001good evening everyone and Welcome to our regular business meeting of the board of school trustees held here in public 6 pm on January 22nd 2024 item two on tonight's agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance and moment of silence everyone could please rise Mr babjack will lead us in the pledge pledge Ali 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 thank you you may be seated item two tonight patrons registered comments on educational issues there being none we'll move on to item three consent agenda Dr Terrell thank you uh for your consideration this evening we have 3.01 which is the minute from our meetings previously uh we have 3.02 which is our uniform conflict of interest
002disclosure statements 3.03 the Personnel agenda 3.04 recommendation for employment of candidates pursuant to Indiana code 20-26 d5- 111.2 and then finally 3.05 the voucher registered checks as listed you've heard the recommendation of the administration for the approval of the the consent agenda may I have a motion please so moved second motion by Mr Smith second by Mr babjack question or discussion um being that it's in the consent agenda this we uh is it one item or two like is it 3.03 or is it just 3.04 it sep uh being that it's in the consent agenda I don't think we're allowed to do that unless we modify the uh motion so I could do that you could modify the motion uh so Mo modify the motion looking for approval of the consent agenda eliminating it item
0033.04 so we're approving looking for a motion to approve items 3.01 3.02 are we good with 3.03 regular Personnel agenda 3.03 and 3.05 excluding 3.04 may I have a motion move to approve uh uh 3.01 3.02 3.03 and 3.05 of the consent agenda a second second second by Mr vaser a motion was made by Mr Smith those in favor of 3.01 3.02 3.03 and 3.05 signify by saying I I those opposed motion carries 4 z uh motion to approve recommendation for employment of candidates pursuant to IC 20-26 d5- 11.2 item 3.04 may I have a motion so moved Mo motion by Mr Smith second by Mr babjack all those in favor of sign of approving 3.04 signify by saying I oh any questions or just for a vote discussion okay okay fair enough those in
004favor signify for saying I I I those opposed motion approves 31 thank you very much item four action items 4.01 resolution 6841 sorry my site 2023 year end appropriation transfers Mr ree thank you Mr President members of the board we bring before you as we do every year the appropriation transfers for the end of the year 2023 these are the end of year transfers that you uh we ask you to allow us to do we bring back to you at the end of the year for the budgets we complete those those budgets as you know in August and September of 18 months prior to that end of last of this past calendar year and uh we don't always get it exactly right and we use these to transfer the Appropriations around to match them up
005to Zer out so with that we recommend approval of the transfers uh for end of the year 2023 and resolution 841 you've heard the recommendation of the administration for the approval of the year-end transfers for 2023 2023 and resolution 84 one may have a motion motion by Mr Vasser second by Mr Smith questions or discussion all those in favor please signify by saying I I those opposed motion carries 4 Z Item 4.02 environmental remediation Sol and Robinson Elementary Mr ree thank you Mr President we solicited bids for environmental remediation at Solen Robinson Elementary uh with that we did receive four bids our low bid has since request requested to pull their bid they have left the area uh so with that we have a bid for the work for safe environmental Corp the amount of
006$286 347 for the environmental remediation at soland Robinson you've heard the recommendation of the administration for the approval of the environmental remediation at solar Robinson Elementary to Safe environmental Corp for the amount of 86,4 may I have a motion second motion by Mr Smith second by Mr babjack question or discussion please uh all those in favor please signify by saying I I those opposed motion carries 4 Z 4.03 Administration Jerry Ross administration building Jerry Ross Lake Street Solen Robinson Timothy ball and Winfield Furniture award Mr ree thank you Mr President this uh request for purchase of furniture finishes out the new furniture for all of our construction projects not saying we won't have some small pieces we may need to fit in but these are the large purchases that tie in with the construction so
007as construction gets done Furniture gets delivered it's important for us as we use this National bid uh through Ki like we have with our other purchases so with that we're recommending approval of furniture for the administration building 26784 31 Jerry Ross for $ 68,69 Lake Street $16,917 42 soen Robinson for $5,256 Timothy ball 42,8 36.79 and Winfield Elementary for $2,818 186 from Ki you've heard the recommendation of the administration for approval of furniture for the administration Center in the amount of 26784 31 Jerry Ross for $683 65 Lake Street for $16,917 Solen Robinson for $ 55,1 12757 Timothy ball for $ 42,8 36.79 and Winfield for $ 528186 from Ki Inc may I have a motion second motion by Mr babjack second by Mr Smith questions or discussion we got is some of the U
008Furniture then moved out what happens with the old stuff the old stuff either be donated or or auctioned off if worth anything of value a time frame on that Mr ree or there's no set time frame each one's going to be a little bit different as the construction projects get done they get furniture gets delivered for those areas especially at the elementary buildings as you're staging that it doesn't always all happen at one time but as it's it's why we're using somebody like Ki with their services so as areas open up new furniture gets in and we're ready to go any other questions all those in favor please signify by saying I I I those oppos motion carries 40 4.04 resolution 842 disposition of real property delegation of authority to superintendent Dr ter thank you
009uh for your consideration this evening we have resolution 842 as Scott just mentioned uh per your board policy uh 7300 it requires the board of school trustees to dispose of real estate that is no longer needed uh for any of our educational programs here in Crown Point schools the former administration building uh located at 200 East North Street uh we no longer have a use for that as a school building here within our district so we're bringing this to you tonight uh for asking you to approve uh the disposition of the real estate property and the delegation uh Authority to me the superintendent of schools uh to proceed as we move through the required steps in order to uh dispose of that property you've heard the recommendation of the administration for for the disposition of
010property and builing located at 200 East North Street Crownpoint Indiana for zip code of 46307 and author delegate to the superintendent all necessary duties and powers to comply with board policy 7300 and the Indiana code 20-26 7.1 D1 and to take all actions NE necessary to comply in regards and also with the approval of resolution 842 may I have a motion I'll make that motion second motion by Mr Vasser second by Mr babj question or discussion all those in favor please signify by saying I I I was opposed motion carries 4 Z thank you Dr Terell discussion report items policy additions and revisions first reading Mr a thank you Mr President and board members this evening we bring to you for a first reading another set of policies to consider again for a first reading
011uh they would be policy 6110 uh Grant funds this provides guidance on receiving handling Grant funds from government agencies foundations businesses and individuals schs policy 6320 purchasing this policy provides guidance to the purchasing agent or treasur of the school corporation in addition to purchases it also addresses the procurement of federal grants policy 6325 the procurement federal grants and funds this policy addresses the procurement of all supplies materials equipment and services pay from federal funds or School Corporation matching funds within those three policies IES that I just listed there are references to conflict of interest policies which we want to update at this point as well so the remaining three 1130 3113 and 4113 deal with conflict of interest with different employee types so what we were recommending this evening is just a first reading of
012these policies and we look forward to bringing them back to you next uh month for a uh possible waving of a second reading and approval thank you Mr President thank you uh any other qu or a chance to review those policies if we have any discussion we'll have that at the second reading and the approval of those thank you Mr Kiwa 5.02 the 2025 2026 school calendar Mr Dr terl sorry thank you with the uh calendar that was presented to all of you I just want to go through a few things and highlight a couple of different dates uh this is for the 25 26 school year our practice has been to continue to keep two years out there uh so our parents and teachers students have uh the opportunity to plan for that in
013advance the 2526 calendar looks very similar to the 2425 calendar uh has us beginning uh School the second week of August teachers first day on August 11th uh students first day August 13th uh continues the practice of a full week of fall break uh the same with three days for Thanksgiving break um one of the advantages that we have both next year and in 2526 is we're back to having two full weeks of Christmas break rather than uh having to break them up like we did this year which can present a challenge uh one of the things to note as we continue looking through the spring semester um spring spring break is a little bit later uh the beginning on March 30th and concluding on Good Friday April 3rd because of Good Friday being an
014earlier uh time of the of the month this year that will enable us for our students last day to be May 29th and teachers will come back for that June 1st uh final day for teachers but at least students do not have to be back in the building after uh Memorial Day so with that um we actually they will be back they don't have be back in the building in the month of June um for one day so with that we bring before you uh this calendar our practice has not been to vote on the calendars but it's more an opportunity to get feedback from you and to see if there's anything that any suggestions that you have uh or if you guys are are good with the calendar and we will move forward with
015with that questions discussions on the topic for the 2025 2026 school calendar and as we as Dr Terell mentioned in his discussion regarding it uh it's never been a voting matter we've always taken the right uh Administration moving forward with that calendar so if there's no questions or uh discussion based on that calendar we'll move on to uh information items item six we good thank you uh item six information items I want to make sure I did this in order superintendent discussion groups uh anything from our Redevelopment commissions Mr basser uh it's it's been rescheduled in Cedar Lake for tomorrow evening um had utility issu couple of weeks ago so I have no report until tomorrow night thank you uh Mr Smith nothing from Gra thank you very much we'll move on to 6.02 uh
016director of Grants and assessments Mr Hardman good evening members of the board good to be back um wanted to give you a little bit of information looking ahead to 2526 um there's going to be a change in the testing uh I learn testing grades three through eight uh they're actually going to go to a a through year testing that means there's going to be actually uh three checkpoints going to take place that will begin in uh as early as September uh and then there's going to be the iearn testing that will take place traditionally that we have in uh in April uh the checkpoints are more of a formative assessment they're aligned to certain standards learning in math and language arts that are uh covered during that period of time the checkpoint occur so that
017you can monitor and measure how your children how the students have done on those and then uh there's another window where there's additional standards or a repeat of standards that are really critical there's another checkpoint which are different questions different standards being tested and then finally there's another checkpoint that will take place uh in the spring prior to the actual I learn um I learn test is going to be shorter at that point in time which is a good thing the testing that's going to be the uh um checkpoints will last will be 30 to 45 minutes untimed and but it's good feedback on for our children as to how they're doing and to address their uh their needs also you can give the you can repeat a checkpoint uh one time so for instance
018if you want to reive uh one of the checkpoints to measure how students have uh done with their intervention we have that opportunity also so that's going to be coming in 2526 we as a district have chosen to opt in to that cycle next year so so we'll be opting into that so that we can understand better the type the way to uh the system is going to work I think it gives us a year to plan how we're going to adjust our formative assessment uh right now we use nwaa uh we have things happening that U are funded out of the formative assessment Grant that's going to go away uh so so there's some things next year that we want to uh just kind be a part of so that we can uh begin
019to develop our strategy for testing the following year uh so we will be opting in we actually submitted today uh the optin notification to the state uh for the iearn testing uh the new iearn testing next year's test will be the same so in 24 25 when we opt in the iearn test that that happens in uh April May will be the same one it's not going to change until 25 26 school year so wanted to inform you and if you have any questions at least right now just give you an overview of what's going to be taking place over the next year year two thank you Mr Harman any questions so Jim would there still be checkpoints along the way even though the test is still the same there's checkpoints for next next year
020we're opting into the checkpoints we're going to do the checkpoints but just know that the test is not the shorter version of the iearn test that will not start until 25 26 thanks for clarifying that yeah thank you anything else Mr Harman okay thank you 6.03 director of Elementary education Mr China I'll try to time that better so you're not running up here no still getting used to this new format thank you Mr President and board members um given our calendar discussion earlier thought I would give you a little uh overview of what the elementary teachers and staff will be up to on our e-learning day uh coming up next week on January 31st this day is all about professional development and professional collaboration uh our elementary teachers we meet all together with them periodically
021throughout the year most of those meetings are virtual on Zoom before school starts before students show up um but we always get feedback from our teachers after those meetings and one thing we hear uh pretty overwhelmingly is that they appreciate the time to be together in bigger chunks uh and in person to collab Cate uh so that's what we will be doing next Wednesday uh elementary teachers will start all together at Wheeler Middle School um we'll all be in the gym together to start with uh and then what we'll do is we break out into grade level meetings so a principal or a couple administrators will take each grade level um I kind of go over the the activity the plan with the principles I'm actually doing that tomorrow and then the principes lead that
022activity with one grade level at a time um kind of uh that's a good way that we've found to break things up and give teachers the opportunity to really spend time talking to each other and sharing about what's working um we're right at the point where we're taking those middle of the Year nwaa assessments so we also want to take a little bit of time to celebrate the success that we're seeing there's a lot of good things that we're seeing so we want to make sure that we recognize that with our teachers as well uh after that time at Wheeler in the morning uh teachers will go back to their buildings um they'll engage in different different activities at their building level for building level PD or professional collaboration uh or in their teams also
023at the elementary level one thing we started and we're still continuing is having a half hour set aside for teachers to connect with their students on those on those days um in case students need support uh so that'll still be happening on those days and finally uh we're going to end end that day for the elementary f folks uh with some professional development in the area of inclusion and Universal Design for Learning but I don't want to steal Heather's Thunder I'm sure she will cover that when she comes up here thank you Mr China uh just to for our purposes how many days again do we get this year of uh the learning days where we do the collaboration three uh four four okay yes all right just want to clarify that thank you director
024of secondary education Mrs Ramirez thank you Mr President and board members good evening I will continue um expanding on what Mr China talked about but focused on secondary and what we will be targeting on January 31st for the e-learning day we too will be participating in Universal Design for Learning and inclusion with Dr Louis Lord Nelson and then we'll have um a series of both teacher Le and administrator LS um professional development what I really look for for to on these days is the educator growth the collaboration that all drive towards increasing student engagement Student Success at the middle schools our professional learning communities have identified a student centered Challenge and inquiry question Based on data and so they are looking to share strategies and action steps to be able to show greater growth in
025those areas they'll also focus on technology and data analysis we'll have middle of the Year nwaa data will also continue to be looking at I learn data from last year to make sure that students are um prepared adequately for that assessment and then we also ask that they look at classroom data as well as we want to make sure that they are collaborating aligning and providing a common um educational experience for our students at the high school there will be a lot of diversity in terms of the programming that they'll have to help support teachers there will be a heavy focus on using our Crownpoint Community School Corporation supported technology so that's parents Square Ed puzzle paradex screencastify our clear touch panels um buzz features to provide feedback to students we also have a great
026opportunity for our gen Ed and special education teachers to work together those that um co- te will have time we have our Ela and math District specialist who will be working with our Ela and Math teachers to support sat um discussions and again really giving our teachers the opport to collaborate and to um really dig into seeing where we're currently at where we're going and how we're going to get there lastly I would like to just share um really an exciting event that took place this last Saturday Taft Middle School was able to host for the first time the Science Olympiad competition and it was quite um an event Mr Angel was there as were many of our um board members we have M Dr Terell was in um kind of in the loop of
027everything and handed out Awards as Mr Gan fery and this was quite an undertaking the coaches from um Taft and Wheeler work together along with sponsors parents volunteers the students to host over 500 students we had 15 high schools and 13 middle schools from Indiana and Illinois that were competing and as we were able to be part of the award ceremony it was so reassuring to see the passion and the talent that our students have for the Sciences whether those are um the Natural Sciences physical science forensics when you heard about the 23 different events in which they could compete just really what talent they have and I'm so proud that our Corporation is to able to provide this opportunity to our students the enthusiasm was very much felt both in the gymnasium and in
028the auditorium when awards were distributed so I would just really like to thank all of the sponsors and those involved for their hard work and their thoughtfulness in planning this event and um really congratulate all of the students who participated Taft ended up taking second place overall wheeler came in fifth place and Crownpoint High School came in seventh overall so just a really great event if in the future you have the opportunity to attend I highly recommend that you do so because it's pretty cool to get to see what our kids can do thank you Mr MIRS next on the agenda let's see 6.05 watch How I paused this perfect director of educational exceptional education Mrs pascus thank you I appreciate the wait time good evening president Angel members of the board um just an
029update on what's happening in exceptional exceptional education um back on January 11th we had a parent advisory group meeting here at the new administration building it was exciting our group got to take a tour of the building as well as he updates um in the department uh including the growth and some of the programming ads we've had um over the last year um we also had a demonstration of one of our rooc kind robots so Milo did put on a little bit of a show for our parents and then Dr T Terell also joined us and spoke with our parents so um hopefully we are able to um one of the things parents asked for is a way to help some of our parents going through the special education process for the first time if
030they're child does qualify so um we're starting with the preschool level of a brochure and um resources parents can use um to help navigate the special education process um on January 31st for e-learning exceptional education has quite a bit going on um it's a opportunity for us to work with teachers PA professionals and our related service providers so um a couple of our speech language Pathologists are going going to be working with pair professionals um on communication techniques for our students who may be nonverbal or may have some um communication struggles um some of our students use a device that looks similar to this called a it's their voice and it has pictures and symbols they use to communicate so that's one of the things they'll take the pair professionals through to learn how to
031work with students with such needs um we also have a applied skills teachers will be receiving uh deeper training on uh one of their curriculum resources called unique Learning System um our elementary resource teachers are going to be receiving training from one of our school psychologists and a couple of our diagnosticians on how to accommodate Stu accommodate students with mild intellectual disabilities in the general education environment um and then we have a handful of of exceptional education staff members who will be part of the Universal Design for Learning inclusion team training that is going to take place here at the admin building um so what Dr Louis Lord Nelson who's a a national consultant um she is going to take our she's done some coaching visits so she visited over two days um several of
032our schools observed what teachers were doing it was informal not e evaluations and gave feedback on on how they could take what they were doing and use this what they call udl framework so she is aware of our Buzz curriculum and um wants to help them examine their curriculum and how they can um reduce barriers and offer other learning Pathways for students we're also going to start this week at our principal's cabinet meeting with a self assessment that our leaders will go through measuring their current knowledge of practices and and kind of how that looks at their building thank you any questions thank you Mrs pascus Chief Human Resource off I'm Sorry Miss one assistant superintendent Mr Gan Ferman thank you Mr President board members uh just let me start off by saying of the
033four people that talked before you just kind of indicated on how hard that we do work to to try to provide our teachers and instructional staff that that professional development when we have those e-learning days and I really appreciate all their efforts that they put in to make that worthwhile time for our teachers and thanking our teachers and instructional staff because they really do show up and put in a lot of effort on those days to kind of improve what we're doing for our students uh quick comment on the uh ta Science Olympiad uh it was it was a great event to attend i' never attended one it's the first one that we've hosted in our district from what I understand and I didn't understand that the students really didn't know if they what place
034they had come in until it was announced right there as we were handing out the ribbons so it was great to see like high school kids just running over each other down the bleachers to come and get their third place ribbon or whatever they want at that time but that's a lot of it just indicated how much work they put in our people did a great job of putting that together prior to that on January 6 there was a robotics tournament at that uh Taff middle school so it just shows you that uh our Co our coaches and our our teachers are really using that facility to um provide some great opportunities not only for our students for a lot of neighboring students as well it is a great facility to host those kind of
035events so I'm glad to see that we're using it and people are benefiting from it um speaking of events just want to mention this to you that every uh cromp Point High School Vex robotic team will be attending the Northwest Wisconsin VC Showdown on Thursday and Friday and the really cool part about this is that it is at Lambo field I don't know if it's on the frozen tundra but I had to say that because I had an opportunity so I think willing that event but again thanks to our our High School coaches for giving our kids that that's a that's a really cool opportunity for them and then finally in uh CT e programming um our director of our Co-op our South Lake career Co-op Tim Summers brought an opportunity to us about a
036month or so ago the Perkins Grant which is a Federal Grant had additional funding in it this year so they offered us um an opportunity what they were calling a reserve Grant kind of just additional monies that you had to put in for and Lyn elky our associate principal did an awesome job of putting together all of the equipment the beds the simulation mannequins all the medical equipment we need to furnish and equi our CNA lab which has just been completed in the construction project so uh she received just about $39,000 to fully furnish that lab and that's going to be a great um pathway for our students who are interested in the medical field so thank her for all her her work on that and thanks Tim for bringing that to our our attention
037questions thank you Mr JM fery 6 07 Chief human resource officer Mr Keo thank you Mr President and board members two items tonight uh I want to pass along a thank you U to a gentleman sitting here in front of us and that's Mr Dave Coulson unsung heer over here who really helps us out with quite a bit and me particular in my department I just want to thank him for doing Wellness checks on a lot of our families he does checks on our mckenny vento families he also helps up helps helps us out validating and confirming a residency in some areas where we have questions these are not easy visits to do sometimes very uncomfortable checks uh but I just want to thank you Dave personally for all that you do for us uh
038in a role that you know many don't know about uh but it's it's a great role and it's very appreciated by my my department and and the principles and everybody else so just way to go Dave thanks uh and as far as uh activities just wanted to bring to the board's attention that it's we're getting to the end of January into of February we're looking at the next year already so uh we're starting to roll up some numbers and we'll be rolling up our sleeves as well as we we look at a possible staffing needs for the next school year so we'll keep you posted as those uh efforts uh move forward and that's all I have for you this evening thank you Mr Kiwa Chief Financial Officer Mr ree thank you Mr President members
039of the board I'm happy to recognize tonight the business office we were actually closed uh with the financials by uh the end of the county year on January 9th and by January 10th uh a few short days we were back ordering supplies and goods back at the building for the 2024 year that's the quickest I can remember us turning that around in in quite a while we've normally gone two or three weeks before we were able to open up 24 and start doing our normal business operations and getting goods and services out to the building so we're very happy um with how they accomplished that goal over this this winter and we had some people out during that period and everybody stepped up and took care of some business so just want to thank them
040for the extra work they did over over the break U then we were all excited to take a few days off after the break was over um once we got the mission accomplished thank you thank you Mr Reese 6.09 director of communication Mrs alen thank you good evening in November the board approved to apply for and receive a grant from doe and robokind for assist of technology in the form of robots um as M pascus mentioned they are here and we were able to be there um on the first day that our teachers and students were introduced to these and we created a little video to share with our community so my uh my update is in the form of a video this evening for spe e so we'll share this with our community um
041social media website and newsletters in the upcoming week but thank you to Kelly for her interview and also thank you to rut who is our digital media specialist who puts together all of that footage thank you 6 point Tech 610 superintendent of schools Dr Terell thank you just a few things uh this evening want to recognize our maintenance department and our building custodians during this winter weather and the challenges that it presents uh we've had quite a stretch here over the last uh 10 12 days and it's continuing even as we speak I would just want to thank them I know they they get there early and spend a lot of time and extra effort uh on top of all their other things that they have to do just making sure that our buildings are
042ready our parking lots are ready and we appreciate that also with that I want to thank Marty Freeman who generally gets out on the roads about 3:00 a.m. and usually I get my first text from him about 4: uh just Gathering data and information and sharing that back no Marty Freeman does not make the call do not call him complaining uh you can call me that's all on me so I want to thank him um the other thing that I want to uh take the opportunity and that is January is School Board uh appreciation month and I just want to celebrate all of you and thank you for what you do the continued support for our students our staff members um we're fortunate here in Crownpoint schools to have a school board who works together
043toward common goals and understands the teamwork that is necessary um to be a successful board and I know you're going to find this hard to believe but that doesn't happen everywhere and I appreciate that and there's a day go by that I do not take that for granted uh so I I appreciate you guys and just thank you for the way that you continue to uh support us and Lead our school corporation so thank you thank you Dr Terrell and for the kind words on behalf of the board um 7.01 other business the board anything we have something or I'm sorry Mr bastter uh yes uh keeping up my duties for legislatively Aon um as you know down in Indianapolis it's a short session as Dr Terell mentioned before the meeting they're going to try
044to crab as much in as they can um the big things that are going on right now is uh today was a headliner moving school referendums to November instead of having the choice of May or November so we'll see how much traction that gains along the way uh there was an I read pass um students not passing was mandatory retention that's being talked about but it doesn't seem to Gathering a whole lot of traction down State uh I'm scheduled to be down there February 6th for the State House day so I'll have a much more U complete report for you after that thank you Mr V appreciate that and the information that you provided us with this evening on updates uh board statements of appreciation and recognition M Randle real quick going back I'm sorry
045other business uh I don't know if we have an update on transition from RDS to parents square and if anybody can comment on that where we're at in that process yeah I think it's important enough to address I'm going to ask Mr Gian fery if he would uh there's there's so many different levels and it impacts so many different departments but um I think Mark can give us a pretty good idea of where we are power school is what we're power power school so we are we have made a lot of Headway our our tech department there was some additional training that was needed for our tech department to really be able to manage the transition to our folks that training was completed and once that was completed we were able to do some some
046big things um we are still working on it it's very complex there's a lot of things behind the scenes of just marrying those those systems um some of the big things that were accomplished though was getting those grades to populate um a report card and uh attendance letters are now available a huge thing that we had to do was we had to get transcripts ready and we had to get historical grades and historical transcripts up to date that was a monster task that has been accomplished one of the biggest things that we need to tackle now is for our learning management system Buzz to automatically populate grades into power school and that takes a lot of coding it's not it's not um just a simple couple butt so we feel confident that that once that
047automating uh great pass back starts happening a lot of the other things will fall right into place so um it was it was a lot to start and and everybody I've talked to other school corporations say you know it takes a minute to get it settled in but I'm pretty proud of our folks at the building level who have just continued to move forward we've asked our our teachers to do a little extra inputting manually and they've done that um and so that I I really think our tech department has rolled up their sleeves and are are tackling a lot of things at one time and and uh we're pretty confident that things are going to start coming together here quickly I I appreciate your comments and the fact that all our people are working
048diligently and hard to to get that transition in place so it's a Monumental task right I mean we've had RDS for how long we I think we go way back Beyond 20 years 20 20 years so sorry sorry I had to look at you Jim by I did too three days before water I so so we appreciate I just want to say thank you to all those that are working hard on that I know um we appreciate the patience of families and parents and especially at the end of the semester as people apply for college there's a lot of pressure and but uh certainly appreciate everyone's efforts and continue effort to get that transition over thank you thank you any other under board uh other business with that moved item eight uh 8.01 board statements
049of appreciation recognition anything this evening Mr BAS well as I typically in these meetings tend to point out the less than not the Marquee players but um as I passed a a school crossing guard today I realized they're employed by the city but they obviously they're there to help our kids and uh the things that they're doing on to keep our kids safe can can't really be understated um tomorrow morning God only knows what that's going to look like uh the weather pattern that's here and may be coming so just really appreciate those folks that stand out there in the cold and the rain and the dark and everything else so they're they're vital to our students safety thank you Mr fter Mr babjack anything CV nothing for me Mr Smith nothing um I have
050a couple here hopefully I won't forget um I'm making sure I clarify this it's a special needs cheerleading squad on Saturday or the Blazers the Blazers okay so I want to make sure they got their just due uh that's the one game which I didn't know got postponed from Friday to Saturday uh where one of the special need students sings the national anthem and the Blazers perform and I'd probably been to the last six of those not even knowing that that was Friday night that got moved to Saturday and the young lady that saying the national anthem and once again this is someone that I can't even imagine what she felt I saw her crying afterwards and she knocked it out of the park I mean uh so congrat congratulations to all those involved with
051putting that together the visiting crowd from Chesterton was an amazement so thank you to all those that are part of that group um the other one is to our custodial staff and all those involved with the cleanup at Taft um for those of you might not know we had a little water thing there from a sprinkler head that did some damage luckily at about 3:05 after the school day last Wednesday Wednesday and by Thursday with the help of Dion curas from skilman and getting the right people out there to mitigate um you would have never known what looked like a hurricane hit it the next day and pretty much we're right back to a functional School Corp less than what what's that 14 hours later so kudos to all those involved uh because I was
052there Saturday for the uh uh Olympiad thing but just on a side note what a spacular event that is being that was my first one um I spoke with the custodial staff and a little area thanking them for their extra work that was needed to help out those besides the mitigation team that we hir from an outside firm to take care of all that so thank you to all those and just my little last word on the Science Olympiad um I showed up at the beginning of it at 8 o'clock and being that this was the first one we held I mean there's schools coming from everywhere kids arriving and complete chaos yet somehow someway everybody got to the sections they were supposed to get to with 500 students of middle schoolers and high schoolers
053and and that's early in the morning um one of our instructors our wheeler uh or our wheeler coach saw that it was an opportunity for someone from the board to get involved in pictures so I was grabbed and pulled to take some pictures with our team so uh I said well if I was forced to do kids you guys all got to get up here with me so I made sure some of those probably weren't like me I'm not don't like you know photography that much just get the picture over let's move on with the day so that all worked out so uh it was a great event and we were handing out Awards Mr me and uh Gian fery uh mayor Pete land so and you know what it was like uh someone touch
054Bas the surprises on their faces some of these schools we're talking smaller schools too Whiting um a school from Illinois uh Benton our Benton Central from you know Far Far Away Northridge had like six teams represented the high school level um and then uh what was the one from uh Illinois you remember mark neille one of the N but it looks like it was a like a separation of the big Neighborville School Corp it was like a homeschool version of it or something like that I mean it was just incredible to see these kids and I was looking as I was walking around classroom to classroom at some of the projects and the subject matters and I mean I couldn't be a judge in any category let me just tell you that I don't I
055consider myself overly intelligent but I'm telling you this is detailed stuff so kudos to all those involved and especially our leaders that took the initiative to host one I did find out that this is an Invitational so it's kind of like a practice event for the big regionals and state competition that follows later on they even mentioned at the closing that they're going to try to move it up to where could be not during this type of weather maybe earlier in the year so you kind of can take this and then not one month later preparing for regionals or stay so once again thank you to all those involved so uh with that uh to those few high school students that have texted me during this meeting School decision has not been made as of
056yet that'll be made by the individuals that make that at Dr teron our transportation director and those on the cabinet so I just wanted to make sure when people saw me looking at their phone it's the few high school students I still know and no we have not made a decision on school for tomorrow morning so with that uh item nine I will look for a motion to adjourn so mov second motion by Mr Smith second by Mr babjack all those in favor please signify by saying I I I nay that carries 4 Z thank you have a good evening that