001Let's uh get started here this evening for the June 22nd 2023 regular board meeting um I apologize for starting a couple minutes late we recessed our executive session and we'll ring to mean that after the good for the Grove this evening so um just a reminder the board members we've got to go back to where we work send Mr wrestlers yes and um thank you for that reminder Mr Russell is not with us today he's not a little under the weather not feeling well so um speedy speedy recovery to Mr Russell all right first order business the Pledge of Allegiance and am I it's on me I pledge allegiance 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
002for all right next order of business is to adopt the agenda do I have a motion Mr President I move that we adopt the agenda five second thank you we have a motion by Mr Daniels in a second by Mr Robinson all those in favor of segment five was saying aye all those opposed motion passes four zero thank you Peter Pan yeah yeah all right next up is public comments uh Mr poor wanted to speak about action item 7.1 would you come to the podium sir and oh there is a hearing yeah okay next up is reports employee retention final report Dr Nelson I'm honored to bring to you our final report for the 20 to 23 Center Grove teacher recruitment retention and recognition task force um I'm honored to share the conversations and some
003problem solving the task force collaborated with over the course of the school year so if you remember from our mid-year report over the summer of 2022 employee exit surveys were sent to All certified staff members who resigned during the 21-22 school year based on the exit interview or survey results areas of need to retain teachers were strengthening collegial working conditions developing teacher leadership roles enhancing recruitment efforts and opportunities teacher mentoring and restructuring pay and benefits based on this data a task force was created that included 27 certified teachers and two District administrators this group had six meetings over the course of the school year to discuss retention concerns and then the group as we started discussing quickly added Recruitment and recognition to our discussions during this time we also had parallel work taking place with
004our collective bargaining and benefits committee pay in benefits was ranked number five on the list of areas we would like to problem solve and these discussions were held exclusively to the collective bargaining teams the goal of the task force was to develop present and future action items to recruit hire and retain teachers administrators and staff within Center Grove schools we did this by examining reviewing and outlining strategies for each area our pipelines for improvement included recruitment of homegrown candidates marketing CG and student teachers retention of our amazing staff with the help with substitute teachers a new teacher Mentor program and then looking at workload time management and the last pipeline was recognition and that is year-long programming and morale boosters I'm very proud of the work and action plans that the task force put in
005place so that we have a robust system to recruit retain and recognize our colleagues we're going to start with recruitment our first action plan was to create pipelines to grow new and high quality teaching candidates and the task force developed three actions they were to implement A Center Grove future teacher signing ceremony which we already put in place in May of 2023 we were looking at creating a career pathway for education and discussions began this spring about a dual credit education program at Center Grove High School that would lead to a future teacher Camp as we begin showing our third through eighth grade students about what it means to be a teacher and to build their skills for a career in education We are continuing to develop Partnerships with universities to provide classroom and instructional
006time for field experiences within our pre-k through 12th grade classrooms and I'm so excited we have three Pre-K field experiences that will be happening within our schools starting next year our second recruitment Improvement strategy was to look at marketing a better understanding of what Center Grove offers new hires with school and Community benefits this work began in the fall of 22 with our Communications Department developing a series of videos that showcase our teachers and marketing Center Grove roles to teacher candidates in local universities and programs the third area of focus was on student teachers our wish is to grow our student teaching group and create a faster and steam steam line streamlined process for those that we have served within the district we started this process during the fall of 2022 with student teacher onboarding
007welcoming observing and interviewing student teachers throughout their time in Center Grove we are also encouraging student teachers to receive their sub license for employment after student teaching hours are met so that we can get them back into our classrooms our next Focus area was retention a retention Improvement that was brought to us from the task force was about substitute teachers and to better our Recruitment and Retention of Subs Which Intel will be better for students and staff when teachers are out of the building the actions for the Improvement our area began in October and again another shout out to Michelle shealy she said a wonderful job you know maintaining our sub base and putting together some great plans since then in October we have celebrated sub appreciation day we've increased communication with our subs with
008a monthly newsletter and we've also have a very robust webpage to recruit right now we have a 147 active Subs within Center Grove the second retention Improvement was to look at teacher onboarding process which includes an instructional we can go on to the next one for me real quick was to include and include an instructional coach calendar and a mentoring program for year one and two teachers new to the profession or new to Center Grove our instructional coaches worked this year to align their coaching calendar to the CG new teacher Academy monthly topics we have started discussions about designing a Center Grove Mentor program to support new teachers not only in year one but also in year two with possible implementation during the 24-25 school year our hope is to continue the level of support
009that we have for teachers but then to make the support more personal for new teachers to the field or new teachers to our Corporation and the third retention Improvement area was to look at workload time management to gain more time and schedules for collaboration and planning our actions are to continue the HRS survey that our teaching and learning Department give and analyze that data for level one which is the safe and collaborative atmosphere this will invoke more meaningful conversations about district and school culture and how we operate as a professional learning community we also are continuing discussions with our administrative team on how to lessen non-instructional duties during the day to allow more time for prep and team collaboration I think the biggest thing is we want to thank our teaching and learning Department who
010has given release time to work on new curriculum and also the special education department who has guidelines for our sped teachers to work on IEPs and progress monitoring all of this is paid time for our teaching staff and we'd like to improve maybe scheduling awareness when school activities interact valuable prep time the fourth retention Improvement area is special programming before we even discuss building our new health facility we've talked about health initiatives for staff and this came up and if so as soon as we heard that a Wellness Center was being built I can tell you there was lots of cheers and excitement for that for our staff and that Wellness Center we're hoping will open in summer of 2024 and that will be to provide physical and mental supports for all of us we
011will continue to monitor class sizes and look at that and I know Dr Taylor does a wonderful job of that to make sure that they are balanced throughout our school corporation we are also going to be working with our APD PLC at a transition model for students moving on to the next grade level or building the Special Education team is looking at addition and better utilization of reset rooms throughout our schools so that students can take a break if they're feeling overwhelmed and that is the connection with the student Behavior in recognition are it consisted of two areas of improvement the first one is recognizing employees right now our recognition as a district happens at the end of the year we are very fortunate to work with some amazing Educators and colleagues and so we
012want to make sure that they are feeling valued throughout the school year so beginning the 23-24 school year we are going to expand our recognition programming by giving outstanding service Awards twice a year we're going to be continuing with our Legacy Awards we're going to make some slight changes to our teacher of the year program and then also share the good news to our community in our district about our teachers and their years of service to our students and our and to our community we're also going to be adding a quarterly teacher and support staff Spotlight from each building and department and highlighting an employee who has provided an exceptional educational experience for students staff parents or community members the teacher recruitment retention and recognition task force I'll put to also put together a great
013list of morale boosters for administrators to use throughout the year that will enhance what our administrators already do to thank our colleagues for a great for the great work they do every day so in conclusion our school corporation we you know like we had mid-year we need effective and diverse teachers but the biggest thing is they need to be feel supported by our community we will continue to grow our own through our pipelines with our student teachers are also seniors and hopefully a dual credit program education pipeline at the high school and last but not least we are doing everything we can to be proactive in retainment efforts and looking to better support our teachers every day in the classroom Dr Nelson you're welcome thank you Dr Nelson any any questions or comments the the
014signing day we did I Mr Robinson and I were able to make it it was really cool great idea and a great concept and I hope that's something we do for the next 50 years yeah yeah their comments questions thank you all right the next item of business is the consent agenda do I have a motion Mr President I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented thank you Mr Daniels do I have a second thank you Mrs counts we have a motion and a second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion passes four zero Mr Alexander at tonight upon approval of the Personnel report we approve Dr Brent Kinsey to replace uh Chris Catherine Brennan as our connected learning coordinator and he's here this evening with his wife she
015come on up just introduce yourself real quick and share who you're with he comes to us from Shenandoah schools so a little bit of drive to school very much 27 years in Shenandoah School Corporation up in Henry County and couldn't be more excited about joining the team in Center Grove a wonderful reputation here in the state of Indiana and uh I hope to only help that out so I appreciate the opportunity to be here well welcome this is my wife Amber go ahead and stand there yeah sorry yeah it's the brains of the family right there yeah thank you very much no thank you welcome thank you very much all right next up um 7.1 1028 preliminary determination hearing and resolutions for the cpf maintenance and miscellaneous funds Dr arkanov I'll go first we've got
016our script right in there so this evening is the hearing prior to selling bonds for financing of the cpf maintenance and miscellaneous and I will turn it over to Mr Alexander to run this hearing thank you Dr arkanov I now open this public hearing I would like to turn it over to Dr Taylor to present the project the financing of the project and actions we are taking this evening Dr Taylor thank you Mr Alexander this is something we typically have done in the past with our budget adoption there's some new legislation that has changed the timeline on that and we were concerned that if we didn't have these funds in time to adopt the budget we might have to adopt a budget that was slightly different so what this is this is a reoccurring bond
017that we sell each school year we've done this since 2009 when there were some changes in the funding structure from the state as you'll recall when we approved the budget last year we needed about 24 million dollars in our operations fund to fund all of the projects and equipment that we need and we get about 12 million dollars in tax revenue so this is one way that we supplement that loss of Revenue and we sell these bonds off and pay them back into over a two-year period so that we can keep that interest rate as low as possible and again this is just a way to Garner some more operating Revenue when we're short from our other sources it does include and we've listed just some of the projects that are included typically minor lower
018smaller maintenance projects and by smaller I mean entire Roof Systems UV light systems those types of things but not typically construction of new facilities and this is also where we fund our technology equipment and so this will be a vital component as textbook rental changes come into play and we have to fund student one-to-one device costs this will be another Avenue in which we're able to do that so all that's included in here along with some miscellaneous things that if we we can get done we will and I work with Dr long on this and the two departments spend this money on the equipment and parts that they need to do the work that they do every day I believe that's all I've shared all the details thank you Dr Taylor thank you Dr Taylor
019this is the appropriate time for members of the public to comment on any of the projects and information presented this evening are there any members of the public must report yes can you come to the podium please hi my name is Keith poor I'm a citizen here Center Grove School District and uh I came in here and I met briefly with Mr Taylor to express what this Bond or 1028 hearing was about I saw it in the paper in the legal notices and that we were going to do this uh he said here just in his statement that this would be paid off in two years and in the paper it says that this will be paid off January 1st of 28. we write that flexibility in just but we're going to try to pay
020this off in two years okay yep all right so I'm I'm going to get with Mr Taylor to explain this a little more but my main concern is our growing debt fund cap or I mean our amount that we have put in here and it seems to me that reading down this list uh things that we need to get done I don't understand why some of it couldn't have been done as we are now in the midst of selling put in the other bonds that we've sold already and that work had been done but uh I guess it needs to be explained to me or to the taxpayers and the parents and everybody else that has a concerned on where the money goes here that it gets spent wisely so uh until I meet with
021Mr Taylor a little more and get more familiar-wise with it I guess I don't understand a lot about it but there's just so many things that uh go along like uh for the center the wellness center it it was a six million dollar Bond sale well the bids come in at four million dollars so what are we going to do with the other two million dollars and change that's left well I know that there was some buses that need to be bought and other things but here again we're running that bond fund debt fund up and we don't have the cash to pay for it so that's just my comments right now thank you Mr poor are there any other members of the public who have any comments about the public hearing all right I
022now close um this public hearing are there any board members who have any comments or questions okay I need a motion at the very bottom of it Mr President I move that we approve the preliminary determination for the cpf maintenance miscellaneous Bond thank you Mr Daniels thank you Mrs counts uh we have a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye all those opposed motion passes 4-0 thank you next order of business is accept bids for the robotics Edition thank you Mr Alexander this evening I'm recommending that the board accept the bids for the robotics Edition and Dr long will provide you with some additional information thank you good evening tonight with from uh hunt a common Hunt Construction as Jim goley project executive and Chad Peters the senior project
023manager if you recall at the March 23 2023 board meeting we asked the board to reject the bids for the robotic Edition because we felt we had found a way to reduce the cost of construction we worked with the architect and AECOM hunt and were able to reduce the cost to construct the addition by 31 854 dollars it's not as much as we were hoping but we were still able to reduce the cost without changing the square footage or any of the scope of this project on June 13th we received one bid for the robotics Edition from Dalman Contracting Contracting Corporation back in March we only received two bids and Dalman was the low bidder back in March as well on June 14 2023 a come hunt held a d scope meeting with them and
024based on their review of the meeting of the bid the D scope meeting and the budget there recommending we accept the bid from Domin Contracting Corporation in the amount of 477 404 dollars thank you Dr Long any questions for Dr long I've got a couple questions and I guess Bill whether it's you or whether it's Chad or Jim from from haunt um I know our our reasoning and and rejecting the first and going of the second as we thought there was a a different way this could be constructed and and in essence saving money and we've done that we've saved money and I know we'd hope to save a little more but I guess should we proceed with this type of construction is it worth the thirty thousand dollars to proceed with this as opposed
025to the original plan that is a chat question sorry I bill I was looking at that I appreciate that and Chad just kind of Chad was looking at me the reason I asked is because you know we want to build things quality we want to build things to last and we were assured that this is quality this would last but I it's worth the 30 000 to make this kind of change as opposed to going with the original scope open the way they design was everything is quality of just as is well constructed as it would have been with the Supreme market right now was really tough I'm not so sure that it wasn't just you know Contracting we're so busy and this is a little bit of a smaller scope it is a project
026right compared to other projects if you're funny and the time you're not losing anything you look at this building from the original designs of this one you would know framing design same useful life same absolutely and you realize that I only asked that question the same day that we omitted your contract [Laughter] and I I believe this is an important addition I just don't want to be you know saving thirty thousand dollars and finding out that well we got a hundred thousand dollars less of a building there's the the life the life of this building and the usefulness of it is we're pre-engineered metal buildings when you change tuber Micro Engineering to a metal stud variety with metal trusses for engineered when you get so small it drives the building will be better insulated timeline
027it will be a quicker project to construct I mean I'm not disappointed we're saving thirty thousand I'm happy we're saving thirty thousand I just want to make sure we're getting what we're we're getting value appreciate it 'll be ready to go when school starts you should have just said yes all right any other questions good question all right I need a motion please Mr President I know thank you Mr Robinson do I have a second thank you Mrs countless we have a motion and a second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye all those opposed motion passes 4-0 thank you all right next up is accept bids for the high school facts renovation Dr arkanov thank you Mr Alexander this evening I'm recommending that the board accept the bids for the high school
028facts renovation and once again Dr long will provide you with some information thank you if you recall uh we are looking to build an additional fax kitchen at the high school to meet the course request demands for our students and this is also a career pathway for some of our students to meet the graduation requirements on June 13th of 2023 we we received bids for the high school facts renovation project we receive bids forbid packet one General trades bid packet two Mechanical plumbing and fire protection and bid packet four Food Service on June 14th and 15th a income hunt held d-scope meetings with the low Bettors and based on their review of the bids and the d-scope meetings they are recommending accepting the bids as presented below altogether we received eight bids for the four
029bid packets we did not receive any bids for bid packet three electrical and the estimated lower cost of that project because of the estimated lower cost of that part of the project we're in the processes of of obtaining three quotes to do that work tonight we're recommending the board except the bids for the following bid packets bid packet one to Domin Contracting Corporation name should sound familiar in the amount of 241 668 dollars big packet two to Griner Brothers in the amount of 443 thousand eight hundred dollars and bid packet four CNT design in the amount of 406 822 dollars uh the award of these three bed package packages totals one million ninety two thousand 290 dollars we should be finished with the classroom so it can be used for the second semester of the
030upcoming school year thank you Dr Long any questions for Dr Long awesome can I get a motion I feel like I should ask him a question because he always expects me to ask could you ask Chad another one I have no I I do want to point out um the the two bids that we ask you to approve tonight both academic uh oriented so sometimes people think we get wrapped up in doing other things but both of these were strictly academic and I think it's important to point that out that these projects are focused solely on academics I feel like I should have somehow formed that in the question okay well I actually the exciting part about this I mean obviously our facts program at the high school has grown which is what's caused the
031need for this so I'm excited to see that that program is growing and we have more interest from the students now wanting to do that and I know we've talked about it in nauseam but you know not a big conflict with C9 but to help supplement that because we only get so many spots at C9 so good point awesome do I have a motion thank you Mrs counts do I have a second thank you Mr Robinson we have a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying aye all those opposed motion passes 4-0 thank you next up is approve 2023-24 student handbook revisions Dr arkanov or Dr Nelson well I was just going to say thank you and I'm recommending that the board do approve the 2324 student handbook revisions and Dr
032Nelson is going to provide you with some details yep sure can so again we bring you tonight the 23-24 student handbooks with the addition of the academy handbook as well this is a new handbook that will follow the guidelines of the elementary middle school and high school we had a committee this year that worked over the course of the year and involved administrators teachers parents and we put students in this year for student input we also worked with the Johnson County Probation office and updated the book based off of or the handbooks based off of new legislative guidelines so in front of you are the proposed policy changes and I'm just going to kind of summarize as we go through them for elementary we have expanded the visitor and volunteer guidelines to include tutors and
033mentors our Innovation Innovation Center volunteers and also Club sponsors the language and the attendance policies and guidelines now matches K-12 and that is with the definitions that include lost and struck what lost instruction time is unexcused and unacceptable absences excuse acceptable acceptable absences students released from the clinic and then the physical or mental incapacitation under electronic equipment policy we have elementary students coming to school with smart watches and they're getting lost and so we have added that to electronics that should not come to school and for discipline we match the Middle School language for suspensions and also the expulsion procedures this ensures that there's continuity with the same language when students transition from the elementary to the Middle School starting July 1st there will be a new house enrolled act 1483 and this goes with
034our bully policy which requires Indiana schools to notify parents of a bullying victim within three business days after that incident has been reported and to notify parents of an alleged bully perpetrator within five business days we have added that new language to the handbook our technology policies and guidelines have been updated for charges for damage or lost Chromebooks and iPads and then this section all known as formally textbook rental is now for loss or damaged curricular material and this statement shares that students are responsible for all curricular materials If lost stolen or damaged for the Middle School very very proud of Mrs Thomas I noticed here one of the ads it looks like I'm trying to find a page number it's 12. uh it deals with immigration appointment meetings documentation yep that's an excused absence
035this is just making sure they get documentation within a certain time period yes so we have just was what we were talking about with our Equity report we've had a 500 increase in the number of kids who are coming in um as enl and a lot of them are needing immigration paperwork um we did not have that in our handbook we've had lots of questions from parents and from our own staff about excusable or unexcusable so we wanted to make sure that we had that language in there all they have to do is bring in they get an immigration sheet show that and it would be an excuse absence for them and do we communicate that to any of our non-english speakers in different languages do we have that capability I don't we do have
036that capability we could do it in different languages I know our enl staff is very good to let them know that yes just bring that in and it would be you know and the immigration a lot of them have to go up to Chicago and so there's just that form that they bring it in yeah good good yes so they don't have to make that long trip and that's why with the absence sometimes it was a couple days by the time they got up there got through immigration and came back because I'd hate to see somebody miss the 15 day because they didn't understand right yeah no we'll make sure that that happens but yes we can definitely do that thank you I didn't mean to be an interruption no no that was good to
037point out um again in Middle School um Mrs Todd who is over at Middle School Central and Mrs height who is at Middle School North worked very well together to align both handbooks um this included the attendance policies their discipline and school rules and regulations um again that like just like I said for the elementary handbook the attendance policy is consistent across K-12 so that there is common language for all of our parents and community members School regulations for discipline was updated with electronic equipment policies backpacks will not be allowed in hallways during the school day this year and phones and wireless headphones of any type are not allowed on in the classroom during the school day so that students can be engaged in their learning the bully policy just like Elementary was updated for
038the new legislation and then a new language was added for discipline levels at Middle School Central and the expulsion procedure language now matches for both schools we also did the same for middle school as we did for elementary and that is that loss or damaged curricular material statement and then our wonderful athletic directors work together to update the athletic eligibility language in both handbooks for the high school not as many changes again textbook rental was changed to our lost or damaged curricular policy same guidelines for health services for the elementary that match the elementary and middle school also attendance apology policy changes uh that match K-8 and then the biggest one I think for high school is new language was added to electronic equipment to help avoid student distractions and that language is cell phones
039and other electronic devices including but not limited to earbuds airpods and smart watches are not permitted during class time without the express permission of a classroom teacher and that was part of the high school and they brought teachers in the admin together for that part that's it DVDs yes a little dated yeah you know what they may be making a comeback though you never know we did yes we did hey Rob all those things you have in your garage now [Laughter] I got a kick out of reading that yeah yeah they are finally removed just wanted to make sure they were at a date before we took them out of there the boxes are back in I guess they could could do that they probably yes Nelson all right do I have a motion Mr
040President I knew that we approved the 2023-24 student handbook Provisions thank you Mrs counts do I have a second second thank you Mr Daniels we have a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying aye all those opposed motion passes four zero thank you I'm saving your back one day at a time exactly uh announcements just a reminder we'll be reconvening the executive session um following the conclusion of the work session the good for the Grove um announcements July 20th we have an executive session at 6 pm and we have a regular board meeting at 7. any board member comments this evening Mrs counts no I know that the foundation is gosh sorry Jen we didn't have our meeting yesterday so give me a second come back to me please okay Mr
041Robinson any comments this evening sir yeah thank you Bill first of all Dr Nelson excellent job including the subs and the monthly newsletter that's just outstanding teaching 43 years of Subs do a lot for us too the facts program is uh one of the rock stars of high school I'm glad we approved that and I'm really being on the central nine board they do a great job but we don't get all of our kids in culinary arts so doing that three uh Dr Nelson I love that you got MSC and MSN together on Athletics and the two deans together and then for me Mr track and field was given to us a couple weeks ago which is outstanding the young man won five state championships and maybe we'll get to have Parker Doyle come and
042see us in July the 4x400 relay thing was the last thing at the state track meet and it was awesome and Center Grove boys won it and the crowd at the baseball game holy I mean I got there and I sat in right field just to see our crowd and it was massive and congratulations for the baseball team for being a state runner-up so thank you foreign I can't top that so I'm not going to try ditto Mrs counts so Education Foundation they're working on fulfilling spring Grant and also getting information for the scholarships I'm missing anything else um to kind of tag along with Gary a little bit I had the opportunity of kind of witnessing the robotics camp for the youngers the littles mine's going into Victory so she spent a week with
043them and she's a bit of a klutz so I think she got yelled out a few times but she had the best time and then parents got to go through and actually see it so it was a great program so glad to see we're doing good things with that fantastic Dr arkanov thank you um well just a big thank you to everybody for your support at the iapss president's installation special thank you to hunt and and your support of the program and I really appreciate that and I know the association does and Stacy all your work and making that go and then most importantly the work of uh Tracy back there and she did it all and we just all showed up so thank you so much so you know I I that I had
044already forgotten about that as it as it happened it feels like it happened it feels like it happened eons ago I know for those for those who do not know Dr arkanov um was installed as the president of the Indiana superintendents Association it's a lot of letters in that acronym I'm going to try you were close enough okay um this is a fantastic honor for Center Grove for Dr arkanov um in terms of his professional growth this is a recognition by his peers um on on leading that group throughout the state so thank you on top of the other things I know you'll do a great job with that and I know on behalf of the board and the previous boards we're all proud of you and continue continue the good work there well thank
045you I couldn't have done it without all your support so I appreciate that and everyone else in this room so thank you I don't want to step over that I just want to say that I I think people need to realize what a huge honor that was not only for Mr okanoff to serve in that role but walking into that room and seeing all the other superintendents there seeing all the other leaders there seeing all the other people that um and then Mr arkoff just as usual knocks to Dr arkanov as usual uh knocked it out of the park with a speech um telling everybody what Center Grove means to him where he came from where he's been where he's going um it was impressive I gave him a hard time I said I can't
046believe all these people came here to see him but I but I can I can't believe they did because later they all came for the cake but but in reality I don't I I feel remiss that that we went all the way around the room without even mentioning and acknowledging it it's really an honor he he did Center Grove proud I sure didn't bring it up for that I just wanted no I know you didn't and for those who are there I expect you to do the next board meeting in Latin there we go yes thanks all right any anything else any other comments all right we're going to adjourn the regular board meeting