001all right good evening oh wait a second i'm sorry this is not march 21st i'm gonna have to re give me a minute to reload there we go i don't mind having that month back but that's right okay we'll try again welcome to the april 25th 2022 regular business meeting with board of school trustees with held in public with a start time we'll call it 605 this evening if we could ask mr hoffman to lead us in pledge legions we all may rise for the pledge 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 for all may be seated thank you mr hoffman all right item two this evening board of school trustees resolution accommodation
002awards we have 2.1 the taft dance team for being named state champions in junior high palm state champions in junior high ensemble and state runner-up and junior high solo the team featured libby brown elise clark tyler eberhardt kendall fedak bailey finnerty aubry gadino we'll correct any name pronunciations when we give the awards as well uh bralen mcgrady madeline rodriguez uh leah sullivan kaden vader sophia vorwald grace zamora and the coaches were annie vassar and nicole fisher do we have a motion to approve second move by mr angel i believe second by mr hoffman any questions or comments all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed that motion carries 5-0 and now we're going to present the accommodation to the to the dance team um is there mr colson do we have any parents
003there left out there that we need to get invited into the board room okay we asked to ask the girls to join us all right so how about we uh read accommodation then we'll get a few words thank you for joining us this evening the resolution accommodation the crown point board of school trustees is honored to commend the 2021-2022 robert eight taft middle school dance team for notorious achievement and be here by resolve that the border school cheese school trustees for the crown point community school corporation wishes to express sincere congratulations to the robert a taft middle school dance team for being the 22 state champions in junior high palm ensemble and state runner-up and junior high solo the board of school trustees publicly recognizes this achievement renders it permanently to its minutes to be
004preserved for public posterity made this 25th day of april 2022. congratulations so how about i call your name present you your accommodation then you come back up there in front and when we're all finished we'll get a picture and maybe hear a few words from the coaches and uh i i think i heard in the hallway that dr terrell was a big fan of the dance and the so uh he'll give a little uh libby brown sorry let me hang elise clark [Applause] uh [Applause] you know mcgrady [Applause] oh uh i had a couple more nicole fisher okay and coach this is heard a little bit about your success through the grapevine i fortunate to be friends with some of you and your families ahead of time so i heard of all the good work
005you were doing and uh a couple opportunities that you all got to celebrate on your way home from victories and i think here in the crown point school corporation i if i'm not mistaken the sharerville lake central district has always been pretty competitive and tough to beat yes and you guys were able to knock them out this year and uh you know i know the state champion is something but you got to get past the local the local first right so we're all very proud of you you represented uh taft and the school corporation and and all your achievements and i just want to say thank you guys for you know doing such a great job and always thank the parents for their support and you know traveling with you guys and getting you guys
006where you need to go and you know coach of course uh coach could you say a couple words about the team and give us a little insight yeah so i will say that out of my 10 years of coaching this has been my hardest working team they went above and beyond all season and achieved some pretty amazing things because of it and not only that the parents were amazing on top of that so thank you guys for all that you did as well in the community for the amazing things that we were able to see come from these kids anybody else dr terrell sure if you guys haven't had a chance yet to see this i really feel like we probably should have had this queued up ready to play um it's really amazing and
007as i was talking with your coach seriously out in the hallway i said she took all the credit she actually put it all back on you guys on your parents for all the work if you guys get a chance to watch this video you'll know that the hours that went into this are countless i'm sure so congratulations and thank you we appreciate the way you represented our school corporation but also our community thank you i'm sure if there's a group ready to be photogenic and smile as you guys so miss allen's gonna take some pictures [Applause] parents and dad and uh tap dance team thank you for joining us this evening thank you always welcome to stay but uh get out while getting gets good [Laughter] i forgot i should have asked uh i know
008i'm miked here but i should have asked coach to come to the podium so that they could hit them okay okay item three patrons comments patrons register for comment on educational issues we did begin the practice of reading this a few months ago and we'll continue to do so that everybody understands the guidelines the guidelines the board will hear patrons who are legal residents in center township or winfield township wishing to comment on educational issues at the regular business meeting of the board of school trustees held in public patrons must sign the sheet provided in the back of the board room prior to start a meeting when their names are called to address the board they will move to the podium in front of the room state their names spell them for record keeping purposes
009addresses and the topic that they will be addressing if patrons have prepared written statements on a topic they may present at this time a limit of three minutes is allowed for each speaker we'll ask mr angel to be our clock keeper he'll give you a little warning at a minute 30 seconds and pretty abruptly cut you off at three minutes the portion of the meeting during which the participation of public is invited shall be limited to 20 minutes unless extended by a vote of the board if we go beyond 20 we've accommodated extra minutes recently in board meetings speakers are to refrain from speaking on personnel issues and student issues okay thank you um this evening we have jennifer carr miss jennifer would you come forward please good evening hi my name is jennifer carr
010c-a-r-r i live at 1-2-4-2-0 washington street here in crown point our topic that i'm speaking on today is the start of the 2022-2023 school year i'm on here on behalf of more than 4 300 supporters of the petition to delay the start of the school year until after the lake county fair concludes some of the reasons why people have signed and why we believe the decision to start on august 10th during the fair is the conceived r concerns about the safety of children walking home from several schools while fairgoers and fair workers from other communities increased the traffic and possibility for unfavorable action interactions concerns about the safety of everyone involved with pickup at the end of the day for many of the schools around and on the way to the fair we all know
011this is already a hot mess adding more traffic is ridiculous based on the march 2021 recording of the board meeting the comments made at the coffee with the superintendent and the superintendent's statement as quoted by the times that safety is not that big of a concern it does not appear that the safety of our children was ever seriously considered in the decision shameful concerns about the mental well-being are children who love the fair and live their best lives there nearly every day for many the fair brings joy and creates lifelong memories hanging out with friends laughing having fun just being kids we owe it to them after all that's been taken for them because of covid participation in 4-h 4-h shouldn't be forced into deciding between school and their passion and what they've been working
012towards all year excusing their absences doesn't mitigate this the corporation should continue to be a good community partner and not impact the operation of the fair by taking away parking options additionally vendors in the fair itself will be negatively impacted financially by this decision also fans feel misled by the corporation survey and in no way voted or were interested in this decision august 10th is also just way too early from a weather standpoint kids have more opportunities to be active outside during the warmer weather in august and several school buildings are not adequately air-conditioned and finally concerns for community members whose businesses thrive in the warmer weather starting school early in august will financially impact these institutions as well there are many other reasons that i've been reading on social media that i will not
013go into here but there are a lot more reasons why this is not a good decision we appreciate the desire to hold final exams for high schoolers before winter break this however is not an either or proposition to start school after the fair on august 15th or have finals taken before winter break we can achieve both the current calendar has winter break starting on wednesday december 20 what okay december 21st if we extend that week through friday we pick up the three days needed to delay the start of school until after the fair this option was presented to me by current employees of the school system um given the feedback from the community we recommend you revisit the decision and determine the school the parent's preference mr board president in an email to me you
014indicated you'd bring this up in other business so i look forward to your discussion and follow-up action items thank you for your time thank you [Applause] and bill mccall hi my name is bill mccall mcc all i live at 1215 cheyenne drive in crown point when i spoke to you in october i was asking for your help to use the bulldog stadium at crown point high school to showcase a lacrosse game consisting of a team comprised entirely of crown point students against a fellow regional team i was told then that there were hurdles that would be difficult to overcome but i've been working hard towards a solution in spite of it i sent this board an email in october another one two weeks ago i appreciate your response mr warney i'm interested in the reasons
015uh that you were told i've sent emails to mr dorilla and received a response from him that i ford forwarded to you that said granting such a request was quote against school board policy this past weekend we played against zionsville at their high school stadium and afterward i stopped for lunch at the same place that dr tyrell just happened to be eating my good luck and possibly his bad luck sorry it was i'm not shy so i asked him about my request i i don't think you'll mind me saying that he replied almost verbatim that it was quote against school board policy so i read the policies all all of which are online and i and as i asked in my last email i need help finding the policy everyone keeps telling me that prevents
016us from playing on the field i couldn't find anywhere that the use of the stadium by the public is prohibited in fact it specifically lists that the stadium is defined as a recreational facility and can be available to community participants in manual policy section seven thousand i played varsity lacrosse with crown point written on my chest for four years and i've been voted team captain in the last two and as captain i'm here representing the 39 boy boys all of whom are crown point students many are here with me 22 girls who wanted to be here were playing chesterton at chesterton's stadium as well as the 76 kids in the youth program from kindergarten to eighth grade who see us the high school students as examples of what dedication and hard work can bring them
017distinguished board members we are known by every team that we play against is crown point high school lacrosse team we consist only of crown point high school students and we only have two home games left against regional opponents this wednesday against laporte which we're which we're going to be honoring our youth teams at halftime and may 11th against munch munster which is our senior night 30 seconds i'm here to officially submit an application to hold these events at the stadium and i'd like your support help me get to the answer yes the policies say that it's possible it's even clearly defined when i started this in october i had a whole season i'm down to only two games now i'm in the same place i was last october just with a little more knowledge i
018need your help if there's a policy in place help me find it or better yet help me change it if there isn't a policy help me get this event on the books to show that this board stands with its students either way and simply put i need your help thank you [Applause] thank you maybe moving forward with our agenda dr terrell do you uh consent to jenna to you item four consent agenda before we go there uh may i make just a few comments regarding uh bill's comments this evening and uh appreciate bill the way that you've represented the lacrosse team and getting up to the microphone i know it's not an easy thing to do but appreciate how you've done that and the conversations we've had as well um i will tell you that
019so the school board policy that talks about this explains all this is but then with school board policies there are administrative guidelines that go along with each school board policy or with many school board policies so the admin guidelines are what gives our administrators our schools the meet if you will of how to enact the school board policy so the admin guideline that refers to this is also but it's 7510a and in there it goes through and talks about all of the different facilities and who may use them and in the policy it actually identifies what class of groups different organizations are there's one two and three and in there as you the admin guideline talks through what facilities are available what practice facilities are available what performance facilities are available and for our performance
020facilities outside being football baseball softball and soccer fields those are all listed as not available so those are the the things that we've got to look at we are continually looking at what can we do how do we look at the bigger issue i think that is here and that is to have it so that lacrosse can play on our campus i know that you've mentioned that there are several schools who play in their football stadiums for those schools their football stadium is also their soccer stadium because they have one we're fortunate here in crown point to have a soccer stadium to have a football stadium so with that being said we are looking at long range what can we do to be able to bring lacrosse onto the campus [Music] we believe we've got
021some solutions that can work for that we're just not at the point where we can share what those are going to be at this time i know that's not what you guys would like to hear because you'd like to hear let's go let's do it right now that is where we're at with it so uh you mentioned about the classes uh the board can change yes can they do that sitting here this evening no the way that lacrosse has been viewed in the past has been class three and we can get into a debate about should you be class two class three what that is um this isn't the time or the place for that uh i'm just telling you historically that's where it has been classified and that's why it's come up as that
022is there there is and we don't get back and forth during this time but yes yeah if if if i could interject maybe one of the other board members this is not a typical situation um mr smith you know in our conversations you presented why don't we have a discussion um nobody's opposed to that the problem is at this time getting to where you want to go you know is we haven't seen the opportunity to make the change fast enough for you to get where you need to go um i think that at best at this time dr terrell bill and really just appreciate all of you guys coming you can hear in the tone of my voice is something that you know we're not wanting to you know i'm being i'm just being honest
023that it's time to move forward this evening and i'm unfortunately not optimistic to getting that may 11th game taken care of but i think we need to we need to move on with our meeting we need to stick with the agenda that we have and you know for further discussion please reach out to me there's members that are willing to sit down and get you the answers and explain things that you need to hear i appreciate the time um rest the board are you okay with moving forward is it yeah i mean we can come back to it during discussion period sounds good sorry i got logged out without uh there we go back in okay so um moving forward item four consent agenda dr terrell for your consideration this evening we have 4.1 uh
024the regular business meeting notes that were taken and the appropriation from rainy day fund 4.2 the south lake career cooperative agreement 4.3 the personnel agenda and then 4.4 the voucher registered checks as listed in your board packet thank you i've heard the consent agenda as presented by dr child we have a motion to approve so moved second uh moved by mr angel in second by mr babjack i'm sorry moved by mr hoffman in second by mr dave any questions or comments for dr terrell if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries 5-0 just because i was gone for a while dave you didn't have to forgive me yeah sorry for that anyway uh item five action items we have 5.1 textbook and resource adoption ms ramirez thank you and
025if you guys would allow me i'd like to come back to the consent agenda we do have one of our assistant principals who will be joining our team here in crown point with us tonight alyssa bell will be joining the eisenhower staff and we are very excited to welcome her she is coming to us um from the classroom and is very oh we would like you to we would like alyssa to stand i just want to make sure alyssa alyssa would you like to introduce your guest who's with you here this [Music] is my husband evening you for having me thank you and sabrina thank you for mentioning that yeah we are very excited to welcome melissa um you will very soon find out how kid-centered she is she's excited to work with and get
026to meet our staff at eisenhower and really throughout the district and um is very excited to be part of this community and i have every faith and confidence in her vision for teaching and learning here so welcome welcome yes thank you mr ramirez and uh thank you dr terrell had informed us that you know we'd we're going to be excited about a new hire so thank you for bringing that to our attention that she was present this evening we knew it was in the personnel agenda yes and mrs dado may be even more excited about her joining uh her staff as yeah there will be a lot of energy over at eisenhower next year for sure so we are very appreciative of the full-time assistant principals at our elementary building so thank you very much
027um to go back to now 5.1 after conducting an ela elementary curriculum review that began in january and concluded in april i am here tonight on behalf of administration to request the textbook and resource adoption for use beginning in 2223 of the ckla knowledge as listed in the agenda you will see the items that we are requesting for the resources to support appropriate academic standards for each course and grade level the administration recommends to the school board that the school board approved the textbook or resource adoption for use beginning in 22-23 thank you mr mers you've heard the recommendation to prove the textbook or resource adoption for reviews beginning in 2223. do you have a motion to approve someone that was pushed by mr babjack and seconded by mr hoffman any questions or comments for
028mr mayors if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye all right proposed emotion carries 5-0 we'll move to 5.2 the out-of-country field trip to france and spain we have mr g and fermi thank you mr president the crown point school world language department is seeking approval for an out of country field trip to france and spain for the summer of 2023 trip will be offered to french and spanish students in grades 10 through 12 and the teacher sponsors are ashley nazar and jolene smith tripp has been booked through ef educational tours which we have used for many many years for these type of overseas trips liability and trip insurance are included in the entire package teachers have secured the required chaperones and everything seems to be in order the administration is recommending
029the school board approve this out-of-school out-of-country field trip to france and spain for the summer of 2023. thank you mr jim firm we have a recommendation to approve the out-of-country field trip to francis maine for crown point high school students from june 15 to 26 2023 uh do we have a motion to approve soul move second moved by mr angel in second by mr hoffman any questions or comments from mr g and fermi if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed that motion carries 5-0 and we have 5.3 disposition of obsolete curricular materials mr g in fermi well thank you mr president uh crown point school is seeking school board approval to dispose of obsolete curricular materials which are no longer utilized by the school materials in question are old social
030studies textbooks in the areas of economics government history and psychology per school board policy if approved textbooks would be disposed by offering to students donating the materials or appropriately disposing any remaining materials the administration is recommending the board authorized disposal of these absolute curricular materials as outlined by board policy mr g fermi for the recommendation to dispose of absolute critical materials uh motion to approve so second i'm moved by mr smith and second by mr hoffman any questions or comments on the disposition of these materials all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries 5-0 and uh 5.4 policy revisions and additions i think we're dr charles are you going to take this um so we're bringing to you tonight for your consideration a new board policy policy 1310 and this policy
031re is related to uh school board members being able to participate in school board meetings uh via distance of whatever that might be whatever that reason may be as is spelled out in the policy just as a brief update for you through indiana code there were changes made in light of the last two and a half three years and the public emergency that enables now school boards other civic boards to be able to have a policy in place to permit board members to be able to attend and participate and through voting as well as long as they have a policy so this policy that we're bringing to you tonight that is included uh for your review uh lays out this the particulars for that we are suggesting uh and obviously your choice to waive the
032first reading and go right to the second reading of this policy toward prove it this evening thank you doctor for the recommendation to prove to waive the reading of the policy and approve policy 1310 do we have a motion i move to reprove and waive the reading second moved by mr hoffman and second by mr angel any questions or comments here's the thank uh dr terrell mr keebler putting this policy together it came up for a little bit of discussion at the end of our last meeting and it uh you know i was unsure at the at the time but it seems like uh the right way to go was this the neola policy we no longer are using neola so we actually got this one from isba okay and working at the state level
033therefore that's correct you know what i actually do have one question what what was the uh need or was there a need to have a certain amount of time uh to declare that the board member would be absent i think they said 24 hours yeah 24 hours they had actually indicated their suggestion was like 48 20 or 36 to 48 hours um we went with 24 just simply to have time to facilitate getting a meeting set up digitally to be able to go back and forth with that okay um that's the reason for the 24 hours if there was some kind of an emergency situation that would take place but i mean that i think that's the conversation between mr warney now because he's the president and i to have the to see if we
034can facilitate that and do everything we can to make it because i could just see it being you i like the flexibility of being able to do this but i could see the need for you know if somebody were to be ill and didn't want to come to the meeting but they were well enough to still attend um virtually or if somebody gets called out for work and you know they're traveling that type of thing those things can happen last minute so there is flexibility to still have those at this point ultimately the loss would be that the vote you'd still obviously attend the meeting right just just be official okay right i mean um and i don't i don't have to i think that's for you guys too to have the discussion if you'd
035like that to be moved um to just inform rather than to give within 24 hours i don't have a problem with that i mean that's that's amongst the five of you and how you decide to um utilize the policy right yeah when i when i read through it i just kind of saw it as a formality but you're right it could it seems like a last minute i would say either way a last-minute situation would be more likely than right a planned out one a plan you know before on vacation or something like that then we're not obviously going to either attend or so would it be necessary but why not just be able to do it um would there be wording necessary for the instance that i don't know that that that electronically you
036can't be set up to join them you know um right now it's given the 24 hours notice the only other thing i would um caution is the fact that we have to have so many in person right you know to still have the board meeting count as a board meeting um and if we were to get to where say two of you had already said hey i can't be there and the third one came up last minute all of a sudden now we don't have the quorum to have the meeting so i think there's some concerns there with that as well i i'm not saying that that's the reason to not do it i think it's just something that you guys need to talk through to answer your question what we could do is just
037go forward with accepting it with said change to policy whatever that might be we our attendance is very is very good at these meetings so we don't utilize this we wouldn't be utilizing this all the time so we can we can approve it now and then revise it if it's not working down the road that's what i i'd prefer to that's fine i mean i i like the policy as as delivered to us i thank the administration because i'm the board member who pretty much requested this because of my retired status so maybe it should be considered a benefit of serving on the board after 20 years is that okay so let's take vote to approve to waive the reading of the policy and approve the policy as president presented 1310. uh all's in favor
038signify by saying aye aye opposed that motion does carry 5-0 uh 5.5 colonel john wheeler middle school renovation bid package mr reese thank you mr president members of the board earlier this month we received 28 bids over 12 different bid categories for the renovation of colonel john wheeler middle school low bids equaled 21 million 830 that's slightly higher just slightly higher than our budget of 21 million 750 the skill school corporation or stillman have worked extensively experience with the winning low bidders no concerns about their ability to perform the work with that we recommend approval of low bids as attached for a total of 21 million eight hundred and thirty thousand and eight hundred and twenty four dollars thank you mr reese i know at times i might get lazy or sloppy on repeating some
039of the recommendations but i will go through with detail on this one the recommendation is to approve contracts for colonel wheeler middle school and additions and renovations and related work project as follows the general trades to gary up to construction in the amount of seven million six hundred seventy nine thousand five hundred for mason masonry to adams masonry in the amount of 2 million 480 000 for roofing to ec bavilla in the amount of 1 million 975 649 for aluminum entrances glazing to trout glass and mirror in the amount of 395 900 for metal studs drywall and ceilings to collector interior systems in the amount of one million three hundred fifty three thousand three hundred for painting two i don't know and sons in the amount of two hundred eighty eight thousand one hundred seventy
040dollars for a terrazzo hard tile and art mosaic and tile on the amount of 769 900 for carpet resilient flooring to midwest tile and interiors in the amount of 360 thousand five dollars for fire protection to hill fire protection in the amount of 250 100 for plumbing to mechanical concepts in the amount of 970 000 and for mechanical to arctic engineering in the amount of two million eight hundred ninety three thousand one hundred dollars for electrical to sergeant electric in the amount of two million four hundred fifteen thousand two hundred do we have a motion to prove the recommendation as presented second moved by mr babjack the second by mr hoffman any questions or comments for mr reese or even include dr turtle on this one dr the public's information the reason for the addition
041and the work being done to wheeler so one of the things that we're doing as we're building taft we're making sure that this will be comparable in what it offers as taft will be along with the addition of a new auditorium bringing the learning center into being a portion of taft or a portion of wheeler again getting us up to where we can have 1400 students in that middle school we hear repeatedly about all the people who are moving here and subdivisions and developers and schools can't keep up with it we have a thorough plan that is in front of you that has been expressed here both in our board meetings and in on our website that puts us in a position to be able to handle those the growth that we're about to experience
042so that we continue to experience i should say thank you any other questions if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed welcome carries 5-0 thank you mr reese and we'll come back to you for 5.6 the vacant land farmed by a third party via lease agreement thank you the school corporation owns two vacant parcels of land that are tillable we worked with both of the farmers since the district acquired each of those properties mr wayne nelson for the state street property for three thousand dollars rent and the ej farms for the property in the vicinity of 231 in arizona for eight thousand two hundred dollars so with that we recommend approval of the farm laces for the 2022 growing season to those two individuals companies i've heard a recommendation to prove
043the farm lease is with wayne nelson for the property located at 11052-11084 state street and with ej farms for property located at 3615 east 129th avenue both located in crown point indiana do we have a motion to approve so moved second uh moved by mr angel and second by mr hoffman any questions or comments from mr reese just thanks to mr reese for getting these cleaned up we've had just a couple little issues with making sure paperwork and all that was right and not being able to lease out to additional tenants so appreciate your work on that david i'm gonna abstain on this vote due to a conflict understand any other questions all those favors signified saying aye opposed that motion carries 4-0 and mr smith abstained from the vote uh item six information items
044superintendent discussion groups it's probably mr smith any updates from cedar lake no i think i sent an email to todd who shared it with you guys today regarding some of their policies that they recently passed that you just may want to take a quick look at um and then todd i think you may have been meeting down at cedar lake i don't know if there's anything you want to add to what's going on down there yes we have we've met with them several times trying to work through um all of the appropriate plans for macarthur and the expansion there feel like we're in a pretty good spot with them moving forward we have a timeline that we need really need to adhere to to be able to get in and start working on that building
045while students are out for the summer so we appreciate the work that's gone into that and the the way that they're handling that as well so i feel like we're gonna be in a good spot about anything out of um let's go winfield mr mr mr angel nothing in winfield crown point redevelopment recently received their annual tiff report and i provided a printed copy of that to the superintendent if anybody desires to review it matt took it right away and i haven't been able to pry it out of his hands since they are they prom point uh basically he's phasing out one tif area and then trying to expand another one to take advantage of the anticipated development so okay let's move to unless there's anything else let's move to 6.2 director of elementary education
046thank you mr president and board members i would like to take this opportunity to thank our teachers and our blended instruction design specialists for the work they've done in curating and refining our ela curriculum over the past six to seven years in our learning management system and supporting student needs teacher needs that have evolved and really then now for their focus over the past four months and reviewing a new curriculum to make sure that we are best meeting the needs of our students through a knowledge-based curriculum moving forward i also would like to thank those who will be building and editing our buzz courses as this is really integral work for our students and for our teachers that we'll start this summer so i am very appreciative to all teachers and administrators involved over the
047process of our curriculum review and then our recommendation that was posed today i'd also like to thank our principals we are in the throes of our hiring season and teacher interviews we have a lot of talent in the pool of teachers that we are bringing in and are very excited to see how they will contribute to aligning our educational experience across our district for our students and becoming active community members any questions no thank you thank you i have a comment that david you kind of alluded to this and you our exact session read this morning from information produced by the indiana school boards association that a survey showed 96 percent of the school corporations in the state of indiana are reporting a shortage of teachers another school corporation that has 1500 employees had 120
048open positions so there there's a potential significant problem [Music] which we have been fortunate not to have to deal with so i want to thank our administration and our leadership team for trying to deal with these issues and keep us uh fully employed thank you mr troffman thank you mr ramirez 6.3 director of secondary education mr gene fermi ah thank you mr president um first i just want to thank our middle school administrators faculty and staff we're in the throes of ilearn testing and i especially want to thank the students because when you walk in those buildings those are long days and the kids are doing about as good a job as you can expect out of them and it's just really orderly and well organized and really appreciate their efforts right now during this
049time so one more week and we'll we'll be into makeup season for that so thank you to all them and i also want to uh point out we are in the throes of kind of uh our senior celebration and awards nights we already had our academic law day ceremony right after our last board meeting but i do want to point out one that will be happening next wednesday uh at noon right on the circle drive our military recognition for all our seniors who will be joining our armed forces and we it's it's really uh well done with mr marcinick and his admin team so if you have a moment uh maybe take a lunch early or whatever and stop right there at that circle drive at noon and we just recognize those kids and we're
050kind of thinking them paying it forward for for what they're going to be doing for us so that's all i have any other questions you have i i i believe i watched a video of the uh the mr martinez in the military uh last year and i it would be what when did you say that's gonna take it's at uh it's may 4th wednesday at noon right on circle drive in front of the school that was really that was really nice to see if anybody didn't see it in person there was a video circling take it take a look if you get a chance and uh if i'm not mistaken it was windy yeah yeah i remember it extremely so no that was uh good to hear that's a continuing tradition any other questions or
051comments from mr g for me director of exceptional education ms pascus good evening mr warner members of the board tonight you approved two school psychologists that we're adding to our team we have three we will have five next year so we all thank you from the exceptional education department we're gaining two experienced dynamite school psychologists who will join the team next year last week we held our parent advisory group meeting and had a really nice conversation and dialogue with some of our exceptional education parents explained the new construction projects that are underway and how exceptional education has been at the table for the design and discussion of what is needed for all students at the buildings and a reminder that this fri this wednesday at the high school at 5 30 we will be holding
052our first annual transition fair so this is uh something we have to consider for our students once they turn 14 it's part of their iep we have to look at their education their independent living and any training and in and employment so we have colleges we have um like day school treatment kind of places we have the bureau of developmental disabilities folk rehab over 40 vendors will be there for a couple hours for our parents and students to walk around and get some information so love for you to stop by thank you ms pascus two things there was a date earlier you had given us some kind of event going on at the high school and you get that date for what that was wednesday may 25th is our unified game day it's our special
053olympics starting right in the morning or it's ten to one okay and then the other thing is how many parents were at the meeting you mentioned um there were about 15 invited and four attended in person one virtual okay thank you uh business office anything from business officers i have nothing to say thank you director of communications ms allen thank you um i want to take a moment to thank the individuals in our buildings who manage the social media pages mainly facebook at the end of the year i start running some numbers to see how we've been doing and this afternoon i was pleasantly surprised to see that we have had more than fifteen hundred facebook posts between 12 buildings this year they've been viewed nearly 1 million times by 300 000 different individuals and
054the school year is not even over yet so this was just from the start of school to now thank you i think we'll have a problem if the director of communications ever passes and has nothing to say right i don't think it's going to happen well miss allen while we're while we're uh well on you um can you give us the next two dates of coffee and conversation yeah absolutely we have one coming up thursday this week which is april 28th 1pm at the winfield library and then we have the last one of the year in may that's thursday may 12th at 4 15. that one will be at the cedar lake library thank you and uh a couple of us were able to attend the first one in town here at the library um
055you know it's a appreciate the work you've got put into getting those set up thank you uh where are we going 6.8 superintendent of schools dr terrell and in transition um also uh mrs allen has and her department has put out the latest edition of our super things so if you haven't keep up on those it's just a they're a joy when we get to go out and film them with our kids it's amazing to see the things happening in our buildings so just another great way to keep those in front of you a few things i'd like to mention this evening as you heard tonight with the long list of those who were bidding on the projects for wheeler i want to thank our community members here who are bidding on our projects this
056is a rough time in the world of bidding for projects there are increases that are going up every three and four days and because we're a school corporation there's a no escalation cause that's built into that when they bid these and yet we're still getting dozens and of individuals and and companies bidding for our jobs we appreciate them and the way that they're continuing to sharpen their pencils and really give us best options that we can have for our construction projects the many that we have going on i also then want to thank gibraltar and skillman they both uh skillman with the way that they do their estimating uh prize themselves on coming in as close to that dollar as they can especially with the challenging times that are going on right now oh i
057would have said this if i knew dion just walked in but and how they do that we appreciate their hard work but both skillman and gibraltar we've had a couple late nights with meetings with different communities around here with different projects that are going on and they're always right there any changes that we need they're willing to stay and make sure that those happen before we get there so appreciate them along with our attorney cheryl zick and the extra work that they've been doing to help us stay on course with the things that we need to do here in crown point schools to be ready for uh the things that are coming so appreciate them anything else dr terrell not at this time all right let's move into um other business of the border school
058trustees who'd like to start well then i'll start oh usually someone else is ready to jump well i just want to address the crowd in the audience the young men that are here from the lacrosse team um if you guys don't know i see coach murkhansky who i was fortunate enough to coach back in the day in little league and i'm an avid sports backer i don't care what sport it is never played lacrosse one of the few sports i probably don't know any rules about the sport other than seeing it on tv and just following a little bit with the college game i understand the frustration with being able to play a sport maybe not be able to use it but it basically boils down to a couple things one that not being a
059sanctioned sport ourselves as board members are here to protect the financial interests of the school corporation and to educate kids and it being non-sanctioned just limits us and our capabilities to be able to accept things like this i can tell you what dr terrell mentioned things are moving forward it probably won't bring you guys any satisfaction but i realize the dedication and hard work that's put in to practicing a sport and acknowledging uh what your team captain mr mccall mentioned tonight mentioning on how i wanted to play in front of your on your school campus so i just wanted to go i couldn't go without saying anything i wish i could do more it's just a situation that sometimes the way things are laid out it just makes things very difficult so i wish you
060guys nothing but the best of success yeah i think there's i think it plays out into two parts um one is what can we do in the near future or even like long-term planning and that is stuff that this board the superintendent the athletic department have been working on and um i see good things happening in the future but unfortunately i don't know what that does for the the seniors on the team this year we or several of us get approached by members of the community different people that we know friends and families and and i hear about this there are a lot of people advocating for you uh so it's not just it's not just you guys coming here which is very cool but you have a large fan base and people that are
061trying to pull for uh the betterment of your of your situation so i think there's there i'd like to say thank you to to todd because todd is the first person that has actually heard some of these concerns and there is an action plan moving forward um but like i said i don't i don't know same thing that mr angel said i don't know what that's going to mean in the very short term bill how many students how many players did you say would be joining you for your youth you said it your next game you'll be honoring the youth program 78 players but let's hope that all of you sitting in this room today you know will feel proud to have come out this evening and encourage this board to consider things that when
062a policy is in place forever doesn't mean it's always that it can't be changed um again just echoing that you know we're sorry that we don't see it being able to be changed fast enough for you guys but i hope that you understand by being here there's 78 kids right now that you might change the road for them night you know it's as mr angel said you can't not say anything you're all sitting here playing a sport and we all love the passion for sports and um you know so i feel the same way speaking right now that you got to acknowledge you guys being here and what you're trying to accomplish and you know i just want to tell you that you know regardless of the outcome of your request i um you represent
063crown point and um i wish you guys the best of luck hey bill could you give us those two home game dates and times what's the start time for those uh start times seven o'clock dance before on wednesday and then six o'clock may 11th is the monster yes i'm sorry i'm not senior here yeah right how many seniors you guys raise your hands seniors thank you i would just add that uh bill you have handled yourself and conducted yourself very very well before this board very professionally it's it's honestly it's very impressive and your team should be proud of you and the way you've represented yourself and i concur with the the sediments of my my colleagues up here that we may not be able to move quick enough unfortunately however you know sometimes by
064you advocating your position others will receive the benefits of that advocacy in the future i would suggest that we i think dave you touched on this earlier i never had the opportunity besides reading your emails bill and listening to you and perhaps a phone call or two from a coach or parent that we sit uh with you i'd like to hear what you'd like to do in the future or perhaps where lacrosse is going and how we could be of assistance we are partners in this community and i would like to hear more and so if there are a few board members here that would be willing to sit uh or with todd or whoever else would be present maybe that's something you can discuss bill with your coaches or other players that maybe we
065could set up something to see how we could help and assist in the future i do know that your voices are heard you guys have been heard and i'm sorry that we may not be able to move quick enough but understand that it's not falling on deaf ears i just want to backtrack a bit to say that just so you know when we're saying not able to move quick enough that's not a result of you bringing up the email to us a couple weeks ago okay so it's not um you know we're you brought this to our attention was it august september october it was last fall um you know yes the email that came out brought this conversation back to the surface but it wasn't not talked about at length in the fall um
066so i just want when you kind of collect our thoughts here we keep saying that fast and fast you brought it to our attention and false don't feel as if you know what i mean like for yourself don't want you walk away say shoot i could i should i should have you know hit him harder in december or january um this conversation was really brought to us in full attention in the fall and we didn't we didn't ignore it at that point in time this just brought it back to the surface for us so i kind of wanted to clear that up a little bit and i think you guys know you've noticed the cranes out there there's a lot of projects going on around the high school so the timing for this conversation is
067very good right because a lot of development the facilities are being developed out there so um it would have been difficult to move what you said dave earlier we could we can come back with any thoughts of this i want to uh um bring up what i said i would at our coffee talk in the other business is to start at the start of the school calendar to start yes please i don't want my silence to be misconstrued that i'm not supportive or cognizant of your request and i i echo the sentiments expressed by my fellow board persons with with respect to your request so thank you tom um so in our coffin conversations there it was a good hour and 15 minute first time um a couple things i want to mention is number
068one uh through the the process of dr terrell asking us things that are important to us as a board this was one of the things that we you know we've all kind of heard about these taking place around the state we've heard uh presentations at the fall conference about uh and oh that's a neat idea it's something that would be nice for us to do to in crown point and you know miss allen dr terrell made that happen um now about an hour and 15-minute conversation um for the most part it was pretty much just an open open discussion of hey dr dr trail standing in front of the the group just taking questions we talked at pretty good length ms carr was present sorry i got your voicemail at our five o'clock meeting today
069so i didn't not mean to call you back but the school calendar board we have anything to discuss about school calendar um i had just said that this calendar was released in a very in a proud moment february of 21 february 21st of february 21 you know when the calendar was put together we were proud as a board that we were getting a two-year calendar out in front of everybody for them to make their plans and have some structure that we were hoping to move forward with uh right dr terrell would be a continuous two-year calendar um so i just want to throw out to begin with that it wasn't tried we by no means tried to hide this calendar it was something that we were proud to get out there yes the conversations about
070the fair took place um and we had a lot of conversation then about the fair the board meeting that we brought up the the vote for the calendar we talked about the fair i might be wrong for saying this personally but one things i said to ms carr when they're talking about safety we might not talk about and this is the part that could just be wrong for saying it this way we might not talk about or address safety and publicly because it's becoming embedded that that is the number one that mr g and fermi nodding with and you're responsible with mr akiwa now mr colson is out in the hallway you know and to say that safety wasn't the number one concern about this and that it's not you know so i feel like
071we took some emails to the board that there's not a plan well there may not be a plan that's 100 percent complete to release to the public or a plan to release there would never be a safety plan released to the public it it just it's not you don't you're not going to tell the public that we've got 20 people here that we wouldn't normally have and 10 here and 10 this maybe in private doctor tara will share something like that or you conversation with a board member but maybe i'm being too in fact safety is the number one concern and it's something that get you know and we've seen nothing you know but increased communication with the city and emergency services and the police department fire department with between artie um i know mark's
072been involved with those discussions i mean we have a good relationship with the city so all of these things i'm very confident that all of these things are being discussed and addressed and that safety will be priority number one and um they will they will do nothing but their best to make sure everybody's safe during those three days and and my the other thing that i've said consistently and i mentioned at the coffee talk was that two years ago the petition would have floated around to start school after the fair i would have been the first one to sign it but it wasn't for the educational that i mean that our role again just as we're speaking to the other issues this evening it's our responsibility financially to and educationally do the best for the
073kids and yeah and it was good at the coffee talk there were there weren't any current teachers there right we did have a couple retired teachers and some of them spoke up saying that they wish they would have had an opportunity to have this schedule that is going to happen this next school year they spoke about the importance of having the extra time off around fall break to kind of re-energize and spend some time you know with their families and what that meant to them mentally and so it was good to hear it was good to hear them talk about that and be in favor of it and i do feel confident of you know the fact that we did go out to the community and and ask them you know is this something that
074you're in favor of and we did it in a staged approach we're trying to balance the semesters we didn't do it all at once we did it over a course of of two years um keeping what the teachers what was best for you know the teachers and the students in mind the whole time so um that board meeting you know i did go back and look at it that's it you know it's nice to have those videos from time to time that february 21st um of 2021 meeting there's 20 minutes of discussion um about the survey results uh every one of us spoke you know about what we thought of that um so don i'm i'm proud of the way the board handled handled that calendar so it is good to get a nice two-year
075rotation going as well yeah the the amount of uh debate that could even take place right now on you know splitting splitting hairs because uh you know and for example you get you get past that week and now you're starting on a monday with a full week and if you push into december you're going to have someone that's not happy that you're going until the 23rd of december and they want different plans and we've added the wednesday before thanksgiving that there's been much appreciation children for and i i think that we all agree yes it's about the students the education but very very very close number two is the teachers and getting a you know dr taylor you've mentioned that it's split it's not it it might not be 80 20 it might not be
07660 40. it might be 55 45 but we need to this is a process that we need to continue to make sure we smooth out to i mean the teachers need we want to really consider you know yes the parents but the teachers have to be at the top of the list absolutely yeah i mean i would almost be in favor of the future that the survey goes to the teachers and you know the the parents and they're just going to have to deal with it but that's a little bit blunt i mean any other thoughts or comments on the excuse me on the calendar i'd add one thing it was mentioned tonight and was misquoted in the paper with some uh journalistic liberty that i said that safety didn't matter not quite what i
077said it's kind of like going to church on sunday and picking what you want to hear from the preacher and saying well he said this or he said that not quite you got to look at the context of the message those of you who know me know that safety is always the top of our concern with that as well just wanted to make sure that as you sit up here and say safety is number one well he said not quite well i think this is something that you know i feel the need to comment on um i agree with what you said scott and i understand that nobody's excited about starting school early i mean the best weather we have is august september i think we all know that if we could we'd start school
078in september if we could but we can't i mean at the end of the day our decisions have to be based on education it has to be based on what's best for the students finishing the semester before the the break is going to be a huge plus to the children's academics their performance on testing which then translates into gpa which translates into scholarships and everything else so we can't be short-sighted about that i understand it impacts you know people's lives with the fair you know but you know we're we're consistently provided facts and we have to make decisions and sometimes it's not a perfect world i can tell you and i know the board knows this i've shared with you guys on multiple occasions that there are other states that are starting august 1st august
0793rd that is the movement to push forward and start earlier uh for these reasons for academic reasons so i know we're not the only school in the area that's starting i think there's some that's starting even earlier than ourselves so with that being said i i would have no problem going on the record saying we should start as late as possible every semester under the circumstances so we look at the calendar and we start as late as we can i'm in favor of the fall break the week that's a personal thing that impacted me like many you players out here i never got a spring break because i played baseball in high school i couldn't go anywhere i don't think that's fair either i think there's an opportunity for people who play spring sports to
080be able to travel with their families and spend family time in the fall and that's important to me and i'm personally not going to apologize for that so i know it's not perfect ms carr thank you for coming today and speaking and sharing your thoughts i understand i but you know my position is i and i agree that we made the best decision for the school corporation and our students and our teachers um again we can circle back to anything but i did have to bring up i want to bring up that we're going to have the um retreat coming up in may uh dr terrell sent me a rough draft agenda pretty pretty final draft uh broken into segments of about 25 minutes i think five segments 25 minutes something like that with a
081little bit of break in between um we have plenty of time to send some uh recommendations questions however but we uh just bring it up here as so we can discuss because this will take place before our next board meeting um and then that leads me to ask a miss green would you there's a decent amount of things going on in the next uh six eight weeks could we get an update of events please uh we've said in the past and you know if any of us are able to make it to certain you know way i know we have a retirement breakfast coming up if we get a date for that and i know we need to be respectful and responsible to let people know if we're gonna attend um we have the retirement
082breakfast we have the the coffee talks um and that's more for the two of us that are over 50 diana the young guys here so if you would please well and even miss green adding on there the military tribute um yeah whatever it might be out on the agenda or the calendar in the next six weeks would be great thank you what was the date of our retreat again tuesday the 10th tuesday yeah may 10th that's why it's awesome um at 5 00 p.m dinner will be served at 4 45. see i had one other we had the the uh the calendar um well maybe i'll come back to it any other thoughts for other business well we could always hit it at statements appreciation out of order if we need to um let's go
083uh let's move forward then to the board state statements appreciation and recognition mr smith anything this evening yeah i would just like to say once again uh thank you to brooke and todd for organizing these coffee talks i'm sure there was multiple people involved but the fact that we're at that you guys are actually out there that you're out there now making yourself available to the community that's something that previous administrators or previous superintendents have have not done and so i i appreciate you taking the time to make the rounds to various access points too to make it easier for uh for people to attend those thank you mr hoffman a couple of things one is that last week we have twice a year the indiana school boards association has regional meetings and these meetings
084are held at tables this area is part of region one there are ten regions in the in the indiana school board association but we have the best attended regional meeting here in northwest indiana but the the my point is that this board was recognized at that meeting i don't remember now exactly were we exemplary todd do you recall i had to leave before but our board but but to to attain that status the majority of your board members have to do essentially continuing education and we qualified and we're one of i think four or five boards that were recognized last wednesday night by the indiana school boards association secondly uh dr terrell mentioned that a lot of our consideration of various matters uh is directly dependent upon the cooperation we receive from our municipalities within
085our school district and i can certainly tell you that over the last two years that our relationships with crown point cedar lake winfield have improved considerably and it's a lot easier to get things coordinated and get things done than it had been for prior years and we we take we appreciate the those organizations those administrations coming around and working with the school corporation and the school corporation trying to work and accommodate them so thank you thank you mr hoffman mr angel regarding that tables meeting that we did have uh the four board members that were present didn't eat any chicken and ate the most perch anybody can see four individuals eat just for the record as we were recognized for it at one point two at the meeting uh my accommodation awards tonight go out
086to our colonel john wheeler and taft middle school band and orchestras who won the isma indiana state school music association's all music award for the state so congratulations to both of them and the second one to scott reed who was our assistant girls basketball coach for over 40 years he announced his retirement from coaching still going to teach at taft but spent 40 years teaching our young ladies of the community at the varsity freshman sophomore level so congratulations to scott and a well-deserved best wishes in his retirement from coaching thank you mr angel and uh board members i thank ms green for the i don't know if this got down to you but the folder that maybe she'll continue for us with some achievements from did you guys get this down there yes okay um
087so we'll make sure it gets passed around next time but uh for example the cromwell high school student tv and radio programs i did not know or seen the news or know anywhere that the group recently won the indiana association of school boards radio school of the year for the first time in crown point and there's a list of uh several first and second places for interview talk show sports guests bob so um this is nice to see um this is a program that we uh mr angel's been on uh you've joined them for a radio show a couple times right yeah must have not gone too long oh so so that's maybe so the sportscast too much so sportscast did get a first place so that you weren't you weren't so uh but because
088all you want to talk about is the vikings and they want to talk about the bears thank you for sharing this is neat and thank you and congratulations to the the media program uh for their accomplishments and uh also like to uh recognize coach trayer being inducted into the indiana high school coaches association hall of fame that's a heck of a career accomplishment for him and i know he's passionate about the game and congratulations to him we'll pass this around at the meetings and make sure always kept up on any news we might miss off the twitter feed or wherever else the information's coming from so um about anything else this evening if not look for motion to adjourn so moved second moved by mr angel and second by mr hoffman always in favor signify
089by saying aye aye opposed most carries five zero thank you