001good evening tonight I'm calling to order the Tuesday November 28 2023 regular school board meeting for schor first order ofed of Al off 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 with liberty and justice for all job hang all right next up is adoption of the agenda do I have a motion Mr President I we adopt the agenda as presented thank you Mr Russell do I have a second thank you Mrs counts have Motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying I all those opposed motion passes 5 Z next up is re recognition and presentations Dr AR you evening we have a CG Spotlight from Walnut Grove and I'd like to ask to come on
002up and take over would you like any certain order whatever you feel all right we'll start with Jack because he's super excited so we sent out a survey to all of the staff and asked them to nominate any student any support staff member Any teacher that they would like to recognize this evening for this uh Center Grove Spotlight and Jack's name came up multiple times Jack is a second grader at Walnut Grove Mrs Klein's classroom and he was nominated because several staff members said that he is always thoughtful patient polite and caring to others he embodies all the positive traits that come to mind when we think of wild cat way he's respectful helps others and goes out of his way to help our school and show his school pride so we have nominated Jack
003this evening as our Walnut grow wild cat Spotlight student would you like Jack to stay standing with us or can he go back with his family he can go back and then we'll we come be up okay thanks Jack congratulations all right for our support staff member the staff wanted to recognize Stacy Williams Stacy has CeCe has been in the district for nine years she is our special education instructional assistant and some of the wonderful things that were said about Stacy uh Stacy is a phenomenal educator that can continuously goes above and beyond she is willing to help her fellow co-workers offer advice help problem solve she plays an intrical part in our cares team and is always willing to jump in and help out our students she is a great source of inspiration for
004our team and I hope she knows how much she is valued she is making a difference and Walnut Grove is blessed to have her and for our teacher Spotlight the name that just kept resurfacing was Stephanie Dodson Stephanie is a second grade teacher this year she has taught for 15 years or has 15 years of experience um the things that were shared about Stephanie and the reason we should be recognizing her this evening is because she goes above and beyond to make every student feel loved she welcomes them each morning with a warm smile smile and a hug she genuinely cares about each and every student she goes above and beyond not only to teach her curriculum but she is also started a nature Club at Walnut Grove and she had so many applicants to
005the nature club that she willingly hosts the nature Club two evenings a week so that she can allow 50 students to participate and she not only wanted to do it one semester because there's so many things that happen in nature over over the school year she does this all year long I think we're on a little bit of a break now until February thank goodness because seeing them outside parading around all bundled up I feel a little bad for them sometimes because it's so cold but she does an amazing job for our students and and definitely shows them why um she is in this in this job she cares about them thank you we have you guys come up of get [Applause] thank you Mrs except this evening thank you Mr Alexander evening we have
006a report from teaching and learning on element and I'm ho yeah actually tonight um Marcy Shack she's our director of Elementary teaching and learning she's gonna come up to the podium because she's GNA Drive our presentation and she's going to I'm gonna do a little intro here and bookend Marcy um but I want her to to be able to share um the bulk of this work cuz this is what she does day in and day out it's her passion she's um our literacy Diva um our reading specialist in the district um and much of this work I would attribute um at least the start of it directly to her she's phenomenal so um tonight we want to talk about elementary Reading and specifically The Sciences of reading um at Center Grove we'll explore three different
007things why we're on this journey um what is the Sciences of reading and I put the S on the end of science you'll hear science of reading all the time it's the Sciences of reading here um that we're teaching and where does it exist in our curriculum um we're taking reading instruction to the next level in our district because we're not Reinventing the wheel or starting from scratch we're enhancing what we're already doing and the best practices but we're adding to and creating some more um explicit and systemic work that is across the district we're integrating um even more research into what we're already doing to make it better so it's really an enhancement and th to the next level um every time we present I I want do want to share that our goal
008for teaching and learning and this goes right into to our schools with school Improvement plans is to focus on supporting and enhancing an effective system um for learning to meet all of our students academic needs which then in turn moves us closer and closer to the all students of our vision um the success criteria we learn that big data that we use to decide if how we're doing is I learn I read sat and also graduation rate are big um things we're looking at um as well as a lot of small data along the way and just a reminder the system that's up there um it's impacted at that base by the culture how we do the work um but it's also about effective teaching and also about the curriculum to make sure that we're
009keeping that the same across the district um reading that we're going to talk about today is impact each one of those gears it's about how we do the work because the PLC process is so important to doing this work work and how it's done um it's about that effective teaching strategies and being even better teachers every day but it's also about making sure we can guarantee what we're doing so that it doesn't matter in what building and in what classroom you're sitting that some things we're just doing everywhere this is what we do um for students so planning learning leading all this work has really involved every level of Staff starting with Marcy as our director Amanda tremble because she works with our coaches and they're so embedded in this work um partner with Marcy
010on it um our principles and our assistant principles are vital in this work um and then that goes right down to the teachers and all of our support staff which you'll see we they're being trained and part of the the work too and with that I want to let Marcy take over the next slide sounds good all right now I'd like to talk to you a little bit about our why um our journey really started with some standardized quantitative data you can see here in this I I read um chart across the years from 2012 to present 2023 we've seen a gradual decrease in that data in 2012 we were at about 96% pass in 2013 we were we reached even 98% um and then this past spring we were at 90% so that was
011part of our our why in um really reigniting conversations around reading instruction and best practices additionally I learn data supported the work it's also part of our y you can see that um I learn data and English language arts here in this table um also tells the story while we performed above State average you can see there um I've listed the state average for each grades three four and five and then our Center Grove performance um it's still um not where we want to be at around 60% pass this past year in 2023 you can see grade three was at 62% pass grade four at 57 with a little decline there and grade five at 63% pass again this was just uh English language arts grades three four and five I also indicated here if
012they met in 2023 the school Improvement plan goal I know you review those usually around October I believe um and this past year was a 2% um increase was their goal so I did indicate districtwide which grade levels met those goals one thing I do want to share data too is one I feel really good while we didn't meet all three places the SI goal in two of those grade levels we did and I also like to see we keep getting closer and closer and actually surpassing in grade five where we were at fre pandemic in our performance and that's really kind of that getting back and then just keep moving forward um and I feel like we're getting closer and closer to that all the time which is a very attributed to Marc's but
013also what principes coaches and teachers are doing at the building level if I understand correctly the correct but they didn't gain is that what you're looking at yeah and if you look at the state average they followed about that Trend um a slight dip um so you know we can never really attribute one specific Factor but there's probably a lot that goes into that too us T 19 to3 is there a change coming was there a change in any of these years there has not been a change in the Years presented here that's why I have these years only but that will be a whole other board meeting to talk about the changes on the horizon correct and not next year um next year may be a pilot for our district with a change in
014I learn um but that's still to be determined and then the following year um the state is proposing a change to I learn words throughout the year and not just one test but that's a lot lot to unpack there okay another part of our y um has to do with some qualitative data and input um sorry I got ahead of myself here um the reading framework was uh became very parent that a framework was necessary to put together that system of learning that Dr Hoover talked to about at the beginning we knew we needed a framework for a Common Language uh a problem of practice we started to notice in plc's or professional learning communities was speaking different languages teachers were speaking different languages about reading instruction and the ways we were teaching reading um
015so teams of teachers came together um in a collaborative way to study research and to contribute to a comprehensive frame work that you see here on the screen this is a kindergarten and first grade framework and basically it breaks down times of um components of a quality high quality reading instruction block of time um so that we were all speaking the same language in our plc's so that brings me to The Sciences of reading as Dr Hoover alluded to to further enhance it it science of reading has become quite a buzz um um social media podcasts youve probably read some things in the newspaper um so about two or three years ago when that that swing was starting um to further enhance our reading framework uh we renewed the focus on the science of reading
016um to add depth and strength to our practices on that framework so the science of reading is not new it's been around for about 30 years um but current conversations are giving us a renewed look at how it translates into classroom practices so to Define it I want to start with what it is not because it's a pretty common misconception um when people start to talk about science of reading so it is not a specific program it's not one specific Magic Bullet program you can buy um it's not a lesson plan it's not just phonics a lot of times you'll hear that phonics focus and it's not a philosophy but what it is is a vast interdis disciplinary body of research from multiple fields from education from Neuroscience from Psychology from Linguistics um that speak
017to reading and writing and so um with our knowledge and our Research In The Sciences of reading we are taking those practices as Dr Hoover said to the next level and deepening our understanding we like to refer to it as brain aligned practices and Sciences of reading that plural because it is not one program or a fad but a body of research so that is why we add that Sciences it's a a term we've coined here in Center Grove it's not just one program it's a body of research so I could I could talk to you um and I know some people in the audience know this that we could talk for hours about this one slide because I'm pretty sure they probably have um but I'll just say I'll leave it at this that
018um teaching reading is complicated it is actually a bit of rocket science we are literally rewiring the brain when we are teaching kids how to read because it is a not a naturally learned um skill So reading has to be explicitly and systematically taught these two reading models for reading acquisition on how students learn how to read are two models that are commonly accepted in the field of the science of reading um that demonstrate this idea of the complicated nature of teaching reading I will point out the abbreviations on the left side because I don't have a key for those the W stands for word recognition times language comprehension so LC is language comprehension equals reading comprehension so both of those sides of that equation have to be present it is intentionally a multiplication um
019uh equation because without one of them if one of them is zero reading comprehension is also zero so because reading is complicated there is not just one resource that meets all those comprehensive needs in teaching it so I'm taking us back to this framework to show you where components of the Sciences of reading are in our instruction so there's the word reading um side of the equation that I just shared and there's language comprehension and then the resources that we use um Scholastic literacy will sound familiar to you as well as ufly and I want to talk a little bit more about ufly so ufly stands for University of Florida literacy Institute and is a new addition to our word study structure you saw on the framework it gives every student the opportunity to explicitly
020learn letters and sounds and how they work together so that they can become fluent readers and rewire that brain to learn how to read systematic means that ufly skills are logically sequenced and they build upon one another and explicit means it's very clear there's really no guesswork in in teaching those phonic skills so I'd like to show a two-minute video of you fly in action in a couple first grade classrooms we are going to do some pounding and sounding Mrs mcken oh I'm sorry and I got you go ahead going to do some pounding and sounding at first Mrs mckenny is going to pound and sound out the word and then I want you to blend the word together and tell me what word I just pounded and sounded are you ready what I like
021best about the uly curriculum is it is something we can do whole group it's a systematic and explicit way to teach phonic instruction go ahead build the word cap on your board cap what letter are we adding f f and what is this word four like I had have a present for you remember this isn't the number for my next word is like I'm first going to pound in sound oh I I heard three sounds what makes it so easy for teachers is that the scaffolding is already built in to the program so it's constantly reviewing um previously taught skills and everything is there for you it's either either in the manual and then on the website there are additional resources and the Google slides that we use to teach every day so it makes
022teacher prep extremely easy why are they irregular words with heart Parts who can remind me Emerson because they don't say the the regular sound they don't say their regular sounds are we ready to review some of them all right here we go what is this word good good what sound does o u l [Music] make Jordan did you have a question yes all that we just read it together how how a i e you're right they all had that I in that silent E teaching reading can be scary to some people but I feel like this huge phonics component everything a new teacher and even a veteran teacher cuz we need to review and learn Le and grow as well it's all there in this program for us we are we are going to do
023some we are going to do some pounding and we won't watch it again I'm sure Mrs mcky would appreciate that too this work really hard to get Consultants experts from University of Florida they came us 109 teachers it was phenomal and Dr Hoover we were the very first in Indiana to receive training from University of Florida so they've gone internationally they've traveled and we were the first ones on the map for Indiana also just received SCI comp Grant from State be able to continue to work rest second semester but sometimes in the science of reading conversation only phonics gets focused on in the science of reading where it's really a breadth and depth of a body of research for both reading and writing correct not the only part of the science of reading um interactive
024reader loud yes talk to me about it because I think I really like it I just need to hear it yes I think you really do I agree um we actually revised if you notice the top of this framework um the framework is dynamic we don't just leave it on a shelf to gather dust and pull it back out we review it every year I get feedback very frequently from teams like hey I think we need to look at this for next year we need to look at that and one of the feedback um pieces we received a lot last year was the interactive read aloud needed to be longer and so we expanded it to 20 minutes instead it was a 10-minute for interactive read aloud and 10 minutes for shared reading but it
025is basically a read aloud um but there is a lot of professional judgement behind it where teachers know where to stop and ask questions and it's where they're getting that language comprehension so students may be learning the magic e like like and five those words in their phonics but they're learning about um LS bra in their interactive read alouds you know that's where they're getting that rich com complex text with with a teacher and uh thank you for bringing the video the pictures of the kids were Priceless and uh for you Mr doctor 109 people participating well done well done thank you this is this was cool thank you thanks for sharing Marcy question how how does this we are going I'm sorry we just want to watch we love Mrs mckenny watch it again
026there we go so how does this look compared to what we have been doing is this additional change is it A Change Is it you know when we think about a reading program and all of that you know how does this look what how do we describe it to people we change something did we add to what we're doing great question it is a a supplement that was needed to complete that framework wheel um we had we have Rich resources in Scholastic but when we dug into those we realized there were gaps in the phonics piece so for that word study instruction we had a lot of momentum from teachers and interventionists about youly and needing something um very explicit and direct so so I think the biggest difference is that a teacher at Walnut
027Grove instructional coach at Walnut Grove can call a teacher at North Grove and say hey I'm on lesson 55 I added this word and this word you know the consistency and exactly um those PLC conversations have been made much more powerful so that's the biggest difference that we are speaking the same language about the skills and sharing resources um so not not um new but added to and one of the things without a system that's set up for you things teachers didn't always do things in the same order and so from grade to grade there would be gaps and overlaps like Mrs McKinny said all this stuff is out for you you really can focus on being a better instructor and not a planner because the plan is done for you don't change it this
028is the order you need to go in so no matter what classroom the child in next year they know what the child had the that student year before so we we found through the research Merc that Marcy has taught me um because I I taught English but not reading um at a high school level right um is that having a system and sticking with it is much more important than which one you pick but she did a phenomenal job of of Landing working with teachers and and our coaches to to select the system thank really like those two words sustainability and consistency U is very important and from building to building you know U that's with our moving around student body now that's going to be very important so we added this program this year
029right so did if it's a car going down the assembly line did we just put tires onto it or did we just put the body onto it where are we at with this that it will be a a running car are there asking is there more to add is there more to add are we there already or oh so as far is it buil this was you know got an engine as you saw this was one piece of of the reading framework in their 90 minute reading block and so that block and and and um enhancing reading and getting on the same page speaking the same language having that same structure across the district has been a multi-year process um to develop and then learn and Implement and be accountable for learning that so we're
030in year three or four Co hurt a little but we're but um that um we're towards the end of really saying this is all implemented and also having structures particularly with having our coaches being building experts um when we get new people they can on support them along the way as long as leaning into the PLC process to have that was my next question colleagues how do we bring on new staff yes to hit the ground running with this yeah there have been um so the maintenance piece of the ufly program it really is a a simple program to purchase but powerful in implementation it's just a manual and then everything is online with Google slides and because our teachers are amazing and go above and beyond like you heard this evening they've been saving
031you know extra files in Google Drive so I would say that part is built the the maintenance and sustaining um will be in the training in the purchasing of any additional manuals which Dr Hoover mentioned that science of reading Grant and I've built that in um with the additional training and the science of reading grant for the upcoming school year um and our coaches have done an amazing job putting together refresher and training for new teachers even um on canvas where they could watch modules great question thank you really just to talk a little bit about the concerns we have with legislators right now um talking about third grade retention and changing those laws so I don't know if you guys are following any of that and so I am concerned and would like all
032of our public to realiz to hear that and to voice your opinion to our legislators that that is a huge huge huge mistake to tie retention to a test score uh for our kids so um and this is around third grade reading hopefully that gets a lot more discussion a lot of input from yeah various stakeholder groups I agree I agree so the overarching thing and you're going to hear me say this pretty much every time is that that um the idea that what makes all of this work more powerful and being a better system is that we do it together and collaboration is slower but it's better in the end and we sometimes walk slow so we can run fast later and and this is a great example of of that work and it
033takes time and I I hope in a year we're sitting here saying gosh look at the bounce in in ela scores um but it does take time um but we're going to get there this is all the right and I learn but I I read will be consistent so we can still look at I read next year it's our most consistent measure but I learn we're not goingon to want to look at thank you and we're gonna we're gonna keep doing but this is s such a great foundational work um that we don't need to change when that test changes or it'll be very very small compared to how far we've come and getting everyone in the same moving Target sometimes thank you thank you for your time this evening hi my name is Keith
034poror I am a Community member and uh I am probably the only taxpayer that ever shows up at this [Laughter] meeting I remind you yes yes that's this I want to address the uh um the uh policies first and I'll hold my comments till the 1028 hearing please for the other one uh I think we should uh increase the public comments uh time limit to 10 minutes per person I just don't feel I'm not a professional speaker and I don't think too many people are uh here but uh I think we need more time to express our comments uh to the board so I would like to uh say that I would like to see the uh time limit move to 10 minutes per per individual thank you thank you Mr agenda do I have
035a motion Mr President I move that we approve the consent agenda I'll second it thank you Mr Daniels thank you Mr Russell we have a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed motion passes 5 Z thank you next up action items 8.1 approve the CER approved certified staff handbook Dr aranov thank you Mr Alexander this evening I'm recommending that the board approve the certified staff handbook and this evening uh Dr Nelson will provide you with some additional information yeah thank you well again tonight we bring you the recommendation to approve the 2324 student uh certified staff handbook um a lot of the changes that were made this year match current costs for health plans replacement of ID and strategics Badges and then updates language for professional
036development and then addressing the new Indiana code when it comes to conditions of employment um not many more changes we don't have many this year um a lot of them were just current language and current practices that need to be updated one thing is that conditions of employment with that new Indiana code um that we that we are required to report of any criminal history convictions a majority vote of school board members as a condition of employment this went into effect in July um and then also um there's a couple of things in here when it comes to um sick days for mental health we did update that um to cap that at one day and then also addressing long-term leave expectations that uh we addressed that language um last year and just updated it
037to the handbook for this year so not many changes just things to um update what our current practices reflect Dr Nelson all right do I have a motion Mr President I move that we approve the certified staff handbook as presented thank you Mr Russell thank you Mr Robinson we have a motion and a second all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed motion passes 5 Z thank you thank you next up is I'm assuming yep me again with support staff so um again uh exact same thing just matching um current language that we have addressing um some updates in some Schoolboard policies and current language um that we have on an everyday basis that needed to be updated within there um one thing I do want to point out um is
038you know our support staff we see them as our teachers and they are a huge uh value and a huge part of our CG family and so this year we do have the experience incentive like we've had every year but we were able to update that um and to provide the more compensation um for St for support staff members that continue their employment in CG um we also with that um were able to uh hopefully um retain them um and I know I've been doing some State interviews and they are very appreci of that so thank you so much um for allowing us to do that everything else again matches board policy um and just some of the things that if they do lose a badge or a cic badge what that updated um cost
039would be for them to replace that so nothing major this year any questions on the support staff handbook changes just a side note haven't we had some support staff move into teaching positions we have mhm yes and we continue I don't have the numbers off the top of my head but we do have quite a few support staff members that are in transition to teaching programs or even getting their bachelor's in education right now um that we're hoping to retain and put them into our classrooms um in the next few years great well you ready any other comments or questions Deja Vu I move that we approve the support staff handbook as present I'll second that motion thank you Mr Russell Mr Daniels we have a motion in a second all those in favor signify
040by saying I I I I all those opposed motion passes 5 Z thank you guys could make the last meeting easy could you 8.3 approve the school calendar for the 2024 25 25 26 26 27 school year Dr aranov I'm recommending this evening that the board approved those calendars as presented I'm going to uh let Dr Taylor uh present to you some additional information thank you Dr arov we're bringing three three years of calendars for the board to consider for approval um the only one that is a real change is what was published as a draft for next school year for 2425 um you'll see this change includes um ending School prior to Memorial Day and Toom that it's adding additional days to the first semester um this calendar was then used to model for
041the following two years um and the breaks remain the same um in all three calendars so a full week in October a full week in November two weeks in in December typically sometimes running into January and then two weeks in march sometimes running into April um and those are the the four to five breaks that we have within the school year um also recognizing all holid days and um this is not reflective any waiver days that the corporation may receive in the future um we typically would bring that back after granted that flexibility so I think that's all to share yeah I covered all the topics any questions for Dr Taylor Just appreciation for you taking our concerns and and making it work all right do I have a motion thank you Mr Robinson do
042I have a second a second thank you Mrs counts we have a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed motion passes 5 Z thank you 8.4 approve employee stiens Dr aranov thank you thank you Mr Alexander this evening I'm recommending that the board approve employees stiens and Dr Taylor will provide you with some additional information thank you I apologize for just one moment and loged me out get to my script for you um this is uh stiens that will be awarded to all employee groups um that'll include certified teachers and then administrators and support in levels a and at least one in Level D on their um annual working hours all right teacher appreciation Grant provides a little over $30 per student to school districts throughout
043Indiana and this amount is given to each district to be paid to the teachers state law requires that the board policy for the distribution of the tag the teacher appreciation Grant um be exist and be reviewed annually the board did review this and approved it in August um that's Poli number 32201 and it outlines Center gr's distribution of the tag the grant total will be used to pay the stiens to teachers who receive a final Effectiveness rating of either effective or highly effective for the last school year as our policy and statutory requirements um or statutory laws required stiens will be differentiated by 25% between highly effective and effective rated teachers uh We've estimated the amounts this year we we have actually received the official amount but not the official dollarss yet um and we
044estimate that we'll be able to provide teachers with either a 1.4% stien with a floor of $750 if they're rated highly effective and a 1.12% stien to be no less than $600 if rated effective for the 2022 23 school year we're all also asking the board this evening to approve a stien for all eligible administrators and permanent support staff again including levels ABC and one or two and D who meet the evaluation requirement Level A and B employees will either receive a 1.4% stien if rated highly effective or a 1.12% stien if rated effective level C and D employees who we don't rate with Effectiveness um they will all receive a stien of 1.4% and any employee assigned to work less than a 4H hour day will receive a minimum of $250 those assigned to
045work more than four hours a day will receive a minimum of $350 and if an employee changed assignments the minimum would be based off their last assignment um again pending approval tonight and payment from the state we plan to pay the stien by the end of 2023 thank you Dr Taylor any questions or comments for Dr Taylor this is what we do every year right it is all add it's up just slightly from last year we got just a little bit more as we well the amount changes the actual percentages of language are similar to we last year and for uh the non-certified staff we take it out of cash balance yes that's correct um when do we anticipate receiving the money typically we will probably receive it next week typically it's the first week
046of December okay we are preparing to pay it somewhere in between a regularly scheduled payroll so we'll do it on an off day so we'll do it on that'll be before the 20th if the money comes in or after the 20th if we don't receive it in time but it will be before the 31st okay and the state has to give us some money prior to the end of the year correct to spend it within 15 days Days receiving it right I appreciate the brother all right thank you Dr Tay and thank your team for the extra effort they go through on this every year because of the 15-day requirement from the state all right any other comments or questions do I have a motion I move that we approve the employee stiens as presented
047I second we have a motion by Mr Daniels and a second by Mrs counts all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed motion passes 5 Z thank you Sor my computer shut down everybody's running into that all right next up 8.5 1028 determination hearing and resolutions for the guaranteed Energy savings project Dr AR thank you Mr Alexander this evening I'm recommending that the board approve the 1028 determination hearing and resolution for the guaranteed Energy savings project and the uh capital projects fund maintenance and miscellaneous and this evening I'll turn it over to you right yep um this evening's um hearing has been advertised as appropriate um I now open this public hearing I'm going to turn it over to Dr Taylor to present the project the financing of the project and
048the actions we are taking this evening thank you and I'm going to lean on Dr long as well this evening he's got some special guests Jo us as we just want to kind of lay lay out what this is this is something we talked about during the budget hearing where we have uh um asked to increase our debt tax rate in order to do an energy savings project and we're going to go into great detail on that project um this will actually start in 24 and will officially be paid starting in 25 at the same time this evening we're bringing what would be an annual thing that we do for districtwide we call them go projects or go projects as they're typically go bonds um we're wrapping that into this as a larger project it
049will save us on some of the financing it'll it'll just help out the board is giving approval or we're asking the board for this hearing this evening and a second hearing on December 5th both of which have been advertised um again none of this money would be spent until these hearings have taken place um we will still have a whole bidding process to to um pursue and accept and award um and then I think that's all the key points on this Dr Long's going to share on the energy I will come back on the go and then talk financing thank you uh at the last board meeting the board approved uh cmta as our qualified provider and we had a presentation during the work session the public work session uh we've asked them to come
050back again tonight to share some of that information for people that might have missed that a little bit or want want some more information so tonight uh we have from cmta John Gasser and Carson Stewart and I'm going to invite them up to kind of run through their presentation and and if the board has any questions or the the public they're here to answer every hard question you have I'll take the easy ones all righty thank you Dr Long all right we appreciate yall having us we want to be respectful of your all's time we know you all got a lot to cover so we'll get right into it so uh I'm John Gasser partner with cmta Engineers been with the firm about 10 years now um let Carson introduce himself yeah car excuse me
051Carson Stewart uh been with cmta for four years now I'll be serving as project manager of this project we can hop into it so um yeah really just here to update you all a lot of this will be repeat so I apologize we'll try to move quickly but uh cmta we're a national leader in designing and building uh high performance K through2 facilities um a lot of people may say that or make that claim we like to you know the proof is in the pudding and in in the data so um a couple pieces of data that help support that uh we designed the first Zero Energy School in the entire country that was richardsville Elementary in Bowling Green Kentucky uh since then we've designed 9 plus million square ft of Zero Energy uh educational
052facilities um picture there on the on the right a couple pictures but the one in the front is the Zero Energy Design guide that ashray ashray is like the governing body for our industry they put together and um asked us to help write the design guide um so we've quite literally helped write the book on how to design a zero educational facility um out of the six examples in that book three of them they asked for to be our project so um yeah National expert in in designing and building these facilities um so what is a guaranteed Energy savings contract an energy savings performance contract there's a lot of terms um they all mean the same thing and and really at the core they're a financing tool so um you know traditionally uh you you
053build a project either renovate a building or build a new building with capital dollars um an energy savings performance contract essentially allows you to uh free up utility dollars and maintenance dollars that you're spending today and use those to to fund a renovation um for the visual people in the room the the py graphs on the left and right there on the bottom kind of help you visualize it so if we can reduce maintenance and reduce utility costs we free up dollar to spend um to pay off the project and anything above and beyond uh what we guarantee uh that the project has to save um the district realizes in a in positive cash flow so any any dollar we save above and beyond the district retains and we're on the hook for the savings
054for 20 years so we have to write a check for the difference if we fall short so we've done done a lot to date um maybe our uh I don't know sixth or eighth time uh meeting with with Bill and the team um gone over a lot of good information with them hopefully we've we've brought some value so far but ultimately um I don't know when we got contacted back early in the year April April May April May as soon as we got kind of contacted and and had a kickoff meeting we walked the facilities over spring break so uh became experts on on your all facilities dissected your drawings um dissected all the utility bills for the last three plus years um came to to Bill and Jason and team with some different kind
055of options and scenarios um they kicked them back to us to say hey I like that but look at this look at that so so we went through a couple iterations um ultimately got to a point where um they were comfortable releasing an RFP back in uh August um and we responded to that and we're selected at the the last board meeting okay I'm gonna take over here so I just want to talk a little bit more about some Center Grove specific details so like John was saying um big part of our project is to look at the utility spending so the the P graph on the left there uh that is a snapshot of what Center grve is currently spending annually on utilities that's electric gas and water uh for all 15 your facilities
056you see they're list on the right uh so we try to reduce this amount as much as possible to free up that that savings for you guys the chart on the right is sorted by dollar per square foot just this is a way for us to kind of look at the buildings that are spending more than other buildings you've got your uh football outdoor Locker facility on top on top you know this is a unique facility that uh has some unique requirements for HC so that makes sense that it's spending a lot more money and then you know some of your larger uh square footage buildings are also up there as well um and then a building we're going to talk about later Maple Grove Elementary School is in the top three of that list
057yeah so kind of moral of the story is anything above a dollar a square foot we kind of look at as opportunity and kind of meet on that bone um we got plenty of that here okay this is this chart here is just another uh way we compare 's buildings on energy called energy usage intensity so that's just simply we take the electricity and the gas and we convert it to a common um energy unit BP tuus divide that by the square footage so that way we're comparing girl buildings apples apples um and this chart also is a good way to kind of see what kind of HBC system types are more efficient than others so you know geothermal hpac is well known it's it's you know data is out there that it's a very
058efficient hpac system type so it makes sense why uh your buildings that have been converted to geothermal or at the bottom botom of this list uh your buildings at the top would be the ones that boilers and Chillers um and then that Maple Grove Elementary School which we've already identified it's Problem Child um is second from the top from a eui perspective I've got in there on Gray uh the energy star k through2 national median they're just a a rating system that that has looked at buildings looks at data of buildings Across the Nation um on an eui standpoint and the national average is of 58 so you guys you know you do have a lot of facilities that are above that National medium yeah so an easy way to think of energy usage intensity
059eui is like miles per gallon for a car except in this case high is bad low is good um so allows us to kind of compare schools Apples to Apples and we threw the HVAC system type on there because it tells a story and that number one if you look at a py graph of where Energy's consumed in a in a school it's like 55 to 65% hbac you know 20 to 25% lighting so HVAC has a huge impact on energy usage per square foot so kind of tells a story there of geothermal being um you know just based off the data like we talked about EUR all's best performing schools okay um get a little more details on the project that we guys are we are proposing for you guys uh we've got 3.7
060megaw of solar a geothermal HBC renovation I Grove Elementary School in controls Ral commissioning across your District uh for the solar 2.7 megaw of that is uh proposed for rooftop 1 Point Z megawatts of that is going to be a ground Mount system it's going to be a dualed system it's going to feed Maple Grove Elementary School and your transportation maintenance center since both those buildings are adjacent um you guys do have an existing uh solar array at walnart Grove Elementary School it just has some ground maintenance and wire maintenance issues that we've identified that we think are affecting its its production so we're going to get we're going to take care of those get it back up to the capacity it should be at um and then later on we'll talk about the HBC
061and controls yeah so just to put it into context this is a very like abbreviated list when we were having our meetings with Bill and Jason the team we were like looking at everything like no stone unturned looked at potential for trash compactors looked at utility rate change opportunities looked at Water savings measure we we we looked at everything threw everything on the table this is kind of what's stuck um if that makes sense and the Carson's um under selling the the Zero Energy schools a little bit so to give you some context there the state of Indiana currently has zero zero energy schools um it's got a It's like got two or three zero energy or zero energy ready buildings um that are very small so um this is an outstanding opportunity for this
062school district to to put two schools and kind of take them off the board from an energy perspective where they're going to be producing the same or more that they use it's a really big deal and those those aren't brand new schools either right so those are uh 20 plus year old schools and to to take them off the grid is is a very big deal and something that the district should be really proud of okay uh just to go a little more in detail on the solar so you know solar at one building one facility is not going to be Val the same as soar at another facility so any district school district we work with we perform what I'm calling the solar feasibility study there's a lot that goes into this there's four
063main categories that we look at to kind of initially get a start and have listed there so the first thing is roof condition and land space you know what is there space to put solar how old is the roof if we're going to put it on the roof we don't want to put solar somewhere where we're thinking about having to do maintenance on that roof in like two years when the solar is supposed to be there for 20 years um the next two there utility rate structure net metering those kind of go hand inand so you know solar is only as valuable as as much as you're paying for that energy from utility um so what you're off setting with solar it's got that's what it's that's the value of of that is what you're
064buying from the utility the net metering is is you're going to hear that called a couple different things depending upon the state and legislation essentially that's util way of saying this is what we're going to give you you know if if there's a chance where your building is not consuming as much as your solar is producing you know that that energy has to go somewhere so it's going to go back to the utility and we don't want you guys to give free energy to utility once you guys to get money for that so every utility has their own uh policy we're calling n metering that says this is how much money we're going to give you for that energy uh and then the last thing there green check marks across the board is electrical infrastructure
065you know it's just making sure you all your buildings are very up to date and we'll get into that a little later um that's not an issue we're just looking for anything that's kind of outdated that that might kind of confuse the interconnection yeah the the big picture story there's a lot on here and you know we we look at this every day so it's easy for us but more of the story is solar is like any technology um it's only as as good as how well it's been designed installed commissioned to work right and kind of monitored over over time so if you have somebody that tells you solar is good or solar is bad the truth is somewhere in the middle and and what this slide is kind of meant to show is
066we looked at it everywhere and there's some some schools that are slam dunk fits solar makes a lot of sense other schools it doesn't and whether that's based off the the utility you guys kept us on our toes here so you have three different electric utility providers that serve different schools in the district so that that makes a big difference and uh for a lot of what is that JC jcmc yeah jcmc is kind of like a non-starter for a lot of schools because of their net metering uh laws and regulations so yeah yeah so jcrc you know if you if you over produce there you're going to get just pennies on the dollar um is what they're offering and I do want to note all of these um agreements once when we go into
067solar with a utility you enter an interconnection agreement all of these agreements do last the lifespan of the solar up until the point you decide to decommission the system yeah I guess the the last thing to point out here not to be the dead horse but just because a school is in yellow and red doesn't necessarily mean solar can't work there solar can work on any building it's just what is the um payback of that solar so these are 20-year projects um so really anything that is a 20-year payback or better helps produce savings to fund the project so we highlighted the ones in green for for Jason and and Bill to kind of show you these are the ones that are going to help help fund other work in your projects it can be
068done on the yellow and red buildings it's just going to be more of a drag on that project as opposed to something that's going to produce savings and help fund other work [Music] so okay um so out of that feasibility chart these are the facilities um that we have selected to receive solar uh there's seven existing the wellness center is a new building that's being constructed uh that we're going to put Sol on because it is with within that utility uh territory that has that favorable um rate structure and that metering policy um but essentially you know I've got listed there the annual utility savings for the system sizes that we can fit our team of solar Engineers has been on the rooftops of all these buildings we've looked at the conditions uh We've made
069sure we're putting solar on roofs that are new um structural we're doing structural at all the buildings uh we have a structural engineer that that's reviewing existing and and we're going out there and and doing iners site surveys to make sure it with the drawings match which is there uh because because we're going to make sure it's safe um working with the utility companies and and we're also working with utility companies on the um for for the owner on their behalf uh working through because every utility company has their own interconnection process it could be a two we or it could be a two Monon uh ordeal that we have to go through and we're already ahead of that um getting getting that stuff underway uh I've got in the green box there is the
070ground Mount system like I spoke about um is kind of Illustrated there below that's kind of the size of the array filled that would be needed to supply um energy to Maple Grove Elementary School to make it zero energy and I don't know if we we really explain what Zero Energy means he so you know Zero Energy uh produces just as much or more than than it uses so essentially takes it Off the Grid in a sense um so yeah everything in green there is panels that would be serving Maple Grove everything in red would be serving the transportation center there's some uh economic value of making that one single ground Mount system as opposed to two separate so just set up nice to combine those and and serve the two different buildings okay so
071this slide's a little that's okay um so this this slide should have been shown up a little earlier but essentially uh they're inra Cent gr of Community Schools um shown out of 66 eui and this this is just to show you guys that yes you do have a lot of buildings that are above that like Energy Star National medium but we've dealt with other clients that have had average eui way higher um and lower and this just kind of shows the breakdown of you know how our projects go so Baseline eui shown in Orange this is the chart that we showed you guys earlier um and then we're going to guarantee it which is going to show you what what we think we can get it to after we do all of our energy conservation
072measures it's going to be in blue and then um we have to verify that we measure it with real data we look at utility bills um so this is that's the data there that's what's in green so we've we've always overd delivered on what we've promised um in our energy projects yeah because we have to write a check for the difference if we fall short so we wouldn't be a good business and a successful business and able to bring you all awesome projects if if we were falling short of guarantees so like to promise and and overd deliver and the good news is anything above and beyond what we guarantee that you save again is 100% retained by the district to to spend as you see so next okay um so John spoke earli you
073know we look at everything uh one of the things that we look at is your hpac system types and and equipment and the ages so we went through every single boiler mechanical room and all your facilities we've got name plate data looked at drawings to kind of create this we call a red yellow green chart um that is basically an assessment of the the health of girl's hbac systems so ashray stands for American Society of heating refrigerating and air conditioning Engineers uh they're kind of like the drill accepted uh for assembly that that creates these guidelines for what what a the lifespan of HPC equipment should be so we compare the ages of Eur old's HPC systems to their guidelines and come up with this chart so green is your your well outside that expect
074the end of life orange is you're getting within kind of five years of that and then red you've already exceeded this and and and you all are doing very well I'll put it um you all we a lot of times we show this to districts and it's like all red and yellow and no green and you guys do an outstanding job of maintaining your facilities keeping up with them this is just a snapshot of kind of the State of the Union in terms of your hbac infrastructure your at your school so kind of good job um and just back on that slide real quick um some of these items that are in orange and red I do believe there is a plan already that you guys are working on those which is why we didn't
075propose projects on those the one that was kind of the outlier you know you saw earlier in the energy models was made for Grove Elementary School um so that that one does have agent equipment agent equipment typically uh uses more energy so that's why by um as about talk here in a little bit a little bit the geothermal HBC renovation that we proposing for that school here it is um so we we showed that a Geo HPC system is one of the most efficient HPC systems out system types out there so we've gone through Maple Grove Elementary school it's a perfect candidate for us to do this uh ge equipment replacement proposing one for one uh equipment replacements for to a water source heat pump for your fan coil units your air handling your outside
076air systems uh and what's the benefit of this is we can use a lot of the existing systems that are there like the hydronic piping they Supply air duct work uh it makes this project you very very easy um straightforward easy and E economical you know we don't want to we don't want to rip out piping that's got 50 years of life if it's only been there for 20 years same with duct where um sets up very nicely to be converted to geothermal and unlike most properties um there's a lot open field next to mle elementary school so there's no issues with with sizing a Geo field to fit next to the school and if we do this HC system replacement to a Geo system the number there at the bottom 144,000 is our projected
077annual savings just from doing that system type conversion a huge part of our savings um is coming from controls so the district districtwide has a a building automation systems and all their facilities so essentially you know there's a computer that somebody can log into and says I want the cafeteria to be this temperature it's going to send that to the controller it's going to control the fill controller and it's going to make sure through a sensor temp stat out in the field that it's reaching that set point um this is a very powerful system that has a lot of capabilities um and we are we like kind of proud ourselves of being the expert in building automation systems we have several different energy saving sequences that we can Implement into the existing system that you
078guys have such as scheduling timal start stop sequences demand limiting um and just sequences that are just specific to the HPC system types that you have that that chart you see there on the bottom kind of shows in Gray the you know where EUR all's average euis are for the different system types and in green is what we can control it to by just doing controls only um as a energy con conservation measure yeah again you you all have the infrastructure in place you've spent good money on these Control Systems now it's time to tune them optimize them monitor them make sure that they're they're running like they need to be yeah and a part of this as well um real quick is you we're going to go through and do a complete audit of
079the controllers and sensors that do have in place and make sure that those are working and functioning um and get those replace if they need to be another thing we typically uh see a lot of red and orange on for other districts as the lighting opportunity so you guys is just another Testament to how great your facilities group is doing you know Green is good LED lights um have already been installed in the majority of your facilities and even what you see there uh the CG Elementary School gym and the middle school north I think is has already been taken care of since we did our initial auditor is being taken care of very soon um so kudos to you guys for already taken care of this yeah I can honestly say so I've been
080doing this 10 plus years you are the first district that I've seen that are actually already converted to LEDs and replacing those LEDs with more efficient LEDs so again just kind of speaks to the culture of Center Grove and and Daryl and his team on focus on sustainability and and Energy savings and being good stewards of of taxpayer dollars okay so this is this is a pro project eui chart so I showed you the one at the beginning that showed where you guys were operating that that's now what you see in Orange and then this is where we're going to guarantee you guys um we expected to be once we Implement all these uh ecms or energy conservation measures the the only thing that is a little inaccurate here that I need to change is
081we talked about zero energy earlier so many grow Elementary School you see we get it down to an eight uh that's just a little bit of gas that's left there U that we would we can Electrify the school and then with the the solar we're going to make that Zero Energy so that would be zero and then Sugar Grove you see there it's getting down to 24 same thing there there's some gas there we're going to add some more solar Electrify school we'll get that down to a zero as well so so your district eui will actually be a little lower than 43 and then uh so this chart here is just the summation of of everything that I've just talked about as far as project scope uh what our estimated costs are nothing's been
082bid yet this is just cost that that we do a lot of projects like this we have a whole Data Bank of of historical cost that we pull from and we we've talked to some local contractors and vendors to kind of come up with these numbers and then also through our models we've got the estimated Energy savings you see there on the right uh just multiply out by 20 years which is the life of of our contract um total cost for everything would be $17 million you're getting pretty close to paying for all that with Just Energy savings and then the icing on the cake which we haven't talked about up this point the inflation reduction act has some legis legislation in there that if a facility or or owner is installing geothermal systems or
083solar they can take advantage of a tax incentive through the ITC um just a lump sum paid out as much as 30% of the total project cost and and there's some ways you can get that even higher um so we've we've added that in there as well on the uh bottom line yeah so the legislation allows non-t taxpaying entities to take advantage of of tax credits that were previously um held for just you know private taxpaying entities [Music] so so this is essentially a 20-year cash flow model of what the savings would look like over 20 years so you've got a total project cost of roughly $17 million we're you know that's our best guess at this point um over the 20 years what do we show so over the 20 years total cost savings
084total Energy savings of 228 uh when you factor in the ITC the $5.9 million coming in year two um total cost Savings of of 28.7 million over the 20year period so at the end of the project um there's a couple other items that we give you guys that value we're we're going to do some owner training so we'll bring on manufacturer reps to train your facilities maintenance staff on on any new energy conservation measures that we provide for you guys uh whether it be the GE equipment or the solar um or or the controls uh provide the owner menu men manuals will'll provide warranty documentation and we're going to do all the commissioning as well and you'll receive those plans um commissioning is ongoing as well our office is full of 70 plus Engineers that
085are constantly monitoring the progress of all the projects that we do so we're not waiting on you guys to call us to say something is wrong with this system we're already going to be aware of it uh so we can we can quickly identify and correct any any any issues uh we're also going to provide operation and maintenance support we have full-time matri and control service technicians on staff um who can help with any warranty items and then I just wanted to highlight there again we talked about it several times zero energy um this is a big opportunity for Center Grove to be able to be the first school district in the state of Indiana to have two well have one but now possibly two zero energy uh elementary schools yeah and just to recap
086last thing here so we talked at the beginning how you know Energy savings performance Contracting it's really just a financing mechanism at the end of the day um over over you know today you guys have renovated and and built new buildings the traditional Capital way uh which has been been great um you've got outstanding facilities a lot of new infrastructure a lot of state-of-the-art infrastructure um but it may not necessarily be performing the way that it should be and that's where this project is different and that we're on the hook for the savings for 20 years so we can't just say hey we built it we designed it we we gave it to you and walk away we our partners for the next 20 years um we're going to be monitoring energy energy bills coming
087back hopefully once a year at least talking to the board talking to you all and showing you results of of how this project is performing okay thank you gentlemen thank you all right I'll just quickly share a few slides on the remaining parts of this project that we're we're talking about this evening um again this is something we've done since 2009 the the rest of this Bond issuance would go towards the reoccurring go projects we use that to supplement our maintenance and technology equipment which our operations fund hasn't been able to fund since 2009 and then I'm going to go in some required funding slides um obviously so this is a project we're talking about in 2023 we're going to do the majority work in 24 and we're going to start paying for it in
08825 a lot of things can change most importantly our assessed value which we will not know until August of next year so a lot of these numbers are on the conservative and very high side we also don't know where interest will go in the next 12 months um we will jump in as quick as we can to get the lowest interest rate possible but if we see it's a favorable rating we'll wait until later um and so you can see all the perent details this is on the guaranteed Energy savings project the biggest number at the top is there's as as as the gentleman mentioned that's $17 million towards this project on the next slide same chart but it's an $8 million um in the rest of the project and that's for the reoccurring go
089projects um and again all those numbers are inflated and conservative just want to show where this uh what this does to our tax rate go to the next slide for me thank you U this is what we presented to with the budget in September and then approved in October um we did at the time talk about a 4 Cent increase to go to a dollar 06 um and we shared a lot of information about what that would mean for the average taxpayer that could still fluctuate as final numbers come in um but that's the most that would be right now it would only go down if we get more favorable tax cap reports and then finally how's that compared our neighboring schools in in Johnson County um you'll see our current rates and all current
090rates for 2023 we were at just over that dollar to and even by going up to that dollar six we'll still remain in fourth behind the three schools that have passed a a general fund referendum what's the timeline look like again this evening not asking for any action from the board this is a two-step process and all the action will take place next Tuesday Morning um on December 5th where we'll have a second meeting on this and approve the resolutions from there then the process that the county plays out um we would come back in January and February with bids um as as cmta and Dr Long work through that process we'd start work and we're hoping to be done next fall um it might bleed a little into 2025 but we want to start
091recouping these savings as soon as possible again first Bond payments would begin in 2025 um I think that's the last slide yep awesome so again not asking for any action tonight but this is a good time and appropriate time to turn over and finish the rest of the hearing Mr Alexander thank you Dr this is the appropriate time for members of the public to comment on the project that and the bonds that were presented this evening are there members of the public who would like to comment Mr por thank you for this uh opportunity uh I have met with Mr Taylor I think three times uh and we have went over this project uh I don't have these latest numbers with me but uh I was given uh some information uh when it was back
092uh 15,000 or 15 million do but I see this project uh we increased our taxes and I am not against the increasing our taxes for the educational system but I look at this project we are taking the we are doing this project and we're going to have some savings if this works in the operations fund but to pay for this we have moved the paying part of it to The Debt Service fund we've increased our debt and we will be paying for that now I look at this chart that they submitted to us and when you look down I I can't believe some of the figures that they presented uh to us that we will sa save money over the 20-year period with the cost of the gas going up with the cost of electricity
093going up and dealing with uh Johnson County RMC who buys electricity from another company If they raise the rates they're going to raise the rates and stuff if the water company right now America water has a big increase before the regulation board and stuff and if the taxpayers don't know it uh the only company electric company that is regulated by the uh regulation commission is Duke Energy uh Johnson County RMC and barkersville they can do whatever they want to as far as rates board okays it your rates are going to go up okay so I think uh uh the scope of reducing our cost is one thing but I think a better way to reducing the cost and let's just take this building we're in right here look at the water do we need to
094water the grass every day here our water bill right here at this building right here is $4 4,662 just for this building can't we water it on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Skip Saturdays and Sundays we can cut our cost from these things just put a warship in the showerheads at the football locker room and you're going to cut the cost thank you go uh I I think there's a lot of ways that we could spend $17 million and do a a more conservative approach to this I think we should look at some better Architects if they designed a building and a heating service that is not doing the job then we should look at some different Architects to do it and we got buildings on this program that that weren't even considered I did hear
095the gentleman say that they are looking at the uh Health Center that they're going to build but how about the batting cages you know the batting thing for the golf that building wasn't considered and the other the baseball facility that that facility wasn't considered and we have other buildings here too that take heat and and uh energy that weren't considered so I believe that uh they have a good program and I believe it will save us some money but it is a a a thing do we want to go deeper in debt so that down the road we don't have money to build a school you know and I think a lot of the money is going to be you some of this money is going to be used in two th in 25 and
096this year in 24 and next year in 25 to pay the teachers uh increase that we just gave them in salary because there there was not in the budget there was not a 4.6% increase I figured it out most overall it was only about a 3.6 or something like that on the average and stuff thank you thank you thank you very much I think I've expressed my comments uh I could go on I would like to meet with the school board members to uh discuss this and uh I'm I'm not opposed to the thing but I'm I just don't think it's the right direction thank you thank you Mr are there other members of the public like to comment about the bond hearing this even okay Mr Alexander if I might I just like to
097respond shortly just a real quick thing we did look at the hitting facility and we did look at the baseball facility but because of the provider of of energy for both of those it wasn't very it wasn't very attractive and it wouldn't have saved us any money so we did look at those we did also look at the wellness center that they talked about and we looked at the academic Pavilion uh that's being built right now so th we we considered all of the buildings we just eliminated some of them because they weren't weren't good options for us thank you Dr all right at this point I now close this public hearing are there members of the board who have comments or questions all right 86th ta anticip knowing this is Mr Alexander's favorite agenda
098item of the Year we're second favorite I always lose track U bringing this in this is thank you and the state of Indiana we receive our property tax payments twice a year in June and December um we have bills that we have to pay between those on the other 10 months and so we go to the Indiana Bond Bank this sun's been set up we've been using it again for as long as I can recall um this year's amount is 3.85 million um and you'll see some kind of details of what we were able to borrow last year and how much that cost us an interest this is just not a fun thing we have to do but it is something we have to do in order to make those bill payments prior to that
099um that those checks coming in uh Miss Howard if you go to the second page for me there's a chart just kind of shows our history of borrowing in this area um it would continue to increase if we legally could increase it um the Bond Bank um is the only thing that is one of the few mechanisms we have to control cash cash flow and available cash balance in our operations fund um due to the increasing impact of tax caps you'll see that number is now down to 3.8 for this year and which of which we could borrow and so it's something we'll continue to watch and monitor um part of the actions the board is considering With the Energy savings is to help eliminate some of that tax cap impact and would allow us
100to return to a higher bar um a higher rate of borrowing if necessary um the remainder of the shortfall will come out of cash balance in the operations fund until we receive those um deposits um there is action on this tonight and a resolution for the board to sign that Miss Howard's prepared dror question dror War app another annual event here you know just keep keep it rolling um each year the high school makes course proposals to add courses which may be available to students in future years the course requests are vetted through the department chair as well as the high school administrative team proposals this year include additional courses to support and expand our next level programs of study in business engineering and Technology in the fact departments uh I have created a chart
101summary there that summarizes the proposals by course department and grade levels to take those courses the descriptions um that are also included provide more details about each course this year the high school would like to add 17 descriptions for potential courses to the High School academic guide these courses match the course descriptions approved by the Indiana Department of Education for high school course offerings these requests include the following two in business one in engineering and Technology five in family and consumer science three Performing Arts in specifically in the theater one physical education one social studies course in early college and four World language courses um a decision on whether to offer any specific course is determined through the scheduling request process and based on the number of requests for those courses by students the Staffing
102the student need in the building and instructor availability if any textbooks or resources are needed in order to offer these courses next year those requests would be brought to the board for approval in the spring as typical and as a reminder during the implementation of those Next Level programs of study approval for additional courses may be requested in the spring or summer and both the high school and I really appreciate the flexibility you've given us in the last two or three years to do that I know we in the spring to add a construction course which is full this year so and that's one of the courses the engineering and Tech course is to offer that second level um on that description I actually if you scroll a little bit more I like to show
103not only what all the courses are there but the tables below starting there um anything that's highlighted the pathways are three courses of study in a concentrated area so anything highlighted in blue is new this year so you can see how s courses are finishing out that third year in the course of study so that means one more pathway is done ready to go for kids so that's really exciting that we were able to do that and and finish up the final POR in several of those Pathways um a couple we're still working on but it's it's great news that we have those so many great opportunities um beyond what we can even offer kids at C9 that we can do right here in our in our high school this a lot of hard work
104by Dr Henderson and our chard Department chairs um and our assistant principles to get this ready and bring to you so any questions do we ever lose any classes um there are some years certain courses aren't offered like there may be a year where there's only six requests to take um science fiction literature and then the next year all of a sudden you got 26 so some courses like that will go back and forth foreign language will vary a little bit and I'm really excited about the foring courses in there because it'll give some opportunity for our um Native Spanish speakers to actually get some credits for learning um and showing Proficiency in their native language but also at higher level so there's some really great things they doing to expand um support for um
105kind of a whole new group of students that we haven't served that way so excited about that than from very often thank you so all of you have heard a lot of this um in our work session in October we shared all of it with you um Tracy if you want to move to the next slide so the first question is is why do we want to make any changes so when Dr Gabriel retired I took over facility rental we're going to call it under community outreach okay we're gonna tuck that right under there so in looking at this um there were a couple of areas that I thought that we could improve on and we had not made any updates to the expenses that we charge that cover our expenses for labor custodial or
106security and some of those other things um so so these changes would update those um those expenses the current guard lines also don't differentiate between a nonprofit group and a for-profit company so we have companies all the time that come in there's there's dance companies there's um outside teams and things that want to rent our facilities they're charging for people to come in and kind of we're eating all of those costs so we saw an opportunity there to update that as well and to make sure that we're tracking all of this um it's probably long overdue to move this to an online platform this will allow us to track our Certificate of Insurance which is very important for these companies that come in and um this this new software that we've purchased will allow us
107to do that or take our applications online it organizes everything um into one central location it'll allow us to invoice it it will give our business office the opportunity to get in and see everything that's happening we can track it make spreadsheets graphs whatever um and it also will coordinate with our event link system which is currently being used in our high schools and our middle schools so all of those events will flow directly into it and so people aren't going to have to uh to go to two or three different places to see if something is is reserved which I think is the issue that we have right now as well in that invoicing piece of it it's also going to allow us to kind of itemize the requests which is really nice for
108our Auditorium and the natatorium which has lots of moving parts to it so this has been a year-long process probably longer than that um I've met with all the different groups in in the school corporation including the district business office our food service people because we do have some of those um that get rented sometimes custodial police maintenance of course our athletic directors our treasurers all of our principles and then some quality time with the nitorum and Auditorium managers and a lot of the people at the high school who um are were our main rentals are occurring is is primarily in all those great facilities that we have in the high school so the summary of the changes obviously the fees have been updated to reflect our actual costs um that's coming straight from those
109departments and we're going to add this class three which is that for profit group that I um mentioned earlier and I'll get more into that in just a second it's going to clarify the natatorium rental guidelines we have not made these updates um since uh I don't think we've made a huge change since we had Brad Smith come on board and now that he's here and uh has his head around everything going on over there he he made a a few changes that I think are really going to help out in the auditorium um we took out the removal we removed the rental of classrooms um with all of the technology and everything that we have in there right now teachers just don't like people going in their classrooms um we always have opportunity if
110there's a special situation that we could we could lift that requirement but for now we're not just going to put that out there for the public um we've also added outdoor spaces to our rentals I know Maple Grove their location gets um rented a lot of times and this just helps us to track that a little bit better we don't really have a way to do that now um as I mentioned it moves to the rental application to the online platform and then it just kind of cleans up the language throughout the document that's kind of been there for a while so class one is what we had a lot of conversation with for those of you who've been on the board for a while class one are those nonprofit organizations that serve our Center
111grow students so you're talking cgbl cgbbl all of those groups that that pretty much exist for our kids nothing changes for them so they don't pay a base rental fee um they do pay custodial during C certain times of the week but none of that is changing from it was before class two is what our current class two was before but we've pulled out those four profit groups so anyone else who is a nonprofit based in White River Township they would see the same kind of deal so they would have to pay those um custodial fees other labor fees that are just basically helping us keep the lights on and and offsetting just a tiny bit of those costs um but no real rent Ral fee for those class two people so if you go
112to the next slide class three this is our new classification so this would be any for-profit group that is based in White River Township and it would add a rental fee to those to those custodial and security fees so for the elementary and middle schools that's $100 and for the high school that's $250 per event or per hour depends on how they kind of break it down the nitorum and some other spaces are hourly so that money because of this new software system that we're going to be able to use we'll be able to go directly back to whatever space they're renting so for the most part that's going to be our athletic departments which we all know they need the funds right um so it'll be much easier to track all of this um
113I've worked a lot with Kathy and I appreciate her she's been helping us we're going to try to get this um so we can pay online through our through our software and I think that's going to be very helpful and that's it so let me know if you have any questions it's been a couple years aort thank you and probably some educ oh for sure got a lot of rules yeah we'll be training everyone for sure so we would we would plan to put this in place um January 1 but we would have a grace period to the start of next school year because we have a lot of things that are already in motion for this school year yeah thank thanks we're redoing the whole website [Laughter] so yes polies questions T have policy
114announ OPP really enjoy when I've been there great job grandparents was awesome and tell uh tell the young lady Mrs doson um very impressed that she'll do two evenings and not have to get rid of any of the students who doing that and that uh meant a lot but you guys are doing a great job so thank you and the Dr Taylor just straight out thank you for the calendars I mean I you put a lot of work into it and I really appreciate it I'm a non voting member on the barers Redevelopment commission they have a project that they had a groundbreaking on not this Tuesday but the Tuesday before Thanksgiving on barter Plaza uh the council and the Redevelopment commission are putting a a Plaza downtown an additional amenity that I think will
115be good for the whole Community for years to come Mr Robinson and I were able to attend and and shovel a little bit of dirt so it was it was good to see that uh that they're Forward Thinking and and trying to add amenities as a community grows so when will it be done you know I don't have that exact date and I should have brought it but they do have stuff scheduled for before the end of the year next year I'm hoping it'll be done for that if not they'll move it off site so they're hoping next year maybe you should have mooved a little more dirt thank thank you Mr Daniels um one of my additional board responsibilities is I'm the non voting advisory member on the Johnson County Redevelopment commission um their
116meeting was last Monday um I was I was excited to see um Johnson County and greenw are trying to enter into an interlocal agreement for some of the Redevelopment going on it's outside easta 65 but um hopefully that'll start to to pan out and maybe some better interlocal agreements on some of the other things happening on this side of 135 um in the future so um I think some progress being made there between the two entities working together which is always good to see two government entities working together uh Dr aranov you got any comments this evening sir I do thank you uh you know this evening especially being probably our last meeting before um the end of the year except for the 7:30 morning meeting so I take this time just first I just
117want to thank Marcy and Shannon for being here tonight and all the work that you guys do uh to support Nora and Nora of course your work as well so thank you so much the teaching and learning Department do a great job this year and and um I really appreciate the presentation and welcome back there Marcy great job um I also want to compliment uh Jason Dr Taylor and um and Kathy uh back there uh for all of your work on the budget this year and and um and your work on negotiations and of course the business department and getting us all our checks on time and hopefully you know the state gets us that money and we all can uh we can all have a happy and merry Christmas so um thank you guys
118I know how hard your office works and there's a lot more to it than just pressing a button on the computer so thank you so much for all that you do um I want to compliment Stacy tonight one um you know doing the facility thing fantastic I'm really starting to rack up a bunch of other ideas and things she can do now so um we'll be doing that um it's great to hear her voice up there on the microphone um but also too uh you know Stacy puts together these videos she puts us all on screen and and gives us things to say and if you ever watch it happening it's like watching sausage being made but somehow she makes it really look like we know what we're doing and and and I just can't
119thank her enough cuz I can tell you it's countless hours behind the editing so thank you Stacy for all of that effort um Christa thank you so much and and Human Resources Department's done a lot of work this year in uh you know in our teacher retention and um the work she's doing uh leading our Equity task force it's going very well so I just really want to compliment Kristen in all the work that you've been doing this year and then finally Bill Dr long I mean he's done you know cmta really kind of hit it everything that's happening in our district from a building project perspective from Energy savings to just you know buildings in general um you you lead that with with uh great uh effort a lot of uh Forward Thinking and
120working well with Jason on that and so I just want to thank you guys as well and then lastly I I want to Echo something that Amy said today and I've I've heard this now a couple times this week and I I I really want to point this out because we look at test scores kids today are smarter than they've ever been um and we sat today in the high school and listened to kids that I probably could have well I have I've been in college forever okay and those kids standing there today were phenomenal and knew more about what they were talking about than I did when I look at our test scores and I know the way the tests assess our kids our kids today and the things we're asking kindergarteners and first
121graders to do we didn't have to do folks we we didn't we weren't tested rated on or anything so it it's really impressive what we ask our kids to do and what they're doing and how much we're pushing them um and they are they are um they are struggling a little bit in how much and so I think sometimes we have that conversation about are we going to are we asked to go too much too soon so that's a conversation you know to keep in our heads when we especially look at our younger kids coming in but um you know what I just like like to point out is they do some fantastic things our kids um and you walk in the classrooms and and listen to what our teachers are doing um with with
122our students it's it's just fantastic so I just want to compliment our our students and our teachers for that as well this year so I that Project Lead the Way was similar to what I went through with iore in business school I'm not joking I mean the project itself and what they did that was really cool to watch yeah so I you know I just say that because a lot of times people say oh you know look at look at the test scores around the state or anywhere else and I'm just kids today are are pretty dog on smart and I think I said it when we came back from there I said I see them and I'm really excited about the future so and that's it sir thank you for those comments Dr aranov
123welc with that I will adjourn our regular meeting