of people who strive for excellence and this mentality has helped us succeed in many ways but this year we're taking it a step higher and participating in the BPA National leadership conference and this hasn't happened in three years to get to Nationals our members have worked very very hard and we by fundraising and also by placing in our events but still we couldn't have done any of this without our amazing advisers Mrs Nolan and Mrs Aeris okay now I'll introduce the state winners you can see
014why he's doing the speak okay monis K is our outgoing region 11 president and he's representative of Department in many ways possible and he's also the executive captain of Robotics and he's also a Statesman torch Award winner Dominic Burke who will be attending Nationals has gotten first in device configuration and troubleshooting third in C++ programming and he will will also be attending Nationals and okay next is Ryan reichart who will also be attending Nationals and he got second in business law and ethics we have another we have few more members who've not who are not here right now and they've already um they have also qualified for Nationals we got Camille short who got first in personal financial management rupes Vats who will also be attending Nationals he got second in fundamentals of web design
015and second in website design team we got Daniel Lou who got second in Java programming a Newar who also reigned for the State office office he got second in website design team AR of nir who will be our region 11 president next year and he's and he he got second in U website design team and last but not least Quinn Smith who got fourth in Python Programming thank you thank you okay while they're getting their photograph taken I'm going to invite up Daniel Meyers uh on behalf of our HOSA organization good evening everyone good evening school board members I am beyond thrilled to stand in front of you um I'm actually standing in for the true HOSA adviser Miss Andrea tan who could not be here tonight um although she wishes with her whole heart
016that she could um but we're here to celebrate the incredible achievements of our HOSA chapter for the 2023 20 24 Indiana HOSA State leadership conference we have over 100 members and a staggering 85 of them competed at the state level and our HOSA Club stands as the largest and fastest growing club at Center grve but it's not just about the numbers it's about the remarkable dedication and passion that has been displayed by these students with 15 gold medalists 14 silver medalists seven bronze two Barbara James award Award winners and 45 top 10 finishers across various events our students have truly exemplified what it means to strive for excellence we are immeasurably proud of every one of our members for their hard work their commitment and their success speaks volumes about their determination and dedication to
017their studies I want to expend uh extend a special acknowledgement to shria Jane uh Lena Ferris and Sophia crawl our president co-president and Indiana State historian their exceptional leadership along with the rest of our chapter's officers has been absolutely instrumental in our chapter's success and the success of Indiana HOSA I would like to ask shria and Lena and uh Sophia to come up and join me please um I would just like to ask for a quick Round of Applause for our amazing team our future is is incredibly bright with these students leading the way um before I introduce our gold silver and bronze medalists as well as our Barbara James Award winners I just wanted to invite these two ladies up to share a little bit about what HOSA has meant and has done for
018them um thank you I've been in HOSA for four years and I have loved every single minute of it I'm working along side my peers and alongside Mrs T and Myers um I have grained so many connections and have really just explored the world um of the medic medical world and I'm really excited for what the future holds so um I am a I used to be I served as a state officer so I'll just tell you a little bit about what HOSA is so HOSA is a student Le uh organization that's focused on Healthcare uh profession so we're preparing students to enter the healthcare field um we do a bunch of comp ative events uh where like knowledge events uh for specific Healthcare aspects we have like job skills where they can actually choose
019a job like for example veterinary science and then they can compete in events like that uh we also have a bunch of educational symposiums where students can learn vast aspects of healthcare because it's truly a large large field and so it not only just teaches you to prepare to become a healthc care professional but it also teaches you to become a leader um I've grown so much through this organization and serving as a state officer for the past year was an incredible experience for me I've gotten to meet people members from across the state and uh just truly grow as a person so thank you so this year um our club saw eight uh actually to go back a little bit let's cover our stats there were 3,000 members from across Indiana um in HOSA
020and almost 2,000 were in attendance at this year's conference among all of those competitors uh Center Grove HOSA won 15 gold medals 14 silver seven bronze and had 45 honorable mentions so when I call your name if all of our first state champions could come up and join us uh we had Magna poai in career developments Kelly Wang in chemistry Mary Wang in human growth and development na palai won a second first place for medical law and ethics Lindsay Ponder and shria Jane for public health Elizabeth floro for job skills job-seeking skills Laurel Sullivan Magna poai Mary Wang Ana mjal Ashley Aldridge and Nasser sanari for Creative problem solving and sigy ring and Lindsay Ponder for health career display next I would like to introduce to you our second state Runners up we had McKenzie
021nuttle for Family Medicine Ana Shasta for chemistry Mary Wang human heredity Magna palai for occupational health and safety ivy mcleman for physics Muhammad Khan for medical math Kelly Wang clinical specialty Zoe Carpenter EXT extemporaneous writing will will McCrae Scarlet Brink Ivy mcclinon Andre Veta Anthony cuadras and Ethan Zang for Creative problem solving and our third place finishers with bronze medals was Addison matern for Family Medicine Nasser sanari for biology Magna poai leadership Laurel Sullivan microbiology Ashley Aldridge for human growth and development Lena seferis for respiratory therapy and Maddie Brown veterinary science thank you guys finally we just want to uh give a special congratulations to our two Barbara James Awards winners um these winners uh are recognized for their 100 to 175 Community Service hours and that went to Ava borhan and Ryan Zang [Applause]
022all right and while they're getting a photograph taken I'm GNA invite coach stuck Meer up [Applause] that's all right well I want to first of all say thank you and I am extremely honored and proud to be here to speak on behalf of two of our girls basketball players um audrian and Rachel warts I'll have them stand maybe over to the side over there so you can see them um we are recognizing them tonight for their individual honors of being selected as Indiana all stars um in the state of Indiana um so just to give you a little background about the Indiana all stars um in the sport of basketball in Indiana um you have Miss basketball which would be the top honor of the best senior in the class would be chosen from that
023and not too far behind is the in in Indiana All-Star team so these two were selected for that as two of the top 12 players in the state of Indiana so and it it couldn't have happened to two better young ladies and individuals um we've talked a lot I can speak about these two but our entire team this year from Varsity on down um especially our Varsity though were just a phenomenal group of girls led by these two and um some of their other teammates um but they are just a phenomenal representative of what we ask at Center Grove of student athletes um I tell people all the time um girls basketball um I won't say we have it tougher than others as student athletes but they play on a Tuesday night in Bloomington South
024and then they turn around and play in plan field on a Thursday and get home at midnight and these two um are as strong as students in the classroom and leaders in the community as they are um basketball players um in the sport and the craft that they so choose um so just honor to them um audreana I'll speak just briefly uh about her and um give you just background of her future plans um obviously um incredible basketball player she has um been awarded the opportunity to continue her playing career as a student athlete at West Point next year um so she will play for Army if you've ever been to our Banquets I could sit here and talk about these two for probably an hour each so I'll try to keep it short but
025just a little bit about Audrey That kind of makes her who she is as a basketball player and as a person um as I've talked about her before her attention to detail is second to none um she just has an ability to have that detail of The Craft of what she's doing that um we want everybody to have and her dedication to that craft day in and day out is just incredible and and that's obviously shined through with um the awards and Honors that she's gotten in particular this one um so Audriana um Rachel WS our second um Indiana Allstar um she um will be going to Villanova next year to play and continue her athletic and academic career so Rachel came to us as a sophomore um she was actually a homeschooled student in
026the district and again just a representative of what our school represents and um her willingness and her family's willingness to want to become part of the center community and she'll leave a legacy that carries that forward with what she does but just what sets her apart um just her hunger to improve at her craft so Audrey has the attention to detail Rachel's not too far behind and you hate to give specifics of one because they both have are so high in um many categories but her hunger to improve at what she does really shine through and her commitment to that Improvement and her humility through that she came to us as a phenomenal basketball player with such great potential and um anybody with such potential and ability um sometimes know that they're really good at
027what they do and she had a quiet confidence about her and a hunger and a humility to just improve at what she did and obviously that's paid off um into what she's um been as a high school player and you are going to just see that as she goes on and continues her career at Villanova just one small story about these two just kind of exemplify it um I think it was after their sophomore years um we were okay we're a decent team um we had success um but they came in almost daily in the morning from 5:45 or 6 o'clock knocking down the door and forced me to open the gym for them and it wasn't me asking them to do that um too much it was them asking me and forcing me and
028um just getting kicked out of the gym and that's just an uh just an illustration of the commitment they have and that's shine through in their individual efforts but basketball is a team sport and it's the ultimate team sport and we talk a lot about leaving a legacy um as players and as a program and as a group and our Legacy we really tried to stand on the idea of high integrity High character um being great teammates um doing it for the team and putting selfish Ambitions aside but still having a strong commitment to competitive excellence and these two will just shine through and I'm so honored to be able to represent them and honor them tonight and the fact that they'll be able to have their Jersey hung up as an Indiana All-Star in
029the Vandy gym is going to be phenomenal Legacy um obviously I brought my daughter here tonight she was just ecstatic to come here because these are two of our favorite players talk about the Caitlyn Clark phenomenon of WNBA and women's basketball taking but you see that at the local level and these two are representatives of girls like her and just the um support that we've had from the community the board the administrators and everybody is just phenomenal and they are just um making it to where everybody falls in love with basketball but more because of who they are and we're proud of our team and them for representing them for that so audon Rachel wartz while they're getting their photo taken I'll invite up Jess Goodman and Alice Thompson hi I'm Jess Goodman and this
030is Alice Thompson and we are the sponsors for the Center grve High School student council we brought with us tonight our um all student body officers we have Alice and Cohen come on down uh Mary Wong um Ellie win um Ray Robertson Roberts Roberts sorry Ray it's not in front of me and I'm all nervous um Nasser sari and arv AGA these are our top six of 140 students in in student council at the high school um these are our leaders they make sure that we do the things that we need to do they manage the Committees and the classes they make sure that our weekly meetings run smoothly um we are constantly in contact with these six kids just making sure that we are um helping Center Grove be the best that it can
031be um serving our student body um tonight we're here because we have been awarded the National Gold Council of Excellence from the um National Association of student council to um earn that uh award we had to prove that we are a governing student body that we um participate in service to our community and to our school district um and then that we operate General activities that you would expect of a High School homecoming um pep rallies spirit days uh things like that and so um Nasser actually was our a major component of that this year he had to do several writeups um to to apply for this gold Council of Excellence um and so we learned that last week that we were awarded that [Applause] so all right up next I'll invite up uh Jen
032Dice and I think Jared is not here I think it's just Jen just Jen um before I start Mrs Goodman over there she's a former student of mine so I'm G to brag on her for a moment because she didn't mention this but we had an all student body um performance a convocation this past week we haven't had it since before covid um and we bring the entire High School into the gymnasium and they get to watch some of the performing arts groups um we get to award some of the students who are in clubs and activities and it's amazing to me that we can bring our whole entire student body and they can be fixated on what is happening and her group um put that together and ran the show and so um congratulations
033on that was excellent this past week but I'm here to talk about choir so I'm GNA do that now um we had a fantastic year at Center of choirs um we have about 112 students in our two Varsity show choirs and these four are company managers which is just the theater term for president and instead of bringing the whole crew we just brought them and they're going to talk a little bit about who they are where they're going to school they're all seniors um and some of the things that they have gained as a part of being um being a part of the choir program over these past four years hi I'm Eli Emmons uh I'll be going to the University of Cincinnati next year um I'm going to be discussing leadership it's something that
034I've really appreciated being a part of um this is my first year and only year of being a leader in choir and um it's given me a lot of responsibility and um not a lot of people get the opportunity to lead such a big group and it's putting me in certain situations where I need to think logically and critically and it just prepares you well for the future on whether on when to be serious and when to have fun and compete and I've really appreciated being in this position over the year hi my name is Ella Springer I'm going to Indiana University to study nursing I'm the counter part to Eli Emmons and I think one thing that I've definitely learned I think these ladies have also learned is how to work with others whether
035it's like communicating with the students communicating with your counterpart or even communicating with directors because you have to use a different voice with each type of person so knowing how to change that and kind of change your tone with that is something that I really will apply to life thank you hi my name is Lane Foley next year I'm going to Purdue University and I have been in devs for three years years and that has taught me and given me so many things and one that stands out the most of me are the friendships and bonds that I've created with these ladies and being the leader of them this year has just given me the position to lead these group of girls and just make connections with each and every one of them and it
036is something that I will never forget being a part of 50 some girls and everybody wants the best for each other we all love each other we've lost and we've won together and it is something that I might not get again and I have definitely cherished it over the past are yours hi my name is Meredith Ln I'm the other company manager of the debtones I'll be going to the University at University of Cincinnati to study U music education and I'll be discussing how choir helped with my future goals so I want to be a show choir director so I have had many years in leadership in choir which has provided me um opportunities to lead a group and then I also had the opportunity to Cadet teach for Mrs dice this year for the
037accents which has really helped me prepare for that goal so she's also very humble she's had like every leadership position you could possibly be she's been a section leader a dance Captain she has led um like she said the accents she has a group called The Trojan nuts that she just started up because you know she felt like we needed a counterart to Shaboom so um she is going to she is coming after our jobs for sure um and so we're well aware of that but um the choir did a great job this year we both won nationals it's such an exciting experience for us to get to go down to Nashville to compete on the grandal opery stage which is just amazing to think oh yeah Carrie Underwood was here yesterday and now we
038are here so it's so fantastic for them to have that professional experience um and to win is even better so um it was a fantastic weekend for us to be down there and we really appreciate it I also just want to give um I know we're recognizing the students but I would do want to recognize a couple administrators too um we after we had won we had some personal Cong congratulatory notes um from Dr long and from Dr Nelson I just want to let you know how much we appreciate that that really means a lot to us that we know you're thinking about us and then of course I have to mention Scott Alexander who um has kids have graduated but um any given Saturday um you may find him backstage still helping to move
039risers on stage and off and we so appreciate um our alumni and our support and uh that's how we can do what we do is we just have this Army of parents and alumni support and we just appreciate all of you and so we just want to thank you all from for supporting the choirs in all of our endeavors so thank you get pictures last but certainly not least I'm going to invite up Heidi Shackleford to talk about Scholastic art Awards computer went what's that the computer well there we go all right um my name is tidy Shackleford I've stepped in today for Miss uh Jackie Fowler who's the department chair and she is is right now at the um indoor percussion competition where I literally just got a text that said that they just
040their place Fifth and they're going to perform in the semi-finals tomorrow so that's pretty awesome um so but what I'm here to do today is to um celebrate the artists that we entered in the Scholastic art competition for this year um for those of you who don't know the Scholastic art and writing competition started in 1923 it's an over 100e competition um one of the most prestigious ones in the state of Indiana that recognizes um creative teens um every year we take student artwork that we feel um will fill in the core values of the Scholastic art competition which is originality skill and vision and voice um we have a lot of kids coming up to coming up through us from a lot of talent um but what I want to share with you today
041do I have any of my art students here with me I don't think any of them were able to come there all working and doing all the things that teenagers do after school um but I'm going to just briefly share with you guys the silver and the gold key winners um the silver and the gold key winner the gold key winners um automatically get entered into the national competition um so I'm not sure where they all stand I think that that's still going right now but I'm going to share with you guys the um the silver and the gold key winners so this is gold key for photography for naria Basera as you can see nari Basera is extremely talented um I also have her in Fiber Arts everything she does turns to Gold this
042is jayen Redmond this is um a Ceramics piece of hers she's also in my fiber classes so I can test to that this is Reagan Dugan um this is a drawing just so you know this is a colored pencil drawing wow so we should just admire that for just a second very very good she is very very good she is also the um she is also in charge of the um Art Club and she does an amazing job um this is chance burus he is uh he is all around the art department but very prolific in Ceramics this is a silver key this is uh Brena H's ceramic piece as well with um some three-dimensional relief sculpture on the outside side of a throne base this is Elena MCA this is ceramic and um hand
043painted relief piece just absolutely beautiful if you're not familiar with her work man you should come and see the art show this year she's a little Shameless plug she's very talented we have a lot of talent um this is uh Jessica and aness silver key this is a graphite drawing self-portrait this is Emma Barton this is also a color pencil drawing not a photograph we should just stop and look at this for a second I look at I'm like it's amazing this is also Reagan Dugan silver key this is a um self-portrait piece as well done in graphite this is Jaylen Redmond's photography Jadin Redmond self-portrait and photography capturing that uh beautiful spider with do on it and this is Nicole Reed um and this is uh one of my fiber students this is a
044batique so it's done with a lot of wax and Dy this is Hannah Terry photograph or photography uh Sophia Jones this is her digital art Visual Communications she takes with um uh Mr Jones the new Mr Jones I guess the new Mr Jones the new Mr and it's so funny is they're both our Jones yeah okay and this is Chloe loots silver key and this is a difficult one to see I can see it on the screen but this is a photograph so we'll just keep going since you can't see that one Tommy Hall this is a silver key photo photograph and last but not least I just want to plug the Fine Arts Festival this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as what we the kind of talent that we have
045um if you're not familiar with the Fine Arts Art Festival it is a it is all of the schools elementary all through the high school it is so impressive just so stunning to see all of it together um for those of you who are high school kiddos or high school you're at the high school often after we do this the um High School portion of the show moves into the Hall of Excellence so that we get a little bit more time to see all that but if you have not had a chance to see what happens in the halls of the Center Grove art Department I highly suggest that you come check it out so thank you so much so again we want to thank you for the opportunity to come and just share a
046small slice of the great things that are happening within the walls of Center Grove High School it's always a pleasure to bring these folks before the board and let you see a little glimpse of of what we get to deal with every day um you know with all the Doom and Gloom that exists in the media and all the things that are negatively portrayed about society and the News um getting to spend your time with high school students who do these kinds of things makes you very optimistic about the future so it's great to be here thank you so much for the [Applause] opportunity all right well next up we have uh jod Vamp actually who is our Johnson County Public Library representative and he will be presenting about the Johnson County Public Library explore
047summer program and updates that's a hard act to follow um you know I thought I did pretty well in high school but now I'm like I'm just going to go hide in the corner for a little while you know I don't think it works that great I don't know that was a long time ago I probably forgot all the good stuff I don't know but um anyway I'm happy to be here and uh as she said I'm jod and I'm with the uh actually I know most of the people in this room and um representing the library which I've been working for for four years as a marketing Communications manager and um I appreciate the time that you give me to talk about what's going on at the library and our upcoming explore summer program
048so um you have your handouts which you can look through as we go or follow up with later um want to look you part of it is the 2023 year in review and um this past year these are things it just I started there may 2020 midst of Co the branches were still closed and two weeks after I got there they opened but so it's been a slow growth back to where we get to where we are today but um checked out more than 1.2 million items last year and if you look at the if you look at this that is just not um that still the majority of that books magazin 67% of it we do a lot of digital things but people still love to hold their book um and so I think
049that's a great thing about community that people are still out there we've had more than 330,000 people through the doors which is just another um incredible thing um you know we our staff has worked very hard we work at a lot of different areas a lot of our people volunteer in various organizations but um we also the big thing is connecting with the residents through around throughout the throughout the county and connecting with the school districts and so I appreciate the opportunity to come here um you know we we do more than just books as people Library would think you know um we have hotspots so students who don't have internet home can come and borrow a hotspot we have Wi-Fi in all the branches and you can sit in the parking lot and use
050that 247 it's available there um you can if you can't a lot of people would love to have some streaming things we've got them with the LI free with your library card you can stream movies and books and TV and music and um the library of things which is nontraditional things this year we've added metal detectors acoustic ad cars Cricut Joys blood pressure pressure monitors therapy lights and a bunch more board and video games so just non-traditional things that you think of and I I work um although I'm in the ad I work out of the admin Center um every other month I work a day at at the circulation desk at one of the branches and just the people who come in and for different things and the printing services that we offer I'm
051just amazed at how people just they don't have a printer at home and they think it's really valuable it's a valuable service we got people we use fax machines we file taxes for people it's pretty impressive what we what um we all offer and continue to look for ways to uh to serve our community differently one of the ways that we did that this year was introducing our JCP on Wheels which um is our bookmobile which um I thought this was the person who designed this is a Franklin High School graduate in art and went to Heron school and I thought she was pretty talented as artist to come up her F first month in the job to come up with the design for that and then I saw these art students tonight I'm like
052okay well I won't go back and tell Bailey what I saw but um she's very talented and this is a great thing we've we have seen a lot of growth in this we we're now we've gone I think we got 85 stops now that we do with it and all parts of the county and as the weather gets nicer nothing like launching it in November but um as the weather's gotten nicer we've seen we've seen attendance grow 242 per from February so we're very happy with the with the results from that as well um the other thing that we do is programs come into the library what can we do for you what you can learn meet other people and and um if you look at at what we do here we've had 3200 programs
053last year and 74,000 people who attended so we've got read read with a therapy dog if you uh look up in the corner the kids come in and they for 15 minutes they sit with a therapy dog and they read to the dog and I I when I first learned of that I'm going these kids reading the dog and they're like yeah that's what this is and I'm like oh well okay so I've been learning the library um a lot we've got Dia which is our the children's book Festival that is coming up again in the 28th the last Sunday of April and um authors at jcpl we bring bestselling authors in and there we are lined up down the street waiting to get into the uh um into the Artcraft theater and so we've
054got uh got another one Monday night and um we've got more in the works for the year too so um authors of jcpl is a great thing we've had people drive from Chicago we had people fly in from the east coast to see Jack car so they get it um one of the those benefits of bringing people into the community that's not our goal but it's nice to see that we impact more than just those here project prom this year we gave out over 200 prom dresses 60 suits um plus shoes and um and accessory items and project prom was back coming out of postco and doing multiple days as well so we're really happy with um the way that goes explore summmer is our big program which um again recovering from covid as we
055all are has is back to last year year we read 3.4 million minutes together and that's just those who report their reading and so we try and um grow that every year this year the goal is four million minutes and so we expect to see um that grow as well as we see people come back into the branch and we learn new ways to to promote it and get people engaged and it's for all ages it's not just for um kids it's kids teenagers parents adults anyone can enter it and um partake the last part is a story time I how many story times do we do a month I have to edit every one of these programs in here but I don't count them but I do know I spent a lot of time
056going through story times in the other programs that we do so um yeah there were things last year like a tornado like Christmas day going into the White River Branch to help clean up because it froze and a pipe broke and um we're very very fortunate to see the recovery of that we recovered very quickly from both those incidents um the Clark Pleasant Branch when it was damage we reopened in a week and although Lisa is not here I will tell you that the reason that Branch reopened in a week is for sheer willpower of her we're going to have this open and we did and the contacts that she has in the community and the people who are willing to come and and and do that um like I said Christmas of 2022 the
057fire line at White River broke a week later we were open with that as well so some things happen that you don't really expect but um you persevere and move on these these are um a lot of things that we just do new things that we do thanks to the community and for the community is we open a steam exploration walk thanks to the rotary clubs of Johnson County who set it up and donated the money to it and so up in the lefthand corner if you go to the Clark Pleasant Branch there's a trail around a walking trail and then there are these experience stations along there for kids there's some flowers that are musical instruments there's this is a um a water a Water Works where kids can run water down and you
058just on a warm day they love it um we were also able to bring the first public Arts culture uh celebrating women in Johnson County to the Clark Pleasant branch that opened last year um on the lower left is our um is our uh Mary Prairie Festival which we hold at at Clark at the uh traelo branch and that is a festival that we on the usually the first Friday in December and brings in about 5 to 600 people so great turnout for those things those are the ongoing things that we have and then um the ugliest building in Franklin Now is one of the most beautiful buildings in Franklin um The Book Barn as we call it next to the Franklin Library thanks to the folks at um at the Johnson County Community Foundation
059and all the volunteers who came out and painted that building and we were people saying you know you really ought to knock that down and now I think if we knocked it down we'd have a riot so it's a it's a great asset for the community and um it's where we store all the books that we have for our book sales so um that's been a that's been a neat benefit too and then um the the meeting in the lower right is one of the first visioning sessions we had to remodel and revise and rebuild the White River Branch we've held ones in Franklin as well those are both on the agenda so um some of the updates for this year that we've seen so far is um we're updating the Strategic plan and we've
060completed feasibility study for the enhancements for both those branches as I mentioned and now we've got to start putting together the plan for what those improvements are how we're going to fund it um both those buildings are just a couple years short of being 40 years old so it's time to to do those the population obviously has grown in both location and so um it's something to meeting the needs of the community and also keeping the buildings in good shape we have a new five-year strategic plan that began this year and um that we have three pillars of action and that is first to welcome Library users with access to resources and great customer experiences the second is is to create connections engage our community and reach out to Residents so we've actively been saying
061what are things that we haven't had that's the the bookmobile is part of that but other ways we can get involved in the community and the community can use the resources that the library offers so the third thing is to expire Inspire excitement for our programs experiences Innovation and that lands a lot in my department is like okay we've got all the things going on how do we tell that story how do we let people understand that there are really exciting things going on in the library and I go to almost all of the big events and and it's just amazing um the reaction we get from people and always look for what's the story um biggest thing space day was um bigger than we thought on the eclipse one of our one of our
062programmers said you know what everybody's talking about Eclipse let's do space and she and she remembered in high school she or middle school they brought in in a planetarium so she found out it still exists got the planetarium in first Saturday in March we put on Space day at the um at the arm Armory in Franklin and had 1,600 people show up and we thought we might get 800 so it was a crazy busy day and I think you know what one of my favorite stories was this this grandma told me that she went there with her grandson and he was five years old and he just like they we had an demonstration of how Eclipse works and he goes oh I get it now and then and then they're walking out and if if
063you know our library mascot bibli the big green book horn walking out he goes Grandma this was great and I got to meet an alien and so we're like and she's like that was just so great and so those are things that um you know you just don't get to do and to see the community come out and you know we we' get phone calls uh how much does it cost to get in or do I have to have a library card and no anybody can come out and that's what we do with those things and so it's just it's just really great it was a really great way to kick off the 20 24 eclipse for us and um we also did an incredible number of eclipse programs in March through April um all
064branches did we had 15 educational programs with free Eclipse classes we worked with our community matters team to create an eclipse safety tip sheet that was distributed in various locations throughout the county and we just keep looking at um at more ways to get involved in how do we how do we share information and resources with our community so we're looking forward to our explore summer program which will be is highlighted on the cover but also the details inside and um we thank all the sponsors who make that possible we give away prizes and we don't want to be using tax dollars to give prices to people who read so we go out and the community backs us on all those programs as well um as well as the friends and the foundation they also
065donate to support that program so if you um want to promote that we would appreciate it if you would promote that to your students to your family to your friends and get them involved into in in the explore summer program we do kickoff events with wild animal with a wild um Wildlife coming in so we always do some different things with that we'll celebrate explor summer with a foam party which I didn't know was a thing so I learned something too and um so all of it's there for you and so I appreciate your time um I can take questions but if you really have questions Lisa is the one to talk to and uh and her phone number is there as well as her email so thank you for the [Applause] time Jody I'm
066a part of that 67% I like the the book in my hand just so you know yeah me too yeah y my my wife is All Digital and I'm like I can't do it yet but no I do some but if especially history anything biographies you gotta have the paper be able to flip back to the pages and five minutes go I agree I agree thank you thank you thank you okay um action item 6.1 public comments I don't we do not have any all right so um the consent agenda does anybody have any questions discussion no all right M president I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented thank you Mr Daniels do I have a second second Gary Gary thank you Mr Robinson all right all those in favor signify by
067saying I I I any opposed all right motion passes 5 Z and and up next I'm sorry my is the adoption action item 8.1 adoption of the curricular items I think Dr Taylor are you you're pres yes thank you Mrs count I'm gonna call on Miss Shannon Carol fry to join us and Miss Marcy Sol sh stack sorry about that Marcy um there are directors of Elementary and secondary education Marcy's going to kick us off by sharing some of the elementary textbook recommendations good evening tonight I would like to recommend the following Elementary textbooks and materials in science for kindergarten through fifth grade kindergarten teachers are roping science supplies to provide Hands-On experiences for our students first grade in science recommends adopting science na National Geographic and in grades two through five we are reopt
068Pearson Elevate science in health healthed Pros is a program aligned with Indiana academic standards for health and wellness and focuses on safe choices drug awareness and human growth and development for grade five this program enhances student experiences during Red Ribbon Week also in art the art team recommends adopting Flex curriculum and pro learning from the art of Education University it is a digital subscription to support our K5 art courses and professional learning for our teachers and finally in music for elementary the music team recommends subscriptions through Quaver Ed smart music education music play make music and West music to support the Indiana academic standards taught in our K5 music courses as well as recorder instruction I'm going to hand it over to Mrs KL fry for a secondary textbook thank you Marcy uh the Middle
069School list is also relatively short when we get to high school that's another story um it is science adoption this year I'm pleased to say that um will be recommending a bundle again this year so that and again remembering back to co when we had adopted a bundle it put us in the position to be able to shift to um e-learning in a much easier way than we would have had we um only been using paper materials so I appreciate the support of that we've been in that process for a long time here in Center Grove I do want to point out when you look at those numbers on the far right we're representing them a little bit differently than what you would have seen in the past fast because what you're seeing is a
070six-year subscription cost per seat so we're no longer passing that on to parents and a fee so you're going to see us representing it a little bit different as we move forward as a board if you want to see things displayed for you differently we can always shape that but this was the easiest way for us to get into that process for showing you at the especially at the secondary level so when you see that $139 you can actually divide that by six and think about what that would be per per student and what we did was we went back to what our previous costs had been six years ago and what you'll find is with the exception of it being inflation Etc our costs are comparable if not lower in um situations our teachers
071um also do a lot um you'll notice if we can shift over to the high school you'll notice that there are some of our um courses and you me remember last year with mathematics that we made the option um of recommending for Algebra 1 Algebra 2 geometry to not adopt outside materials and instead to use our canvas course materials that had been um developed by our teachers you'll see on physics when you get down to that one they actually have shifted not to their own materials but to an outside um textbook Source that's not paper it's all computer-based um and it is a extremely low cost for us so our teachers are considering all of our options and we're working to move our costs and keep them as low as possible I do want to
072also point out that as you know we have a lot of turnover in our profession right now and we have a lot of new teachers and teachers that are joining us with potentially less training than what they might have come to us in the past when that happens we want to make sure that we can still offer a guaranteed and viable curriculum for courses where a teacher might not especially in our high school might not have a lot of content depth knowledge yet so offering a um solid curricular material set of materials to our teachers allows them to still have resources of lessons they can still if they have a family they can still go to the baseball game and know that they can pick up those teacher M materials that have already been vetted
073and developed for them and take some shortcuts towards being able to offer high quality instruction in the classro rather than having to design it completely from scratch when they don't have a lot of experience so you'll you see a balance of recommendations at the high school level and um I'm happy to talk about any of them in particular that you might have questions about the only other one that you might that might have stood out to you is the um the officiating course that we'll be able to offer um some of our other um high schools uh in the region are have been able to offer it will be able to offer it this next year we are not paying for the students to actually take the tests to be able to finish that so
074they'll have to do that to make their own but we're able to partner them with an instructor here and help them work through that course it's a unique offering in terms of the curricular material because that particular vendor allows the students to take that seat with them so if they can if they want to go back and touch up on rules and regulations it functions like a consumable so um and it allows the students to go back and continually get better at that so um these are the offerings for middle school and high school that we are recommending and I'm happy to field any questions you might have about it the only other thing that I would say is our process has not changed we work very hard in the the um to take advantage
075of the Science Tech or the textbook Caravans that are offered usually the January before the year that we do selection we then in the first semester have our teachers reach out to any of the vendors that they might choose to want to look at um we vet them then for making sure that they meet criteria that will allow us to um not have bias in what we're providing to them that they if Ed reports are available for them we re we lean into those other um rating systems to be able to check those out our teachers then pilot in lots of situations once they have those those samples and we also make the um make parents off an opportunity to take a look at the materials it's I believe it's a two- week time frame
076prior to this meeting by that time and usually much before we have the materials that are being recommended out for public uh review and if they're an electronic we have a a QR code and allow them to to view it that way so we're happy to answer questions that you might have about the recommended materials for K12 well just clarification we're still on like a fiveyear we're still yes we're still functioning on a six-year cycle it's been a very long time since the state the state used to to lock us into a six-year cycle it's been a very long time since they have done that but we have followed that for budgetary reasons obviously if we were to just say oh everybody gets to adopt we would have a lot more expenses in that year
077so we're still following a six-year cycle in most situations um if for some reason we have a readapt or we need to wait a little bit longer and Marcy's had that might want to speak to that sometimes it'll be a shorter period but if at all possible we want to try to go for the longest contract in in the least expense I like to hear the term reopt because that means the choice is right in the first place I appreciate that on that one uh do we still keep uh I actually like books going online for certain reasons it's easier for the whole classes to you know work with each other um but do we still think about keeping a classroom set of books actually in many situations it goes further than that it's still
078when when you see bundle it means that the student has a paper text that's their individual copy that they may use and they have electronic access and there are usually also um teacher site materials in which so all of those things that used to just be the teachers Edition they'll have simulations and all kinds of additional assessments and things that become bundled into that and I appreciate but yes if we don't have a on to one at the secondary level we usually make sure that we have at least a CL available I appreciate your statement that with new teachers it could take two and three years to build a curriculum that you're going to teach with your subject matter that the more resources we have for them the better and something that is noteworthy when
079you mentioned a reopt in science and Elementary this year we're reopt um for one of the main purposes you may have heard the in the last legislative session in 2023 it was passed um a curricular advisory list was going to be released by The idoe and schools were going to have to adopt the materials on that list and we have not yet seen for elementary um the science list and so we're reopt um and kind of waiting for more guidance on that state so that we're not adopting something now and then a list comes out and we may have to shift so that reopt is only for two years in elementary until we can see some of those advisory lists thank you Miss Shack and Miss Carol fry I'm going to share some information about
080the financials with textbook rental great job appreciate your help um in the past we normally would would follow this uh item with another item that is asking the board to adopt textbook fees and while they both shared the cost of our textbooks the fees have changed um a lot in our state and I wanted to provide the board with a little update of where we stand and what we've done for the calendar for the calendar year 2024 um this chart it well it's got a lot of numbers on it we'll just focus on the bottom totals um we have a little under 9500 students we did in the in September this year and you can see our average cost for curricular materials was about $380 um this includes the fees that we were typically charging
081parents plus it includes the cost of the technology that we were providing um and the software to manage that technology so that's why it won't match up specifically to a textbook bill um from the past um typically we would have saw K through 5 closer to that 100 to 150 range but we had been encumbering another $100 in management software and instructional software on those devices that we were not passing along to parents and so what we've done here is the state asked us to prepare this report um and we provided our total cost of curricular materials by grade level you can see that broken out for Center Grove and this is um our estimates for this current school year it was $3.5 Million the state set aside a pot of money $60 million for
082all students Statewide and simply divided that by the costs that were submitted by the school districts we submitted every penny we could to get the highest Reb return we could um that number came out to $158.2 per child in Indiana and you can see how that number times our student count added up we received about $1.5 million from the state this left us with a shortfall of $2 million to cover our cost again we were covering some of those costs already through the technology funds but felt it was prudent to share this what we weren't covering was as you can see below um we couldn't just say we were covering $2 million out of our technology cost and so we actually set aside $850,000 of new Revenue last year in our education fund and our
083education fund is 98% staff salaries and benefits that 850 came out of that pot and was put towards this this um and then in addition to that as part of our reoccurring go bonds we have included 1 Mill million doll in our reoccurring bonds each year to purchase student technology devices so we can continue to maintain those just wanted to call out those those numbers that's why that $2 million shortfall isn't something we're um really sweating right now we did come up with a nice plan to satisfy most of that and then through some cost reductions and some read-options and just tightening our our processes a little bit we think we'll be able to live within this budget um we would still Advocate that the state increase that allotment um as more and more schools
084adopt new material and the cost goes up that number also needs to go up and it needs to be tied to some inflationary rates and so I've probably shared more than you would like a little passionate on this area I am so pleased that our state is providing free textbooks Indiana was one of the few States left charging parents that's a real win unfortunately we had to pass that cost off to some other areas that really did hurt last year and we're still currently going to continue that unless the changes made are we anticipating a similar deduct from the education fund yes next year's Bud we currently not planning to reduce that number we will keep that fixed over the years if we can find some more revenue from the state or if we find
085that our costs truly come in under our estimated numbers we would reduce that number first and we would reduce the debt number second okay thank you no great question okay any other questions or discussion on the topic okay do I have a motion Madam president I move that we approve the curriculum materials for the 2425 school year thank you Mr Alexander do I have a second second thank you Mr Russell um all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed motion passes 5 Z and action item 8.2 the Energy savings project and I believe Dr long you're going it yes thank you um tonight we're asking the board to approve the second contract with cmta as you know cmta is our guaranteed Energy savings provider this contract is in is for 10,433 628
086with a firste guarantee of $258,200 in utility savings this contract includes the following projects the new ground Mount solar array shared between Maple Grove Elementary and the transport maintenance center and the geothermal HVAC renovation at Maple Grove Elementary what's the length of time from when they start to work to the uh was it oh the total or um the buyback period of the completion of the the completion of the work well they as you know the last month we approved the first part of the contract was uh which was new solar at Cent Grove High School and Center Grove Elementary uh controls at Center Grove Middle School North and uh and the Walnut Grove recommissioning so they'll have different endings of that uh they've started with the Walnut Grove solar project uh fixing that um
087I'm not sure I've got this total when are we projecting we'll start getting money at the end of next year okay so but all their work is going to be done in 10 years oh no it'll take um at the probably end of next year Sol right right many antip this is it this is the second part yeah yes and I know we're excited about this project for a couple reasons one is the you know Energy savings um the other is the guarantee right so I trust that we've reviewed the guarantee and it's exactly we expected that this should save us money in the long run yeah exactly yes we we expect $1.3 million over 20 year $1.3 million each year for a 20 year period now that's when they're done with all the work
088and a couple of these projects will probably run into 25 but most of them will stated to be done now in 24 and so we're we're looking to start seeing Savings in 25 and that will help with that number I spoke about earlier on page 48 guarantee starts in the contract we carefully looked at that exactly yes yes thanks sorry great thank you all right any other discussion Gary no all right do I have a motion Madam president I move that we approve the second part of the CMT design build contract as presented thank you Mr Daniels I have a second second thank you Mr Robinson all those in favor signify by saying I I I I any opposed motion passes 5 Z thank you yeah um up next our next executive session um will
089will be May 23rd followed by a regular board meeting starting at 7 also on May 23rd um I guess does anybody have any board comments Jack do what you like to start just a few things uh we had another successful uh Education Foundation gala last Saturday night this Reiko did a wonderful job with her board uh raising thousands of dollars for uh teacher grants which these days comes in very handy um the board recently attended a National School Board Association Convention um down in New Orleans we got out of there just before the flood started so that was a good timing on our part uh but a lot of good information um the best thing at these conferences is when we get to talk to other Schoolboard members from other areas who have similar you
090know challenges like we do or we learn things from U those uh other school boards uh this coming Saturday and I may need your help Mrs Rico is our softball alumni game uh it's kind of bringing back Decades of our softball players um and it's a it's two three games isn't it okay uh and we hope to see a lot of our girls back so thank you do steing I want to personally thank Jennifer riko for the wonderful job she does with the education we're lucky to have her in our community we're lucky to have everything that she does did a great job with g again so thank you for that also very impressed with what we saw from the high school here tonight all the extraordinary kids that that we put out and go
091forth and do great things in the community so we're lucky to be here all of us let's you know keep Center grow great yeah I'd like I'd also like to thank Jennifer I had a great time at the the Gayla um I'm also excited you know I my kids are still young so I have one going into high school next year and I have one going into middle school so I think it's excellent to see all of the opportunities and things that our kids get to do and I will tell you that I had to push my high schooler my soon to be high schooler out of her comfort zone a little bit but um I told her I was like you are not going to be a follower you were going to be a
092leader and you were going to do things out of your comfort zone so anyway I I'm excited to see what she accomplishes in high school so I just appreciate and I'm very grateful for everything that we saw tonight because I just think it shows how wonderful our community is and I think we need to talk about that more great night um from The Shining Star Mr Marquez I know he's gone but uh fantastic teacher coach and what he did all the way to U all the academics and seen some of a lot of former students to girls basketball and a number one ranked team that almost did it to have two go to bovan Army and then the art Department wow every time I go to that that's amazing and uh my youngest daughter's learned
093to love art by going to Center Grove High School now she's an art teacher in the Washington Township uh school district and then the last thing for me is uh Mrs McCracken and Mr poor I appreciate you guys being here I really do because you uh bring insight and um you you're good for our community and uh uh we like you to come we like your thoughts so that's it for me okay so just a reminder for the board uh on um April 23rd is our ambassador graduation here in the boardroom you're all invited it's at 8 o'clock um am am yes yeah and and one additional item uh that we wanted to talk about or just announce I guess we've decided to enter into um contract negotiations with Dr long to retain him as
094our uh permanent superintendent so I just wanted to um you know thank you for everything that you've done so far and uh we look forward to to to the next step so thank you thanks all right well earned all right and with that I will close the meeting