001all right welcome to the uh june 27 2022 regular business meeting on board of schools trustees held in public with a start time of 605 this evening if may all rise we'll ask mr hoffman to lead us in pledge allegiance 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 for all well due to due to some summer activities and uh lack of attendance and students being able to be here this evening i'd like to make a motion that we've we're just going to postpone the accommodations i believe they're all everyone 2.1 2.2 3 and 4 correct sorry we scroll down and 2.5 michael earley is not here that no it's not here um so moved a
002motion to table the accommodation words 2.1 through 2.5 second motion by mr angel and second by mr hoffman i was in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries five zeros we'll pick that up sometime in the future four zero yes four zero thank you tom patrons comments we do not have any this evening we move to item four consent agenda dr terrell you know i i did see you here before the meeting i'd like to um we have some some rules can i have you to sign in and then we'll ask you a step to that's okay do you need a pen name address and uh i'd be speaking on and then even though you are the only one here i'll read through the policy for comment thank you so just the guidelines
003to speak at the meeting the patrons registered comments the board will hear patrons wish to come out comment on educational issues at the regular business meeting of horoscope trustees held in public uh sign signed the sign up sheet provided at the back room prior to start a meeting but um make an exception for that this evening uh when your name is called please come to the podium state your name and address and purpose for speaking the portion of the meeting during which the participating public is vita shall be 20 minutes speakers are referring to speaking on personnel issues so um and student issues mr angel will keep a time for us three minutes per speaker so if you'd like to begin go ahead okay um esther hill 907 seneca drive in crown point and i
004am just here because i'm inquiring i don't know if they'll be addressed at this meeting or maybe hopefully in july um next month but i know that biden's department of food and nutrition services announced that it will strip money specifically for lunches from schools who don't allow trans students to use the bathroom of their desired gender title ix says the school districts will have to allow transgender boys and girls boys into girls bathrooms locker rooms showers and sleeping quarters in order to keep federal funds for lunchrooms breakfasts and snacks so i am just i mean i know there's with media there's a bunch of false things that go on um i saw this it was concerned with crown point public schools um i am against this and i was just wondering how crown point public
005schools is going to address this is this going to be changing the 2022-2023 school year and if that can be addressed i would appreciate it if not this meeting next meet yes yes i recognize two genders boys and girls and um i'm very concerned for my daughter who is a first grader next year i'm very concerned for all the children i think this is just a horrible move so and i hope your your board all you members agree with me so thank you thank you for your comments okay so adam for consent agenda dr terrell your consideration this evening we have four point one thank you center and that is both 4.2 and 4.3 4.4 is our appointments by the board for the accompanying bond amounts this is an annual thing that we do each
006and every year 4.5 the personnel agenda 4.6 meal prices and then 4.7 which is our voucher registered checks as listed thank you dr terrell you heard the consent agenda as presented we have a motion to approve so moved second moved by mr hoffman and seconded by mr smith any questions or comments for dr terrell no i was in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye i will abstain due to a personal conflict on the personnel agenda this evening opposed that motion does carry 3-0 and mr angel will abstain due to a conflict on a personal agenda this evening moving forward on five action items we have 5.1 disposition of obsolete curriculum materials and property mr hartman thank you mr president this evening again pursuant to the adoption of a new english language arts curriculum
007and resources we are disposing of language arts uh previous language arts curriculum items uh so that is before you this evening as well as a piano that was uh has been in storage for a number of years at macarthur that i think surfaced and needs to be moved because of construction that's going on there are pictures there and seeking opportunity to uh use the protocols that that might be able to uh maybe have someone take care of or uh maybe donate the piano so we're seeking your approval tonight to dispose of these resources as well as the piano thank you mr hardman you've heard that um excuse me recommendation to approve the dis disposal of elementary curriculum materials listed in property in the most economical manner and the best meets the requirements of any code
0085-22-22 and code 20-26-5-4 admission of guidelines 73-10 which may include sale donation redeeming worthless and disposing of it as normal refuse we have a motion to approve so moved second moved by mr angel and second by mr hoffman any questions or comments from mr harbor not always in favor of significant pie by saying i i opposed motion carries 4-0 and 5.2 is the crown point high school resource adoption mr hartman again thank you again mr president uh bring to you this evening the resources at crown point high school that are recommending being adopted these are new materials if you look at the spreadsheet i believe that also notes the the rationale behind each of the resources that are being adopted seeking your approval to adopt those this evening thank you ms harmony you heard the
009recommendation to approve the crown high school resource adoption they have a motion to approve some move moved by mr hoffman and second by mr smith any questions or comments on the resource adoption mr hartman just for the information the public what is the procedure for adoption of textbooks the procedure for adoption of the textbooks at the at the high school level is headed up by the department uh chair and then there's involvement by members of the department for the uh for the adoption there's a review process that they go through looking at the resources comparing them and then coming up with a determination as to which resource that is necessary in some of the cases because their dual credit courses or dual credit resources we're really waiting for the university to tell us which of
010the resources that we need to provide for our students so that the students can be able to access the curriculum as well as do well to get the dual credit the college credit uh classes to piggyback off that question um i know there are a lot of questions with textbooks right now and i think it's a good time to discuss this how frequently do we review this list of items is it annually with the department chairs yeah annually there are uh opportunities for um i think for resources to come on in the list that you have before you today you can see that in the language arts department there's some novels that have been adopted for the instruction uh and they're pretty classical classic novels that you can see there when you think when you
011look at the language arts for dual credit speech again you can see the rationale for that is the university mandate if you go down into the industrial tech place course these are new they're not new courses it's a restructuring of the construction trades and therefore they're bringing we're bringing in the cte resources uh for that that that are new resources and uh really it's to help uh with the transition to the new courses uh that the that we are implementing uh at that point in time it there is a cycle that we go through so for instance like in in elementary school we've gone through a cycle over the last period of years where we've picked up and adopted news we've done a resource review the middle school too i think a few we've been
012looking at we did mathematics i think it was the last one actually it was science that we did so there's a cycle that we go through as we review those uh those resources the high school pretty much looks at their their resources that are built into the learning management system and then as things change they do start a review and identify what is necessary to be able to curate for the courses that that they have any other questions come all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed motion carries 4-0 and back to mr hartman for the textbook rental and supply fees for 22-23 cromwell high school and a special education yeah thank you uh the two sheets that i've provided to you are the textbook rental fees recommended for crown point high
013school and the exceptional education the crown point high school is by course so depending on what courses the students take then those fees are compiled and that becomes the crown point high school tbr for for the year the ella the exceptional education they align to the uh by grade level what the grade level elementary grade level um tbr is so for instance i think it was last month you would you approved the tbr for you know grades k through five so if if grade one was a hundred and ninety dollars then you'll see that the uh the exceptional education fee also at this for grade one for students would be the same the same amount so they do maintain a coordination uh of that it's hard to put together for high school what a fee
014would be for it because it depends on the courses that the students students take i mean if you're looking at core courses you might see lower tbrs overall if you're getting into some of the courses that as you could see on the sheet there's some pretty hefty fees that go with some of the courses either through maybe the cte area courses that are dual credit but there's those are consumable items students own those books in most cases and so you you can see some pretty pretty large fees uh that uh that students uh the students take so this evening seeking your recommendation of the of the fees for exceptional education in crown point high school thank you for the recommendation to approve the crumpled high school interception education textbook and rental supply fees for 22-23
015do we have a motion to approve second moved by mr angel and second by mr hoffman any questions or comments from mr hartman mr airman didn't see a comparison on the chromebook rental fees was there much change on them yeah this we're moving we're transitioning to uh um touchscreen devices so this year you'll see that the cost of the chromebook is 70.68 for the rental over four years uh previously you would if we started back a few years when we did not do all touch screens you'll see somewhere around 56 so that's the increase that you'll see as we are as we're making a transition to uh to all touch screens in the in the district so we're not doing it every you know full scale we are doing it through the uh cycle that
016we have identified and moving everything to touch screens thank you question that may be more directed to artie but our are we having difficulty hiring exceptional education instructors the reason i asked was that there was uh i don't know how how many people read it but the indiana school boards association sends out an email every morning of articles from around the state and they had one i believe was this morning talking about transitioning licensed teachers into exceptional ed and have programs set up for them to to learn that transition over the course of a year so yeah i would say that um that comment that it has been more difficult to find exceptional education instructors but we've been able to um receive some high quality applicants and and get them hired i think our challenge
017in that particular area would be in some very specific specialized area for instructional support uh some of our therapists and and whatnot but um to this point the market is thinner but we've been able to to get some good people on board any other comments or questions uh maybe anybody else or back to mr harmon all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed that motion carries 4-0 and uh item six we have discussion report items at 6.1 policy revisions and additions the first reading mr akiwa yes thank you mr president uh board members um just uh item here uh involving our updates of policies this is a very specific update that we're doing outside of a batch update if you will but as you know we work now with isba for our policy
018updates and we found it necessary to address this one sooner rather than later that's policy 9150 which speaks to school visitors in particular you'll notice the draft there introduces a new statement uh leading us to have our administrative guidelines direct us on how we are going to allow those that are going to be present in our building uh to provide services to students largely uh with approval by the principal for appropriateness for those folks to be present so we would just like you to go ahead and see this tonight for uh first reading potentially and for information and with the option to approve if necessary thank mr kiwa for the recommendation of a first reading and potential approval of uh policy number 9150 because i don't know what it requires any action though no we
019don't um bring it back we can move probably move to way of the reading of it but which i will do second the waiting of the reading also all those in favor of waving the reading this evening approach all right say and oppose most carriage 4-0 thank you thank you mr akiwa and uh item seven information items we have superintendent discussion groups do we have anything from either anywhere cedar lake winfield crown point i know i missed last meeting crown point rdc had one of its uh quicker meetings last month i think it was less than 10 minutes so not much going on there other than you know continue to accept and approve facade grants and paving contracts for improvement of city streets winfield still trying to find money with which to do something so
020let's move forward to director of elementary education mr ramirez thank you mr president and board members i'd like to take this opportunity to really share my appreciation and thanks for our administrators at the elementary level for their dedication throughout the school year that then continues into summer school as well as preparing for the upcoming school year specifically i would like to thank and recognize cindy wise for her service as both an elementary classroom teacher and building principal at lake street her career has really been one that has been filled with pride in serving her students her teachers and families and i know that she is genuinely looking forward to her retirement and sharing time with her with her family as well as specifically her grandchildren i know will keep her busy with activities but just
021want to thank her for her contributions to our elementary team as well as to our community thank you director of secondary education mr gene fermi thank you mr president board members um just like mrs ramirez i'd like to thank all our secondary staff for all the hard work they've been doing in summer school our middle school teachers administrators and staff be wrapping up this week with over 200 students at the high school close to a thousand students in some type of online course or in person you might see them walking around town occasionally in their pe uniforms but uh there's quite a few kids getting some education this summer and we really appreciate all their efforts and doing that well and then also um since it's the first time we've met since the graduation like
022to thank mr martinez high school administration for just a a great job at the ceremony in particular amy helmuth assistant principal who um orchestrates that whole thing sets it all up and makes sure it went off flawlessly i've been at a lot of them and that was that one was really well done and it was a great night and i think our parents and families enjoyed it and the kids did of course thank you mr g for me um chief academic officer mr hartman thank you president um coming up this the student friday on our information systems that will be accessible these are the final results we have preliminary request rescores final results are posted july in addition to that professional development we're both attending summer school we time things curriculum resource training that's coming
023up so that helps us in addition we continue to build our capacity to support our students academically and socially looking at tools and interventions thank you mr harvard and uh chief human resource officer mr akiva thank you mr president i'd just like to continue with the thanking and appreciation for all of our front office staff members uh administrators department heads uh we've had quite a fast and furious furious hiring season we've conducted i probably can't even count the interviews but quite a few and i think everybody's just done an outstanding job uh screening all of the applicants that we've received for various positions here in the last two months we've done a a wonderful job and i just appreciate all the uh the teamwork attention to detail uh and diligence and and bringing on board
024high quality individuals into the crown point school corporation so thank you to all of our leaders and support staff out there that work so hard on the hiring process uh this hiring season thank you and uh mr reece from the business office we have nothing this evening the director of communications ms allen thank you next to each of your computers is the next issue of the we rcp newsletter it will be in mailboxes the week of july 4th but that's an advanced copy i'm also excited to announce in the next couple of months we'll be switching our mass messaging system we currently use school messenger it's more than a bit outdated it causes a lot of our messages to land in spam boxes instead of inboxes so we are switching to a platform called parent
025square it's a kind of new up-and-coming platform a lot of other districts are making the switch to them as well and i'm looking forward to better communication with our families as a result that sounds exciting thank you i know i know i've been a victim of a spam email a couple times this year we are equal opportunity dr terrell superintendent of schools i would like to begin by echoing the remarks of mr ramirez regarding cindy wise and her retirement she's been here a long time appreciate her leadership in the building and at the same time we're excited uh to see what comes out of the interview process here we'll be going through over the next couple of weeks and looking forward to the future as well i want to thank all of our people who
026are in our buildings over the summer not just our administrators but also maintenance the custodians with summer school going on every one of our buildings has summer school sessions going on and with six of our campuses having major projects going on right now it's created um some challenges and they're still doing a great job with it also recognizing our custodian and maintenance crews with all of the normal summer projects that are going on that continue to happen even in the midst of all this so we appreciate their efforts last thing this evening i'd just like to remind you board members and also our community members of the state of the school address which will be july 13th breakfast will start being served at 7 30 with the program beginning at 8 and being concluded by
0279 a.m i look forward to the opportunity to share some highlights of what happened this past year and then also some of the vision for the next school year as we come into that and that will be held at crown point high school thank you drill no other business of border school trustees anybody have anything this evening like to comment or discuss we uh progress on the um agreement with the city regarding the construction for the new concession standard we learned so we're in the process right now of reviewing the plans that they had created for that building and working with the architect who created those plans and then looking at what that process is going to be as we get that built we're in a good place with it it's just one of those
028things it's going to take a little bit of time before we start seeing the dirt move there we have an end date in mind though i think it's is it october of 23 yeah october november of 23 so that's the date we're working towards to be completed at that point correct okay thank you uh dr have you had an opportunity to meet with mayor land yet i have not i was out of town in the last week and a few days before that so he's a bit busy also right yeah he's running i have met him before he was in this position though and have her have had a relationship with him already so look forward to continuing to strengthen that and grow that about any other other business or oh i like to just
029take a minute i told mr g and fermi and akiwa when i walked in i i didn't mean to like drop something on them this evening but i want to bring it up now just that we had a lot of emails to the board um in regards to school safety um after the incident took place in texas and some other you know violence around the country and um i responded i probably didn't give the detailed response that maybe those you know that mailed us were looking for but can we just take a minute and you know from from way above just give us a couple things over the last i mean this goes back i know many years but you know looking at yourself mr dean firmly and q i know you guys have spent
030attended several conferences and some of the things that we do to try to you know keep our schools safe could you just take a minute to touch on that yeah absolutely so you know with with school safety it's all about preparation and communication and we started back in 2019 pre covid we really changed our our safety protocols really from top to bottom and built our safety plan anew and went out and trained all our teachers and staff in person that year over 80 trainings in person to every building then and then coveted so we we're constantly trying to update those those protocols that we've put in some standard response protocols uh part of the communication piece not only with this is the time of year we we do do online tutorials but again have plans
031for the beginning of the school year to get back out into the buildings to make sure that staff and teachers and students all know what is expected in case of emergencies but we also meet with our first responders which is huge we're part of a group that meets at lake county schools and we're one of the few schools that meets monthly with police and fire from winfield cedar lake crown point and the county and and we do that monthly whether we have a topic to discuss or not um like i know in july we're going to be talking about how we're going to move cars around come the beginning of school with construction in the fair um so those are things that really help the safety continue to to build here in our district um
032and i'm gonna let mr kiewa talk a little bit too but one of the things i want to make clear though is a lot of the things we put in for safety like access points um being buzzed within cameras radios all those things are kind of in response to emergencies but part of what we want to do as well is beyond a proactive on that and some of the things that mr hardman mentioned with multi-tiers of support for our students we've added social workers we have mou's memos of understanding with our mental health providers and crown counseling and pillars of wellness and these are for kids that by working with them and making our teachers more aware of hey you know these are students or families that might need some additional support that's beyond just
033going to see the counselor so if we can be proactive and make sure that we're keeping kids safe and healthy that's just as important some of the other things that we're talking about as far as physically locking doors and things like that so i'll make sure that we're trying to attack it from both ends and something that you mentioned there that has come up i mean so many things have been brought forward to us through your training but one is for example a few years ago i believe that there was the conversation conversation of you know flipping a desk and sitting under it and just sitting there verse okay no if if there's an opportunity to escape we're gonna take it and it's all difficult conversations but they're it's they need to be had and
034i'm just kind of bringing this up that those things have come up to us you said no if there's an opportunity in a in a serious situation we're going to you know correct take different actions that maybe would up 15 years ago 100 you know we've been now probably at least five plus years into new philosophy on how you react to those situations when there might be an unwanted individual in your school building so um we feel really good about that uh but we are we're continually staying on that not only do our staff members do online training but we do in person as well this particular year we've added trainers in in-house and some of our trainers are actually our law enforcement officials and um so we're working together with them as we train
035our staff members um so in addition to all the q uh the planning um that goes on and communication with all the stakeholders regarding safety you know we do continue to look at uh some infrastructure uh software um surveillance um you know down to you know locks on doors and how the doors work and our sally ports which are in the front of every building so we're constantly looking at those uh as well to make sure that our physical spaces are as well equipped as they can be to keep keep everyone safe and i add another note that i believe with mr colson maybe it has happened before that but i i think i've heard that it's not to do a gotcha moment but a little bit of walk around buildings pulling on doors making
036sure they're secured and you know and bringing that to the principal's attention like hey this is not you know this we do this for a reason and i mean that's just you guys have brought these things to us in the past and um i think that yeah to that to that point mr warnie uh mr coulson has completed a threat of assessment on every building in our district the uh assessment that's required for some of the grant funding that we receive for safety so he does that annually i think it's also crucial though too and dave coulson is here in our audience this evening our supervisor of school security um his relationship with the first responders here in our community and beyond is so beneficial for us when we've had threats that have come up
037dave has worked very closely with our local law enforcement and they're on that like immediately and many times before the message even makes it around to many of those who are seeing that it's already been addressed and are is in the process of being handled and dealt with very quickly and promptly and we appreciate that as well as our the those that we work with being willing to take those threats serious and get on them right away i think the other thing i would mention too we continue to put a real emphasis on having school safety specialists in all of our buildings and continuing to as we bring on new administrators get them trained to be a school safety specialist as we remodel buildings build new buildings we make sure that we're using the best
038safety protocols and practices that we know now and including those in those buildings as well so there's a lot of things that we don't reveal just simply because you have to keep that tactical advantage if you will um but that's always at the first thought in all of our minds as we do these remodeling and additional projects as we bring those forward a couple comments so one artie i hope that school board members aren't considered unwanted individuals in the buildings not at all i i think the biggest take i had from uvalde was to make certain and give reassurance to the community that we have a an undisputed chain of command um but i think that appears to have been the biggest failure there in trying to respond that either nobody was in charge or
039nobody wanted to be in charge and somebody has to react and react quickly so i don't think we have an issue with that in our district that's good right you have coming yeah just just to add to this discussion i think something that has been effective and we need to make sure it continues is the reporting of what people here see social media i know we've been effective in following up with those reports and it has helped so you know we we there's always seems to be a warning sign when something occurs when it comes to school safety and if people continue to report and we can get to it before it occurs that's the best way and i know there's processes in our administration to handle those that reporting as well i don't want
040to be left out with uh mr g and fermi's experience from the school perspective of things going through all the training required by schools is that and mr colson's outside law enforcement background experience which i think you'll find unmatched in a school corporation as far as every level of its cover and mixing that together puts us in a good spot it's never going to prevent anything but i like knowing that this community is obviously sending emails worrying about school safety that we're doing every thing we can to try to prevent obviously you can't stop everything but i think we're in a great spot to make sure we're prepared prepared and we're also in a spot to try to stop things before they even happen and i think that was evident a couple times this school
041year when rumors had spread of what was going on they were middle school the one time and i forgot the other one whether it was a high school the other middle school and it was addressed and you know kind of vania vanished and extinguished pretty quickly based on the way it was handled internally once again not giving out secrets of the trade so to speak on how to come to it come to a know-how that it wasn't a viable threat or if it is a viable threat and what the next steps are so i'd like to thank all those involved for making that comfortable from the board's perspective knowing that it's being handled and nothing's not being followed up on if it's brought to our attention thank you i believe that's good enough it's not
042that we have an audience here this evening looking for answers to this but um now that we do have the benefit of streaming and you know when an email comes through and not that we've dropped a lot of information here in the last few minutes but to be able to respond to somebody and say this was addressed at you know minute mark of whatever board meeting um i think it gives them a little bit of um an opportunity to see us in discussion and throwing around some of the things that have happened over the last few years through training and um and and really as you guys know when those emails come in we as a board we can respond confidently it's not a you know you're not nervous to respond to somebody to say
043that these dots have you know eyes been dotted and the t's been crossed so thank you for the discussion i think that what we've done with our entrance ways has been nothing but spectacular in the last i don't know would that start five years ago somewhere around there i want to say i mean to get into the building i mean when you got to be double buzzed in and once again i've been on the board long enough and i know the people at jerry ross and yet every time i got to be double buzzed in which i'll never ever complain about no matter how long i live in this community that that's a good thing that they just want to verify who it is coming in their building so no matter what time of day
044that's good to know that that's the protocol that's being followed yeah all right thank you um any other business uh this board discussion comments anything going on was anybody aware of our speakers even this evening that something had been done formally through the state about restrooms i was just curious i hadn't heard that yeah typically that will take some time to shake down and see what the true impacts of that are going to be it is a continual issue that schools are facing not just here in crown point but across our state and our country as well and it's just one we just have to continue to watch and keep our eye on okay well i think the other issue associated with that is the potential lack of funding for underwriting of student breakfast is
045on lunches right and so as you know over the last couple of years throughout the shutdown of schools one of the things that they did was offer free meals for everyone there's some talk that that is something that might gain some traction and become a reality that's just offered all the time again because lunches are something that comes from the federal level we'll have to wait and see where that all lands right now the plan is that it'll be go back to the way it was before where if you qualify for free reduced lunch you'll have discounted or free food if not i as was on the agenda this evening our meal prices are there and they have not changed going to pre-covered times as well thank you let's move we could circle back with
046any business if anything comes to mind but let's move forward with boris davis appreciation recognition mr smith you have anything to see me i know mr offline i want to acknowledge the football folks for putting on a wonderful golf outing week ago monday very well done and i don't know what kind of results they had but i'm i'm sure it was very successful played with mr angel oh we tore it up i know and and lost money to mr reese yes we'll leave that one there [Laughter] hey mishra mr angel i don't have anything to see okay well you know what i do i would just like to say thanks to those behind the scenes and i say this a lot but it's true on how much actually gets accomplished that people in the community
047and the public aren't aware whether it's the hiring aspect the buildings and grounds aspects security aspect the middle administration level which i'm just using middle just to make sure i include everybody on what they're doing behind the scenes to make sure that the school year is ready to go and curriculums are in place and everything it's really incredible that we function at such a high level knowing that i mean i assume we're going to be probably closer to 9 000 students probably corporation-wide this year probably somewhere i mean if you think about that that's really impressive so just to all those that don't really get any acknowledgement during the course of school school year thank you for all you do to make sure that we kick it off with a usually a blazing start no
048matter it's at the high school level elementary level middle school levels and that it's done in a professional way to where kids are receiving the best education possible thank you mr yeah i don't have anything specific either i'd like to i think graduation was a success um everybody involved there did a great job ran free ran extremely smooth and hopefully all the families enjoyed it maybe there's yeah and uh any uh i i had a few sports uh items to write to acknowledge now they're slipping me right now but you know we'll get back to that i'm sure everyone's gonna be uh accommodated soon everyone in the spring sport extremely exciting extremely successful statement but i think everybody did i think our boys won the conference standings again and i think girls came in yeah
049well all sports and the girls came in second by not much yeah so right there right down to the wire so anything else uh before we wrap up this evening if not the motion to adjourn moved by mr angel seconded by mr hoffman all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed most carries