001let's get my mic mic opened up mr gill we okay so let's call to order this november 22nd 2021 regular business meeting of the board of school trustees held in public with a start time call close enough here six o'clock if everyone would please rise we'll ask mr hoffman to lead us in the pledge of allegiance [Music] thank you mr hoffman oh i forgot to use the the fun gavel this evening but we all know what was going on there item two board of school trustees resolution of accommodation awards at 2.1 crown point high school inkling newspaper for winning the 2021 hoosier star award indiana high school press association's highest award at the ihs pa state convention the inkling staff was nolan chase emily hellmuth noah thomas rosalie degenhart abigail goodson keeley bernard samuel brewer
002aubry banks emily bracino trevor fromm olivia hellmuth mary martinek andrew poskal we'll get a chance to correct these names when we do the presentation gillian gatley hayden coles and advisor miss julie elston item 2.2 crossroads regional chamber of commerce 2021 inspiring educator awards and overall corporation school winner um jory dessau from eisenhower uh finalists uh school winners chris and albrecht from lake lake street i feel like i missed one there uh angela hummel from macarthur kathleen zechariah sullen robinson marianne howard timothy ball lindsey eastling winfield sarah sexton jerry ross devin lewis taft middle school sarah pearson colonel wheeler and amy burkham from crown point high school let's see here okay we've heard direct i prefer the board of school trustees resolution combination wars uh do we have a motion to approve these combinations as presented
003second moved by mr angel on second by mr babjack any questions or comments if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion curious 4-0 and now we'll present the awards i'll come forward first with the uh inklings award and then we'll have uh mr angel will join me to do the uh crossroads regional chamber of commerce still trying to figure this out with our new configuration we used to all come forward and read the names and haven't really come through and shake hands but uh i'll kind of stand in front here do we have uh our inklings team present anyone here for inklings why don't we come on up and uh in front so you get yourself into the room [Applause] inkling's certainly not unfamiliar with coming to board meetings for
004uh awards and it's nice to see that continues the success is continued so congratulations you guys i'll read your resolution from the board here the resolution accommodation crown point board of school trustees is honored to commend the crown point high school 2021 inklings newspaper for notorious achievement we hereby resolve that the board of school trustees for the crown point community school corporation wishes to express sincere congratulations to the 2021 crown point high school inklings for winning the 21 hoosier star award indiana high school press association's highest award at the is ihspa state convention the board of school trustees publicly recognizes this achievement and renders it permanently to its ministry preserved for public posterity dues 22 day november 2021. congratulations to you guys you know it might be easier instead well i'll go ahead and read
005all the names they still deserve to be uh recognized uh mary martinez we had olivia hellmuth [Applause] gillian gatlin degenhart [Applause] hayden coles emily versino samuel brewer and then we had aubrey brains and julie elston thank you for everything you've done for the students [Applause] it's also usually kind of maybe maybe ask if there's anything you could share about the road and the success of the program and you know what you might be looking forward to in the future sure what i will share is just how incredibly proud i am of this group because last year we reinvented so many things our original printer actually went out of business and so we moved to an edition online and eventually printed the news magazine format so our staff was never together now for one minute because
006we had students who were virtual students who were there two days a week with the hybrid and everything but so their accomplishments and kind of the reinvention during the covert year i think is really amazing and their talents and their achievements really speak for themselves i'm very proud thank you congratulations you guys uh you know all the success that comes through the program you're making your community proud your school proud and the board administration as well we got you guys uh bro of the team do you have any idea how many years running we've had an award comparable to this yes you do okay thank you so much would you like the other um thank you i'd just like to congratulate the inklings and uh both mrs elson and the staff uh we're really proud
007of the eagles uh as as we've talked about here a little bit uh they're sort of the standard of excellence uh in indiana newspapers uh school newspapers and i think most importantly is that gives kids an opportunity much like a team an opportunity to get together to bond to work on a common goal and a common cause to produce a great newspaper and so it provides that space and opportunity for our kids to really grow not only to learn journalism uh journalistic excellence but also just again to have space to get together and uh like i said they form a bond for sure much like a teamwork throughout the season and they do it for the whole entire school year uh you could see them getting together after school in the lab working on their
008on their articles and interviewing people i think the last thing i wanted to mention is that the sheer professionalism that the mrs elston teaches kids not only do they uh you know conduct themselves appropriately but when they're interviewing people they use the ethics and standards of professional journalists i think that's something that stays with our group a long after they leave crown point high school and no matter what walk of life that they choose to go into it's not journalism so we're really proud of the inklings and especially all these students who put in so many long hours to create such a great publication [Applause] i could have our inspiring educator finalist and winner come forward please [Laughter] anybody here from the chamber crossroads chamber first of all we'd like to thank them for what
009they do to support the inspiring educators award and congratulations to all of you ladies on your accomplishment obviously the goal is to educate our students to the best of our abilities and inspiring educators nominated by crossroads just brings you guys to the forefront of the top so congratulations to all of you i'll read the accommodation resolution accommodation the crown point board of school trustees is honored to commend these individuals for their meritorious achievement we are hereby resolve the board of school trustees the crown point community school corporation wishes to express sincere congratulations to these ladies for being named crossroads regional chamber of commerce finalists and overall winner dory draseau for overall corporation winner for the for the school year border school trustees publicly recognizes this achievement and renders it permanently to its minutes to be
010preserved for public posterity in this 22nd day of november 2021 our first finalist kristen albrecht from lake street [Applause] kathleen zechariahs [Applause] marianne howard [Applause] lewis tapped [Applause] thank you amy burcham from call point high school lindsay eastling winfield [Applause] and our overall winner from eisenhower jory dusso [Applause] [Laughter] if you guys want to squeeze in here [Music] thank you congratulations [Applause] we also want to thank their principals who are here tonight thank you guys for coming to support your teachers appreciate you being here [Applause] okay we'll just give it let's give it a second for uh anyone that is trying to depart to move on okay patrons comments paint your patrons registered to comment on educational issues um over the last couple months what we've been doing is just go ahead and reading the
011um reading the guidelines for comments to anybody who is here so some of you have heard them before but if not i will read through them now so the guidelines the board will hear patrons legal residents of 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 sign up sheet provided in the back of the board room uh which i have here prior to the start of the 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 addresses state their names and addresses and topic that they will be addressing if patrons have prepared written statements on topic
012they may present them at this time a limit of three minutes is allowed for each speaker we've been asking mr angel to be our clock keeper i believe at 30 seconds he gives you a warning so he's not trying to erupt you just giving you an update on how much time you have left the portion of the meeting during which the participation participation of the public is invited shall be limited to 20 minutes unless extended by a vote of the board so we will keep an eye on that and determine if we need an extension speakers are to refrain from speaking on personnel issues and student issues i do believe this evening some of the topics that are on our list are going they do look to be personnel issues i think this evening anyone
013who signed up you would have been given information to refer to policy 9130 which uh they were states that public comments on personal issues would not be allowed and that if that was the case for you when you signed up that we would be contacting you for further information to collect or give you that proper opportunity to be able to speak on the topic you were here for this evening so let's start off with beth urum good evening beth good evening um my name is beth urum and i live at 12461 pennsylvania place crown point i had originally decided to come here to hand deliver forms to the appropriate persons to inform them of my non-consent to crown point community school corporation regarding the administering of any covid 19 vaccinations to my son i do
014have those home forms notarized and i would like to turn them over to the administration i have copies for each individual whom i believe needs one i understand that crown point community school corporation is currently not setting up vaccination clinics in the schools as of yet however i sadly feel the need to make my non-consent legally known as i mentioned i had only intended to turn in these forums however in lieu of the most recent actions by governor holcomb i am here with an urgent request for this board last tuesday november 16th i drove to indianapolis while our legislators were in session for organization day i went with a petition demanding hoosier lawmakers use the authority given under indiana code 10-14-3-12 to put an immediate end to the state of emergency representative kurt knisley walked
015me directly to julie olthoff's secretary where i hand-delivered the petition unfortunately speaker houston did not call a vote however before i even made it back to crown point governor holcomb addressed the press by stating and i quote lawmakers must pass three things to end covet 19 public health emergency in an unprecedented move lawmakers will meet monday november 29th for a one-day session to cont consider preliminary draft number 3651 in the synopsis of this draft there is a language that allows the secretary of of family and social services to issue a waiver which is necessary to claim enhanced federal matching funds available to the medicaid program this allows the secretary to issue an emergency declarations for purposes of participating in snap emergency allotments my question is what in the heck does this have to do with
016our public health emergency absolutely nothing indiana is either in a state of emergency or not holcomb's actions prove to me that he is holding hoosiers hostage under his executive order which has been extended 20 times isn't it interesting that his eo is set to expire one day after this rare announcement by speaker houston and senator bray to reconvene reconvene the lawmakers to pass legislation legislation completely unrelated to coven 19 before he ends the public health emergency in closing i am saddened by the lack of action by our legislators they have the authority to under the state of the emergency with no strings attached it is clear indiana is no longer under a state of emergency at best holcomb's actions are tyrannical and at the very least disingenuous regarding the health of hoosiers my request to
017this board is to do what is right be be brave and unmask our kids thank you [Applause] uh thank you uh the next on the list is william theodoro hello my name is dr theodora william theodoro and i am a local physician born and raised in crown point and i'm here to speak on behalf of my daughter who is a student at the preschool at the learning center over here and i'm here today in regards to the preschool curriculum i'll take a step back and just say that my daughter is on the spectrum and therefore is a special needs student and we were initially referred to the early childhood development program by a psychologist and after our daughter was evaluated by a certified special education teacher a speech pathologist and an occupational therapist she was
018invited and accepted into the program for early childhood development uh her first year in preschool there was phenomenal in fact i would i would consider it amazing the progress that she made was um it was uh undeniable to us we hadn't seen her make progress like that uh for her entire life uh so we were very happy with the program and uh with with her progress and uh that she was making and um due to her birthday being very close to the cut-off for her age and because of covid we felt she lost out on some time and then also you know given her background we felt that we wanted to give her one more year in the preschool to get her better prepared for kindergarten as we all know the early intervention is important
019for all children but for special needs children it is of the utmost importance and a lot of these children if they do get early intervention can uh can have uh very normal lives um and so um so we had her do another year in the preschool and unfortunately uh after she started we very soon realized that all the progress that she had been making the year before had completely come to a halt and in a lot of ways she was regressing uh from the progress that she had made the year before um we inquired about this and we were told that that changes were being made due to laws in indiana which it turns out it was not actually a law but more of a recommendation at this time that classrooms be combined with special
020needs children and regular children and i just want to go on the record and say that i am totally for that i think that's very important so this year the uh the classes were changed and they were changed to a ratio of two to one special needs children to regular children again i'm totally for that but unfortunately the curriculum was completely changed everything about it was completely changed there no longer are um individuals that are trained to take care of children like this uh running the classroom but rather uh people that aren't and uh also uh it's a play-based system uh there's actually uh no learning whatsoever they're they're actually not allowed to teach them numbers letters and other basic things that all children should know uh and there's also no structure whatsoever to the
021classroom it's it's literally just playing it's time sir if you could finish up okay okay oh finish it i'll give you a couple of seconds here yeah so um so i i i honestly believe that this is not ideal for any child but particularly for my child and all other children with special needs they really need that structure and they um and i you know i don't necessarily think that uh that just playing with uh very little guidance is very useful for them we removed our child about a month ago uh from the five days a week and she's only now going two days a week we are paying for her to go to a preschool um that she has shown drastic improvement over the last month since she's been there sir we'll have to
022have to cut you off there yeah i'll have to just a reminder when you come in can you please state your address also sure uh aliki theodoro 814 haymarket circle crown point indiana i'm going to kind of piggyback off of what my husband just mentioned um let's see all the changes have been made to the program uh is accepted by the state is definitely not seen as best practice lake central velpo and munster school district all have licensed special education teachers in the class the entire two and a half hours while play-based programs can be a great and effective they are not the best learning environments for kids with special needs this is being ran as a daycare in fact i've seen daycares with better curriculums and what i have seen so far this year
023everything i was told last year by her licensed special education teacher regarding what and why things were the way that they were and how they were doing things in class was beneficial to her being on the spectrum has been absolutely tossed out the window i can provide multiple examples if need be this is a program through a public school system that is meant to assist and provide the necessary tools for special needs students to get them ready for kindergarten and beyond these kids are already delayed in their abilities and not having a structured kindergarten readiness program is only hurting them not helping them for their future early vention early intervention is key is what i'm consistently told by our therapists physicians and licensed teachers if i wanted a play-based learning program i would have sent
024her to a montessori being on the autism spectrum free play is not effective in her social development one of the main reasons we decided to hold her back because of her social delay there is often a breakdown in play with other children how is her social development going to approve when it is their choice on whether or not she decides to partake in an activity additionally other special needs children require more individualized help with other things such as holding a pencil learning to write etc if these are not something they are doing in class how is this helping them with kindergarten readiness from doing my own research the one person that is new to this program that i'm confident to assume has been the force behind this dress exchange is the preschool coordinator who also
025happens to be the wife of the superintendent excuse me we're not allowed to take comment on personnel and okay i mean okay we could talk about the curriculum educational cert you know okay then um i guess we'll have to follow this up because there's a huge conflict of interest in what's happening and i have a pamphlet or something i can give you to provide some evidence that i have pulled together so if i can provide you a packet that would be if you have it with you you're welcome to leave it with miss green i will that would probably work out best sounds good [Applause] um aaron piecraft and this is in terms of resignation so um okay yeah let me remind you that you know as we stated earlier those who may be speaking
026on this topic we will plan to find an opportunity for you to be heard in our time as well so okay yes my name is aaron picrap 10131 benton street ground point i'm a parent my daughter's on the cross country team i'll do my best to keep this general words cannot express how devastated my daughter and our whole family is over the coaching situation girls cross country team watching our friend be so unfairly treated by the school and community we love let me let me just stress that when you came in to sign up it was our intentions that we knew there would be some people speaking tonight on the topic that miss pie craft is here to speak on um dave can i could i add something yes um so there's been several several
027letters received by the school board several emails and i can assure you that well i'll speak for myself and you guys can chime in i spent the time to read every single one of them um and they were all very similar and so our you know we need to address this but we can't address personnel or student information in public but my understanding is they will all be given an audience or a forum to state their point of views that they could otherwise do that they cannot do publicly is that correct i will jump in right here and say yes so tonight when you were when you came in you were given a sheet of paper that had policy 91 91 30 i believe 91 9130 and what that does is it kind of lays
028out what the next steps will be for that so those of you who came in and signed up for this we've got your name and your address so we will be able to contact you through rds are you still going to be able to set up a time to hear further what your concerns are with the situation how will that work if you're voting tonight to approve resignations we'll have to move forward with our meeting and we'll move forward if you stick around you'll find out where that goes i would say one of the options that one of the options we're talking to the individual at the podium please is that the board can look at delaying that and until a later board meeting and that that's all we were here to ask correct and
029he investigated fairly before a vote was made so the opportunity to be heard will be present before the board if they so choose takes that opportunity and moves forward with that okay all right thank you yeah so while we go instead of me trying to guess who might be here to speak on what topic i'll continue to read out the names and please just you know raise your hand and defer if you were intending to discuss something we just said we'll take care of later okay and uh ellie piecraft unjin choi miss choi please uh come to the podium and state your name and address my name is anjin choi i'm 1411 brookside drive monster indiana and my daughter is going to school here so i have right to say as a mom can you
030start thank you for finally providing me with additional access to rds i was able to review the information my ex-husband provided the school registration as i requested a copy over a year and a half which was denied after review it is clear that the information was erroneous my ex put down his hands at full custody he has emergency contact and my daughter does not live with me which is not this is an example of the reason the payroll parenting in divorce because information he provides is obscured i can presume that this document from the registration is a foundation for the disparaging treatment i was received as a parent for my daughter from the crown point school system including school's unilateral decision with her father this clearly shows how he has been misleading the school as
031his position of dcs moving forward i will anticipate these changes would be implemented i will be treated equally as my name is primary emergency contact as well as primary address we have equal custody he does not have a primary custody and our daughter has 50 percent at his parents home crown point and 50 percent in my home monster as a parenting time i have requested i'm sorry i've requested to review the second curriculum a second grade curriculum a month ago my request is denied according to the parents bill of rights parents can review the curriculum program point to school respond parents assessment is removed by school board can you explain please this i did not have respawn yet it is violated parents bill of rights and state law indiana code51431 high ability program is supported
032by the grant funds from the indiana of department education which mandates in grade k through 12. a crown point school high ability program does not start until fourth grade which is not standard like other school districts and in indiana department education also i would like to ask for the information parents committee meeting for high ability program crown point because it is not at the crown point website thank you [Applause] and a mike vandergast yes i guess i'm just curious sure yeah i'm just curious to my i'm sorry mike vandergaste 632 davis circle uh and thank you for the opportunity to speak uh i understand what you had uh the instructions you had given us regarding resignations um i was not aware of that uh requirement before i arrived tonight unfortunately but i guess i'm curious
033as to when uh what is this a matter of this is a public forum and that's why you do not want to speak about resignations in this forum and if that's the case do we get an opportunity to address the board in a private session is that where you foresee this going but given the circumstances this evening i think this is worth kind of like explaining that you know it is this is definitely just a comment opportunity on educational issues so in any board meeting in the past since i've been a mormon or whatever our policy is just this to listen to the comments we don't have inter you know we don't interact discuss um we'll take we take everything into consideration and then maybe at the in some cases that tail in a minute
034have a meeting we'll have a little discussion about things that were brought forward in the public comment session or how possibly the next meeting will come up but general generally your comments are made and you would look for a follow-up with uh you know a cabinet member administrator or superintendent to to get to where you need to go with your information i i understand your point uh i guess uh i just want to make sure our voices are heard we want the rest of the community to hear what it is we have to say and i want to make sure that we we don't have that opportunity taken from us right so i i i'd say after we after this we won't go back and forth any further this evening but want to echo mr
035babjack comments that the emails have came through and we we are going to have further steps in this meeting tonight that that'll probably be a topic of discussion that will you know with your information has been heard your emails have been heard and your comment this evening all those comments that are in that you want to be heard we're going to set up an opportunity at a later time okay i just want to make sure i think shining a light on this subject is important just to make sure things are done in an appropriately transparent fashion thank you for you okay let me comment under david [Applause] one of the primary issues involving personnel issues is privacy concerns and there are federal laws that dictate what can and can't be discussed and we are we
036are bound by those we're not going to have a trial here to discuss the merits of any personnel issue we're not going to have a back and forth forum to hear the good and the bad you've communicated to us many of you by email anybody who wishes to may communicate by email there's an opportunity to be heard by administrators uh that will all be taken into consideration if we get to that point and and that'll be the end of it we we we're not going to give reasons why we did what we did we're not going to give an explanation of what's transpired to this date because we're not permitted to do so thank you mr hoffman all right michaela vandergaste okay thank you um is that gabrielle uh adonovich my name is gabriel adamovich
037i live at 8297 doubletree drive crown point indiana i am a lifetime member of prom point i graduated with a few of you here on this board and i know all of your reputations keep you in these positions and i know as a former educator myself my reputation was something i held in the highest degree i know this topic is not being further discussed but when you're trying to stay in education your reputation is everything even more so than your skill your degree a defamation of character can take you out of the position that you've worked so hard to build your whole life so i do i'm very grateful to you for reading our emails and i do hope that this man's character is judged fairly on the totality of his work thank you okay
038um yeah we've probably met the clock by now right uh do you have a motion from the board to extend this public comment we've exceeded our 20 minutes second moved by mr babjack in second by mr angel if i'm looking at this correctly we have it looks like we should extend to 15 potential minutes i was in favor signified by saying aye can we do a um can we maybe do a count of the people that were wanting to speak that on that same topic so we can make that part of the record the number of people that were here to speak yeah we have um or just by a show we could do it by a show of hands or go by the list and it will just re-extend yeah i think we have
039six names left on the sheet so that's this should cover that's it yes 15 minutes should cover everyone's opportunity to speak that needs it okay so it's always the favorite thing about the same guy hi i think we may have done that already opposed motion carries 4-0 we'll extend the public comment session by 15 minutes um nick's santa fina santos my name is nick santos stefano i live at 3099 west 136th avenue i assume you all received the legal notices that i and other parents have sent these notices are not intended to be legal threats or the beginning of lawsuits these notices were intended to educate you on our constitutional rights our country is set up in a way that our government gets its power from the people our government cannot invent authority beyond what
040we the people delegate to it in our state and federal constitutions our government's job is to secure the people's individual rights for example with masking if i don't have the right or power to demand or force another person to wear a mask then the government does not have the power either i realize the state has directed you that if you have an optional mass policy you're required to quarantine healthy kids and if you don't they have threatened you with fines and possible jail time i see no proof of those are no proof that those are anything but empty threats to scare you into compliance over the last year our state and federal governments have overreached and tried to do many things beyond its power our commander-in-chief is making it his main way of accomplishing things
041but that doesn't make its right it right or mean that we have to comply i have followed the governor's order through the indiana uh general codes sections and i don't believe that the school has the authority to quarantine healthy kids i think that the health department is requiring you to do something that is unconstitutional and you should resist it i search the entire indiana general assembly for anything that had to do with quarantining and found nothing that gave anyone power to quarantine healthy people without a court order from the health department the only exception i saw was a special 72-hour period the health department can use while acquiring a court order i even read a section that said that animal control needs a court order to quarantine someone's dog if they're expected of having rabies
042so were you to think that a dog in the state of indiana have more constitutional rights and are given more due process than our children i believe lowell has figured this out and that is why they design their covert policy around this is directly from lowell's culvert policy persons of close contacts within three feet for 15 minutes will be informed in addition to parents of children identified as close contacts they will not be required to quarantine but will be reported to the indiana department of health they are not quarantining healthy kids but instead giving those close contact info to the health department so if the health department chooses they can get a court order and do the quarantining i ask you to please consider going with an optional mass policy and i ask you to
043please push on push back on the state health department when it comes to quarantining i truly believe you don't have the authority to quarantine and you should pass that responsibility back onto the health department thanks for your time [Applause] riley listina hi um i'm ryan lesina 12866 massachusetts street and i'd just like to speak about the cross-country team not at all about the resignation i'm a sophomore student a track athlete and a cross-country athlete at crown point high school i'd like to start out with my favorite quote which is by winnie the pooh it reads how lucky am i to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard this simple phrase completely sums up my team and i's entire 2021 cross-country season this season our entire team got very close walking into practice every day
044i was completely surrounded by all of my best friends which came as a shock to me as this was my first year participating in cross country after a month or two of summer conditioning these girls felt like my family the team would have so much fun together every single day no matter how hard our workout was i could literally be having the worst day of my life but when i would go to practice my team would entirely turn around from talking to my upperclassmen teammates i have heard that the team dynamic was never like this before unlike most of the high school's teams we were never pitted against our own teammates instead we were to encourage each other no matter what this resulted in our very close and loving team dynamic everything else i have
045to say is personnel related so i'd like to defer my time thank you [Applause] tom lucina thank you my name is tommy listina 12866 massachusetts street i'm a lifelong crown point resident i would like to speak to you very generally about the topic of protecting our students thank you for letting me speak to you tonight i do not take this privilege lightly and i will not waste your time first i want to thank the board of trustees and i want to thank crown point high school for protecting our young adults i cannot express to you how much it means to me that i can send my daughter to such an incredible institution knowing full well that her protection is your absolute number one priority thank you for what you do every single day now i
046would also like to deliver a challenge to the board of trustees and to cron point high school as you continue to focus on protecting our students as your first priority please consider narrowing the gap between first and second place let's bring the teachers and coaches closer into a very much less distant second place i beg you if you find yourself in a situation where there is an excellent teacher or an excellent coach who is seemingly being pushed out because of an accusation that very well might be baseless i beg you to explore further i beg you to ask questions go far beyond airing on the side of caution students teachers coaches all deserve this i beg you continue protecting our students first but please also increase the level of protection for our teachers and coaches
047who stand in okay thank you thank you [Applause] uh sarah miller hello sarah miller 6224 west 136th avenue and cedar lake it's cold in here my first comment so um i know you guys are going to be talking about covid policy later and i wasn't going to speak but just in case i'm just going to speak my piece again um i believe all of you guys are decent guys but i don't think the governor is decent or the the commissioner at the health department so and i'm not happy with the complacency where parents concerns haven't really been addressed to this point so i'm hoping they are tonight government officials are put in place to protect the rights of the citizen body those rights include the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness freedom
048of religion and the exercise of rights of conscience and under the 14th amendment we as parents have the fundamental right to make all decisions including medical for our minor children it is up to us to weigh the risk versus benefit and we certainly care about our kids more than the state i want this board to return to mass optional everyone have the option but not to discriminate against the unvaccinated as the health department is in the habit of doing the indiana constitution article 1 section 23 says the general assembly shall not grant to any citizen or class of citizens privileges or immunities which upon the same term shall not equally belong to all citizens and the constitution has been mocked a lot in recent years but is listed as the highest authority in the hierarchy
049of law indiana code 1-1-2-1 and this is where we derive our freedoms so those who mock it must not like those freedoms when you sought the positions you hold you sought leadership and i'm asking you to lead with integrity if you are not willing to lead i would ask you to resign but i'm not hoping that we have to go that route and then lastly in regards to the action item 5.2 it's on the agenda i'm hoping you guys don't accept any funds that come with strings attached thank you [Applause] luke tricker luke 38 26 west 106th lane crown point luke before you start couldn't just move the mic down a little bit there you go thank you you're good um i think master stupid um you know some of my friends i've known for
050about a year and a half um have never gotten to see my face so but um i'm new here and i've never seen some of my friends smile ever i hope that this can change your minds about masks which are proven to do nothing in copenh vaccines i know many people that have gotten very sick after the vaccine thank you [Applause] so i believe this one is tom kristoff i can't see the yes tom kristoff see i feel stupid because everyone else here is talking about real important things and this is more confident than i've ever been um the only thing that i wanted oh i'm sorry uh 3784 kingsway drive um there are a couple process based comments that i wanted to make and some of them i think apply here the first is
051when and how you have public comment periods you have one at the beginning of the meeting and that that's fine it gives everyone a chance to it gives everyone a chance to sorry somebody was texting me as i'm trying to read this damn thing um it gives everyone a chance to speak prior to the deliberations it gives everyone a chance to give you their impressions um however without one a separate comment period at the end even if a shortened version there's no opportunity for you to hear feedback about your deliberative process i heard you talk and say to somebody we're going to make a decision or we're going to vote on something during this meeting but at the end of the meeting they don't get a chance to tell you either you did well or
052there was things that you didn't consider and that you should have considered and so without that second feedback comment they have to wait now an entire month just to give any any type of feedback um the the second part that i wanted to talk about is uh giving names and addresses um i don't know whether that's a state law whether that's a county rule or whether that's just in your bylaws i looked at your bylaws and it looked like it might just be your bylaws so if that is something that you have the power to change um i i know that there have been people who have not wanted to give any type of comments because of this issue so like i said if it's something that you have the power to change or at
053least influence there might be some value in that um and then the third is just generally about bylaws i heard a gentleman say that they wanted to give comment they wanted you to hear the comment but i also heard that you can't discuss these personnel issues you can't discuss it that's fine but if your bylaws say we can't even hear somebody talk about this issue and you're not having a discussion you're just outright your bylaws say you can't hear that then that's a problem with the bylaws you should be able to hear that even if you can't talk back to the person thank you [Applause] okay thank you everybody for their uh comments this evening i'm sure we as a board i'll have some thoughts that we could you know but we'll just give one
054point of clarification your middle point there about giving the name and the address it's an issue out wanting to speak we had a problem a few years ago when when we did a survey and we were getting responses from california so it hasn't it has been a minor problem in that respect but it has a potential to become a greater problem okay let's close the patrons comments section of the meeting for this evening and move to the consent agenda dr terrell good evening for your consideration this evening our consent agenda we have the executive session minutes and the regular business meeting minutes from october 25th we also have the appointment to the crown point library trustees reappointment of marshall anderson for a four-year term a recurrent grant to approve and receive the title ii a
055a recurrent grant for title 4a the recurrent grant to approve for indiana prime math transition course grant the personnel agenda and then the voucher registered checks as listed thank you dr terrell uh so you've heard the consent agenda as presented by dr terrell do we have a motion to approve mr president i'll move to accept the consent agenda as presented with the exception to remove item g11 from the personnel report and defer that to a later meeting so we have a second second all those in favor and i'm sorry how about questions or comments on the consent agenda any discussion or comments for the consent agenda before we move for a vote mr hardman i believe would probably be able to answer these items three four and five it appears that are some of those
056new grants where we've been receiving those annually funds are comparable to prior years thank you um well while we're having some discussions this evening i just wanted to mention that uh um you know the obstacles as a board um the open door law that we're not allowed to have these votes outside the public meeting any of any vote on any decision takes place takes place in this room so it's one of the challenges when an agenda comes out you don't can't pre-arrange decisions or have votes amongst us without being you know in the public forum so uh um as you know information comes to us we just like someone else mentioned earlier we have to wait month to month unless we have special sections and executive sessions to get together to actually form a vote
057and agree um so mr hoffman uh thank you for the motion with the removal of the item that you listed um i want to make sure that addendum's end in the record prior to the final vote it is okay any other comments if not all those in favor say even if i have one comment is there um that's that's as much detail as we can give well i think that i'm just i think the conversation is i think the conversation that we could appropriately appropriately have right now and anyone please interrupt us if we are out of line um but as a board we you know we're we're deciding to defer an item in our personal agenda so one of the items that um in the personal agenda um had a high level of interest
058tonight and that is the one that we are deferring to another date yes thank you yes all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries 4-0 and we have action items this evening item 5.1 um dr terrell thank you for your consideration this evening we have the crown point school corporation covid protocols guidelines is my recommendation for the board the guidelines beginning december 6 2021 there are several items here and i'm going to read through all of them and then we can have discussion about them the first one is mask will be optional in all of our buildings and facilities second one if the positive number of cases in any building rises above two percent of the building's population including students and staff everyone in the building will be required to wear
059masks for 14 days next bullet point individuals who test positive for covin must quarantine next bullet point closed contacts will be those identified using the three foot measure sub bullet points underneath us individuals who are identified as close contacts will be contacted by school personnel next sub bullet point individuals who are identified as close contacts will not be required to quarantine if they do not have symptoms but should monitor their symptoms for 14 days next sub bullet point if an individual identified as a close contact becomes symptomatic they should not attend school and they should notify the school and will be required to quarantine next main bullet point mask will continue to be required on school buses per federal mandate we will continue to monitor our own data and compare it to other indicators in
060our community and our county it is my recommendation that the school board of trustees approved the listed guidelines beginning december 6 2021. thank you dr terrell you've heard a recommendation to prove the covet protocol guidelines as listed beginning on december 6th 2021 we have a motion to approve second uh moved by mr babjack and second by mr angel um i'm assuming we want to have some questions or comments for dr terrell on this recommendation uh i'll yeah i'll start um you know what i like about it is there's some consideration and thought uh put into what's going on in individual buildings so i can appreciate that that makes sense to me um also should things you know should things become more difficult in those buildings and then there is a contingency plan for that so
061um i appreciate the amount of thought that you guys put into this to making a little bit more custom as opposed to a blanket approach across the whole school corporation and i think now is the time to give this a try so the december 6th deadline is probably good timing it allows the parents that choose to get their children vaccinated to do so offering them if that's the protection that they want to offer their kids and they'll have the opportunity to do that go ahead so just to give you an idea currently in our school corporation before i get to that let me state you know we've been having been able to comment at meetings and some of you that's been frustrating well now that it's an action item we can comment so we do
062take into regard everything that was being said at the meetings but personally the two not two things when you bring up policy and law wonderful medical expertise i love that but i would just ask in the future when you bring information such as comparing to us to a school corporation of lowell or griffith you put apples to apples griffith has a total of 2100 kids total in their entire corporation uh low 3100 our high school loans got 2 900. so when maybe you see my expression because i'm not one that holds back and you see me rolling my eyes that's why because you cannot compare a school corporation that we have one building when you're trying to put things in perspective of how we're trying to keep your kids safe and continue the educating process
063so that's all i ask but i do greatly appreciate everything that's been said the last three meetings we do listen we do read emails as mr babjack has mentioned i just want to make sure that in the future when there's something that there might be a disagreement or another remark that needs to be made just please try to stay to facts and things that actually compare crown point in our situation like a hamilton southeast or somewhere down that has the same type of enrollment as us is all i ask that's all i have and then i want to get these numbers so currently with that two percent rule per school crown point high school currently three positive cases taft seven wheeler two eisenhower nine jerry ross ten which means you'd be just a couple cases
064away from going to the 14 that 14 day mass mandate lake street 2 macarthur 2 solon 3 timothy ball 10 again same situation winfield 4 learning center zero total right now 47 students and six staff so obviously now with the change starting on december 6 if we go to a vote of approval these things will be considered when those decisions are being made and changes might need to be taken place that's all i have for this with uh dr terrell as mr angel mentioned that it brings a question to me so let's say a school corporation bumps into two percent and they start there so a notification is going to go out to the corporation or to the to the families of that school that they will be in mask for 14 days when does
065that how do we i'm sure some of this hasn't been thought out yet because it has to be a you know in in the moment of the game to be able to figure this out but now you know monday you have uh 2.2 percent and wednesday you have 2.5 percent and friday you you know it's those cases is it do they roll for 14 days i guess that's the right way to say it does each case so case one will roll for 14 days and then they drop off by day that they drop off so actually we did spend time working on this with that scenario and what we're looking at is the initial when we hit that mark where we get to the point where we're at two percent within a school population will
066trigger the 14 days we will continue to monitor what's happening within that building to see if the cases are increasing declining where we're at with that part of that is going to be a little bit tricky because if you continue to add on and without those rolling off and so we'll be working through that to see what will give us the best read on what is taking place within that building itself because it would it would be safe to say that a you know case one drop should drop off after 14 days as well right but i i don't know maybe maybe or maybe not mr angel's intentions with those numbers but um i look at that as a pretty hard and fast stop for you know we're we've been the numbers that he read
067have been fairly consistent for the last two months they're a little bit higher now than you know they may have been three four weeks ago but um i i think it gives it gives me a peace of mind making a vote on this that we're not far away from this trigger and i'm not saying we want to get there and i want to you know but uh if you're concerned if you're um worried about an aggressive nature of a of a potential covert policy plan that that governor or that that stop is not far away to per you know for those that want to be a mask to feel the protection of the mask at that level um something else i wanted to david if i may comment on that before you move on so
068one of the things that as we look at the color-coded map around the state that the state has used for the last several months when they look at the different things that determine that one of them is the seven day positivity rate and we're not saying that what we're looking at is the same as the positivity rate that the state is using per counties but with the percentages they're giving at blue is the best color a county can be and that's five percent so we're looking at two is where we have set in the trigger so if our county had two percent everybody would think that was the greatest thing that we had accomplished that so we're saying that that's the mark where now we're going to go back into being a little bit more
069cautious again debating whether or not the are effective or not that's not the point it's putting something in that can kind of be a stop gap as a as a measuring stick for us i had uh the period there um well just something i if this isn't neither here nor there on the policy this evening but i wanted to hope and stress that our building leaders are keeping an eye on uh bullying it's come up on the streets and in the community i've been you know we hear about it and it's existed for our entire lives but i i think this should in this case there should be kind of a zero tolerance policy for um you know a bowling of someone who makes a choice of wearing a mask or not a mask and
070that should be nipped right away when it's hurt in our buildings i don't know i just kind of have a strong feeling about that mr hoffman wanna come back to you do you have anything to i do first i'll comment on the on the uh policy of allowing people to come and speak i've heard many times that we're not doctors and we're trying to prescribe mass we're not prescribing anything we are not doctors we don't profess to be we don't we don't profess to understand all the medical signs number two i hear people come in and they're going to read to me what the law is i have to tell you i've been an attorney for almost 44 years so don't tell me i'm a doctor but also don't come in and try and tell
071me what the law is just personal opinion with respect to the mass policy i'm very conflicted within the last week i've had three family members contract covet one of them is my older brother who has several qualifying conditions so i'm concerned about his well-being i'm not here to debate the affecting effectiveness of mass but you go on the internet and find about anything you want to support your position but i did read an article this week where there was a an extensive study on masks and and they determined that there's a significant benefit to the wearing of mass to prevent covet the biggest concern that i have is that as this weather gets colder and we are more inside uh the predictions of following last year as well of increased cases of covet um i
072i personally would prefer to see the starting date deferred to the beginning of the next semester which would give us a period of time to see whether or not the the the greater restriction to indoors is going to have a significant impact on this another thing that i read this within the last week or so is the fact that they're finding out notwithstanding the the prior belief that there's minimal effect on children from covid that they're finding many of the children who have contracted covered are having long haul symptoms so i am one who tends to prefer to err on the side of caution and i would prefer to see this i i think it's a good recommendation but i'm not certain that the timing is right it was my comments i appreciate the words
073well everyone thanks i appreciate todd's recommendation well maybe if anybody's collecting their thoughts and anyways collecting their thoughts and maybe one make further coming i do have a uh brian smith who couldn't be here this evening he sent me uh he did send me a statement and asked me if given the opportunity to read it so i feel like this is a decent opportunity here so this is a statement from brian smith unable to make it but he said good evening i wanted to apologize for not being present at tonight's meeting the timing of my absence was not ideal as important issues were addressed this evening i felt compelled to provide a statement on certain matters in the agenda this evening tonight i would want the record to reflect that i support the recommendation presented
074by the superintendent related to crown point school covet protocols the recommendation sets for safety and control measures that would reflect the specific circumstances of our community even more so the individual schools within our district it allows for stringent measures such as mandatory masking only when the data related to covert positivity in our community would support such a move the recommendation further respects the autonomy of the individual student and parents to make such choices which are appropriate for their child based upon their circumstances lastly with the recent approval of cova vaccination for individuals 5 to 13 years of age parents may choose for their children to now be vaccinated if that decision is in their child's or household's best interest the availability of the vaccine has eased several parents prior concerns the objective has always been
075to keep students in school with a little interruption as possible to maximize each student's education cooperation from parents and students will lead to continued success of our school corporation for which our community has come to expect that was from brian smith well members of the board we want to uh if there's nothing else or todd if you don't have any follow-through we'll we'll take a vote on the recommendation uh ty is there anything you'd like to add you know the only doctor just a couple other things that i'd like to address as well with this um i want to make sure that both our board and our our stakeholders understand that we have continued to be in contact with legislators as well with our health department trying to gather as much information as possible even
076as recently as sunday afternoon i've been communicating with senator nia myers legislative assistant regarding the vote that's going to take place tomorrow to end the health emergency in the state of indiana as being recommended looking at what that how that's going to impact us so we continue to work through that um i think other things that our people need to know is yes while we are seeing an increase right now and i could understand why people would be concerned with why are we doing this if that is what we're experiencing i do believe that the triggers that are in place will help us maneuver through that also though continuing to look at our own data has been something that we've really been important to us as a corporation as we go throughout this last multiple
077months dealing with it and as we've continued to look at our data we have had mask requirement as minimal as we could per the state's recommendations and in all of our extracurricular activities we have not seen increases in positive cases as well and those are from all of our students not wearing masks so we do believe that this is a responsible move to do at this time and we will continue to look at that and that's not to say that if there if there are significant changes and things come about in the future we'll do as we have done up to this point and that is continue to make the appropriate decisions and take appropriate actions at that time appreciate you guys and your support with this and the work that goes into this in
078our schools our parents our students as well i have one one other comment talking about listening to people we've heard all the comments of from from the last several meetings about positions regarding masks we also received many many many emails from other parents who don't feel it necessary to come in here and say yes we support masks we've got how many students in our school corporation over nine thousand pushing ten thousand right okay we've got the group here that says we're opposed to mass there's a substantial number of people out there who prefer masks and believe that's in the best interest of their children too so we take that into consideration as well the good news is they will still have the ability to wear one i understand and so you know and like brian
079uh like like mr smith said in his statement i think he made the point that uh you know families will get to do what they feel is best for their own families so i i appreciate um people having the you know now everybody has the ability to do that kind of thought oh well another something else that um i i had to come across it with our own family in the last couple weeks maybe the people that no don't know but everyone's gonna have different opinion on this but the testing and availability availability of results seems to have stepped up quite a bit um yeah i went to a cvs locally and with a child that wasn't feeling well and we had a a test done in about 15 or 20 minutes so i i
080think that's actually more to me that's a lot more important than maybe other people but if we are responsible and we again continue to try to put this responsibility on our community and the families in our community to think about others when these situations come up i think that this could be helpful that we have the tests available to us as well i just have one one last comment i just thought of as i was thinking through the comments that were made this evening that is those of you who are concerned about us distributing or giving out vaccinations in our buildings in our school buildings and therefore turning in feeling the need to turn in the notarized document saying that your your child should not receive vaccinations in school that is absolutely your responsibility as
081parents we will not in our schools try to convince you to get them vaccinated or take that upon ourselves to to do i mean that's just in my mind that's unthinkable um it's not something that we will ever pursue here in our district and i can't imagine across the state of indiana that that would ever get to the point where they're trying to vaccinate kids in schools without parents permissions i understand the idea of clinics and vaccination clinics we're not going there either but just so you guys understand where i appreciate where you're coming from at the same time though i think it's important that we just say that if you go to our website underneath the covid tab you'll find more information regarding that our statement is there regarding vaccination clinics and what we
082uh what we do and don't do just so that way you can have a resource to go to for information with that thank you okay last call for a conversation on coverage policy look for a vote all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed all right motion carries three to one um move to 5.2 approval to apply for and receive the governor emergency education relief fund mr hartman thank you mr president uh seeking your approval this evening to apply for and receive funding from the government emergency education relief fund this is in the amount of 91 198 this money was spent uh actually last year when we were either in our hybrid or in a distance learning mode and we provided uh khajiit hot spots to students so that they could access the
083internet and then we also purchased ipads with the money to support our early childhood students who had special needs for delivery of remote instruction and related services seeking your approval tonight to apply for and receive the funding thank you mr harvey heard recommendation approved to apply for and receive funding for the government emergency education relief on grant amount of ninety one thousand one hundred ninety eight dollars do we have a motion to approve second uh moved by mr angel second by mr hoffman any questions or comments for mr hartman do we collect the non-public school funds and then distribute those yes we did any other questions for mr harbin not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries 4-0 uh 5.3 the 2021-22 revision of the crown point high school textbook
084rental and supply fees mr hartman thank you again mr president um once again we have a a change in the crown point high school textbook rental fee for one of the courses uh we're actually uh are going to uh have a lower amount for the consumable fee because the book is at a lower price uh seeking your approval of the change uh for an american literature consumable uh from 17.36 to 13.63 cents if you uh we're seeking your approval to of that to the crown point high school textbook rental supply fee uh i think mr hartman we heard the recommendation to approve the 21 22 crumpled high school textbook rental and split fee revision a motion to approve so moved by mr hoffman and second by mr babjack any questions or comments from mr hartman
085on the recommendation all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries five zero then we have interactive panels um from whitfield mr hartman yes thank you last last month october 25th you approved a vendor for the purchase of equipment which included the internet interactive panels document cameras webcams and adjustable amounts for winfield and on november the 18th yeah november the 18th the vendor responded to mr gill that they were not able to fulfill this obligation therefore we're coming to you this evening with the second vendor on the list which is tri electronics to fulfill the the equipment as well as the installation and the amount of this is three hundred six thousand two hundred seven dollars and twenty five cents which is around four thousand dollars higher than what the earlier vendor
086was seeking your approval to uh um to for try electronics to be the vendor of the of the purchase and installation a printed recommendation for mr harvin to approve the purchase of 50 clear touch 86-inch interactive panels document cameras webcams and adjustable mount cards from tri-electronics an amount of three hundred six thousand two hundred seven dollars and twenty-five cents uh do we have a motion to approve so second uh moved by mr angel and second by mr hoffman any questions or comments from mr hartman any chance that the savings from the previous uh reduction in taxable fees it's a different account once we get 3 000 people to take american literature all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed emotion carries 4-0 and we have resolution number 808 additional appropriation mr reece
087thank you mr warney members of the board uh tonight i bring before you for your consideration resolution 808 which is an additional appropriation resolution back on may 24th you conducted a public hearing that was duly appropriately advertised it's the appropriation process for the construction projects that are upcoming this resolution also is retroactive back to that may 24th date and the date of the hearing my recommending approval of the additional appropriation resolution 808 and recommend waiving the reading of thank you mr reese you heard a recommendation to approve the resolution 808 an additional appropriations waiver reading do we have a motion to approve move to approve uh may 24 2021. second that motion any questions or comments if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries 4-0 and uh back to
088mr reese for the crumpled high school renovation bid package thank you um on november 11th we received 47 bids and over 15 categories for the crown point high school edition and renovations project the total award did come in under budget by a little over 2 million dollars we are recommending tonight those 15 contracts to the various contractors for a total amount of 43 million and 46 dollars thank you mr reese i'm gonna i think it's not appropriate if i don't read this entire recommendation here you've heard the recommendation to approve the contracts for the crown point high school additions and renovations this follows general trades to larson danielson in the amount of 12 million 246 thousand for masonry to zokowski construction amount of three million six hundred sixty six thousand two hundred eighty three for
089roofing to corrales roofing and the amount of four million seven or thirty eight thousand thirty four dollars for aluminum entrances glazing to zero companies in the amount of 741 400 from metal studs drywall ceilings to golf incorporated an amount of one million five hundred ninety one thousand for painting to us to bond and sons in amount of foreign sixty seven thousand six hundred twenty dollars for hard tile to art mosaic and tile and the amount of foreign six six thousand seven or ninety for carpet and resilient flooring to midwest tile and interiors in the amount of 446 710 for sports flooring to kiefer usa in the amount of 898 500 for casework to leak company in the amount of 730 830 for food services the cnt design in the amount of 759 1 585 and
090for fire protection to ryan fire protection amount of 566 835 plumbing the gatlin plumbing and heating in the amount of 1 million 177 559 for mechanical gap and plumbing and heating in the amount of 9 million 694 100 and for electrical to con continental electric in the amount of 4 million 808 thousand and 800 uh sorry i just felt like it was appropriate to read that recommendation in full um do we have any questions or do we have a motion to approve so moved moved by mr hoffman second second by mr babjack questions or comments from mr comment that i appreciate the inclusion and the recommendation that either skillman or school corporation has had extensive experience with all the bidders and is confident that they can successfully perform the work as prescribed since that's typically
091one of my questions so man i know dion's not here but do you know based on just what's going on with getting supplies things like that as far as we know no holds up hold up on what we're doing with these projects or is that a question for dm i'll let dr terrell take down yeah so i i have been working very closely with dion and scott sherry from skillman reviewing the process as we've gone through there are challenges with that one of the advantages and one of the reasons why we did not break up our bond sale into two different sales and went with one was so that we could have that money readily available right now to go ahead and place those orders and have those orders here the other part is because
092the site where we are building taf is such that we have additional space that's not being utilized with the building construction right now we're able to take delivery of those items as we order them which is one of the the big advantages to what we're doing as we move forward with it so according to dion he feels like the the ordering will be such that we'll be able to get it in as we need it or have it already there as we're ready to move forward with it they've taken a great approach to not just doing the concrete work first and then the structural but doing it as they go at the same time and i think it's really going to be advantageous for us as far as meeting our deadlines so all that to
093say i feel like we're going to be in a good spot even with the challenges we're facing okay thank you any questions or comments if not all those in favor signify by saying guy all right hi opposed emotion carries 4-0 uh all right thank you mr reese and then now information items this evening we have superintendent discussion groups usually brian smith gives us an update out of cedar lake but without him being there uh mr hoffman anything from winfield or point ground point business pretty much as usual continuing to issue beside grants and some of them are becoming quite visible around the square of town so continuing to do favorite projects hi um doctor did did we mention it last meeting did we notice some of the uh athletes uh up around the square on
094banners was that a did anybody else notice that and that was something that it had been discussed the city to team up with them i don't know how that was funded or provided but it's something that um mr smith and i were having comments with uh you know the city at some point about trying to team up and get that you know get that opportunity out there so it was nice to see um i also noticed an article in the paper that hopefully that 109th is going to be opening up soon december 15th all you guys from went through the coming down that day right the i-65 exit alone for myself yeah same from in town um nothing else mr hoffman all right thank you um see what our see what our lineup is this
095evening like say it all in the right order we have director of elementary education mr ramirez thank you mr president and board members i'm going to keep my comments very brief as mr g infermi has um some cphs renovation overviews to share which will be enthralling so um and i want to upstage him i would like to thank anna rutzlaff our ell district specialist for organizing and hosting our first k5 ell by literacy night in partnership with the public library that occurred last week and was a great opportunity for our families to not only gather at the public library but to take a trip around the world um in a literacy uh format so i appreciate her efforts and the team's efforts from our ell members i'd also like to thank the philanthropy that occurs
096in our buildings at the elementary level i am just astounded by the work that these young students are doing to demonstrate their generosity and citizenship as you see us going into the thanksgiving and holiday season our schools are really abounding with opportunities for food drives clothing drives and angel trees and i just believe that this is a true reflection of our youngest citizens who will become productive members down the road and the importance of what we are helping them see as their role in helping those who are in need so thank you very much thank you mr ramirez and uh director of secondary education mr g fermi thank you mr president board members um tonight dr terrell has asked me to share with you and if mr gill could bring up our a powerpoint that
097will kind of show you exactly what you've just kind of approved money wise for the expansion at uh crown point high school that we need time out okay i gotta get up so this will be a little bit unusual just so you know we'll be sharing this tomorrow morning with the teachers and staff members at the high school as well you're there okay i'm gonna go back all right so we know um expansion happens and you can see our old high school from where we first started apartments and then the old high school where colonel wheeler stands and then you know our current high school which is approaching 20 years 20 years is coming up real close but we are now moving towards where we have to expand to house 3600 students so as we
098sat down and started talking to gibraltar and skillman and we started talking with our administrators and of course you as the board we had a criteria when we worked with our designers and and there it is up there for everybody to see we have to move to be able to house up to 3 600 students this is adding new classrooms some of those classrooms being science labs have to expand our cafeteria because you can only have so many lunches per per day so we might make sure we have enough room in there for our kids i want to add to our robotics area which is our stem area of engineering science technology and mathematics and take those programs into kind of some new heights as we move forward with that lockers and commons areas and
099circulation because a lot of the congestion i spent 10 years of my administrative career at that high school and loved it but it was very very crowded back then and it's even more crowded now so that wasn't taken into consideration uh to repurpose our career and technical education program spaces as we start to expand those because the graduation pathways that students will be taking redesign our administrative and guidance offices so that we can kind of change the operation of communication as that works repurpose and under utilize courtyard space and you'll see what we're going to do with that and then to take the opportunity to increase our life fitness athletic and training and pe program so to see what all that 43 million dollars starts hitting us just in the building here if you look
100at this overview of the building anything that is kind of in yellowish orange that's going to be repurposed spaces that we already have anything in red will be an addition that we'll be putting towards our our building so let's just start with where our our classroom additions will be this is directly across from where our tennis courts are right now um arrows pointing right down where you see um this is where we're going to have an addition of 18 classrooms on the on the first floor and then another 10 some of them being science labs up on the top floor second floor let's just look at the first floor first you see we can add a lot of classrooms and this is all done with gibraltar design um where you start kind of projecting how
101many sections you'll need in math and science and language arts and so that's where you come up with the number of classrooms you need but this is a pretty big expansion that we'll be putting in you can see just a little interesting piece there directly across from the tennis courts we're gonna have a walk that will go into some exterior entrance um bathrooms so that we've always had an issue where we're having a tennis match um people have to go into the buildings and it creates a security issue this way we'll be able to do that with no problems above these new addition these classrooms you can see that we have to kind of repurpose our facts department that commons locker area right now that's where you enter and that side of the building south
102end of the building so once that gets taken back down we have to rebuild our facts lab where we have our early childhood lab on to the right of that side and then on the end of it we have a world language lab room right now that will get repurposed to a fax room and you'll have a new entrance that you can come in through that hallway there so trying to kind of uh answer all the questions that we have here also in our auto area there we're going to repurpose the classroom and some storage there so that that will be a better space for the kids when they're not actually in the lab if you kind of look stay on the first floor i'm going to start in the e-wing that's towards the top
103of this picture really the biggest repurposing piece in the e-wing is that corner rumor says 3d art right now that's a science lab and we're going to create that into a art room because we're going to move all our science department will be upstairs after this renovation is done the other pieces will not really be renovated we thought about that a little bit but the graphics lab and the 3d art room will stay the same you move down towards the where it says the media center we are going to be building some additional classrooms to the north of the media center right now there's one exceptional um education classroom that we're going to add another one because we're going to move one of those and it's kind of one of our continuum rooms where you
104need some some self-contained areas and then to the south of that we'll have another exceptional learner's classroom repurposed and then our tv studio will move to that south end of the media center media center will be repurposed got some pictures of what that will look like now across the hall from that we're going to put in a project lead the way lab which is really robotics and engineering there'll be computer labs on each side of that and then across that narrow hallway we're going to repurpose a room that we currently have into another cte or career and technical education kind of lab that we can grow into as our programs continue to grow so from the outside when you're looking if you're looking across from the tennis courts this is what the elevation will look
105like there's the existing view right now in the in the right hand corner and this is kind of what that hallway to the media center on the east side this is the new main entrance to the media center and what it's going to look like and it's going to be wider right now it's a very narrow hall very difficult to get through we're going to widen that up and it'll be a place where you can enter there and then right across from it you'll have your project lead the way lab is the interior of the media center the circulation desk will move from where it currently is and this is if you were looking east you'll have what they call those storefront window walls where you can kind of see and make it kind of
106open feeling this one kind of shows you the media center at the on the top picture we're still going to have those windows up up high so when you cross there will be a hallway and i'll show you that later when we talk about the second floor you can cross there you can still look down into the media center we'll stop natural lighting going into our media center which was something we asked the designers to keep this is a view of the project lead the way lab so across from the media center again all glass wall that you can look right in there so you can see there's kind of a depiction of what might be a little robotics tournament uh arena area you could have it right in there they can also create a
107lot of the robotic things that they're doing and then there's the rest the picture of what the lab looks it's pretty pretty substantial so you can have a lot of things happening all right if we move to the north side of the building for the performing arts what we really needed there is we needed some storage space um currently we have a trailer that kind of sticks out from that area nice looking trailer has you know theater piece on it but it's a trailer nonetheless so what is currently our black box where we do a lot of rehearsal and practice back there and mr duggan hart's classes back there as well that will become storage it has a very high ceiling over 15 feet high so we can create a lot of storage back there
108for him then we will repurpose his classroom and the rehearsal classroom with a couple more storage areas that will be across from where the orchestra room is right now so and it will be flush with the building so when you look at it it will look kind of like it was always there but it will create a lot of that storage that our performing arts area has needed for a long while if we move over into the pe athletic training area you can see that this part we are going to add some kind of fitness areas where we'll have an additional piece of like almost an extension of a field house if you will and then we'll move our weight lifting area there for athletics and our weight development classes which are are packed and
109cannot fit in but it's now currently the fitness center anymore there's not enough room there we'll repurpose where the weight lifting was into a fitness center which will have mostly cardio um equipment in there and then there'll also be additional health classroom that will be put in there there will be south of the pool we'll be able to put in a locker room you'll have an additional weight room which is much larger and will accommodate way more students and athletes and then we'll also be able to put this indoor turf field to the next of it which is kind of an expansion of our field house this is kind of the view if you look at the bottom that's the view of like when you're leaving the stadium this is what people would be walking
110past again taking into consideration that we don't want something that looks like it was flapped on there we want it to flow with the rest of the building and that will look really nice and it'll look like it was always there um this is another view of it from the parking lot um this is kind of the interior view so you can just kind of get a feel of what that the field turf would be next to all the weightlifting equipment and there's a barrier that comes down when they need to separate the two areas okay and then we move into the courtyard we all know that the courtyard is a big piece yes michelle pretty it's pretty high yeah yeah kind of like the field house very similar to that um so in the
111courtyard this was a place that you know at first it's really kind of tricky we were worried about trying to get in there to build but uh skillman has come up with a lot of really great ways to do this and cost effective um because it's a space that's not utilized enough so in that area if the the way you kind of look at this and you got to kind of imagine how you all been in the building enough right where it says cafeteria expansion to the right of that is the elevator and that is one one thing you really don't want to change around much i guess i learned from the um the designers as an elevator that's very costly so we kind of took it all the way up to there and where
112it says cafeteria expansion is really where your administrative offices are right now in the nurse's office so the red is building into the courtyard so with the existing part there which will be the counselors and admins offices along with social workers and conference rooms and career conference rooms that we have and the clinic the red part will be which is currently into the courtyard and we'll add a large group instruction room there as well as as we expand we need more large areas and as you know a lot of we have a lot of classes that meet in our large group extra construction rooms now uh kind of like advanced bio and things like that where you almost have kind of that college lecture feel to it so this will be a highly utilized area
113but it allows our counselors and our administrators to kind of physically do what they're trying to do right now is they're trying to work around teams around alphabet of students so you have a couple counselors an administrator an interventionist they all can be in one area and we work with those same students for four years and they'll have the same people that they're working the cafeteria expansion was very tricky because we have to have an area that is larger you want to be able to see it all so here's kind of a picture of when those administrative offices are moved you can see where you're going to be able to see right through that hallway there there's another look in there and it'll be a large hallway that kids can get back and forth from
114it kind of shows you how the stairs will look there um the south end of the cafeteria which was we always refer to as the new part of the cafeteria even though it's 13 years old or whatever that south end will now be a satellite kit kitchen where students will also be able to pick up their lunch so that will help the flow because anyone that's ever been there that at lunch time all the kids are crammed to one side on the north side trying to get their lunch and kids are trying to get across the high school hallways there and it's very congested so with this opening of the middle of it with the satellite kitchen to the south the the traffic flow should be much better for the students they're moving across there
115so then if we move up to the upstairs uh views you can see that the second floor again uh the middle of our expansion that of classroom expansion is all science rooms in the middle we're able to get all of our science programs upstairs now so together as a department over on the upper left side there we have two more science rooms plus a cnn lab that we're going to dna lab that we are going to try to develop that program medical program that we already have some of our things you know biology program so in that expansion between that lab and where it kind of has the acts there is where this hallway which never existed upstairs before will give us a third hallway in which students can get a flow across the building
116and there's those windows that will look down into the media center so we're hoping that this will help yes as well so with all that being said that's that's the start this starts december 17th so we thought we want to show people kind of what we landed we'll be at the high school tomorrow make sure the faculty knows coming we've worked with the faculty with the department chairs with the teachers with the administration countless meetings with them back and forth and then a lot of communication with the designers to try to get them everything they want to get but um december 17th it starts so that's what we're we got any question i tried to do that as fast as i could guys i know it's been a long when are they painting to finish
1172024. a lot to give you an idea where we're opening tapped in august of 23. this will go in through most likely the summer of 24 to finish up everything that will be a part of it thanks thank you director of uh exceptional education ms pasquez good evening president warney members of the board just a quick update on an exciting event that gets to return tomorrow wheeler middle school are three applied skills classrooms in cooperation with their peer mentors our speech language pathologists occupational therapists for days and weeks ahead of thanksgiving prepare a feast for the whole staff at wheeler as well as some of us housed over at the learning center so students have been picking recipes they went grocery shopping and they've been working on preparing the meal so if you're around wheeler
118at lunchtime tomorrow please stop by what are the times of that exactly whatever the launch times are at the middle school come on i just walked off just don't want to miss you know [Laughter] 11 50. there we go uh chief academic officer mr hardman thank you mr warney a couple of things as we approach december we start thinking about the 2022-23 school year there's transitions that are beginning to be planned for uh incoming kindergarten students we're looking at a february i think 20 let me get it here yeah somewhere middle of february i believe 2022. uh so we're planning the communication advertising to parents that we'll be going out with with brooke and then also a transition from middle school to high school for our students we actually will begin in december some sessions
119where high school teachers will be coming to the middle level to introduce some programming because they will be moving through their scheduling at the end of january there will be a parent meeting and then by the end of february we hope to have initial schedules for our incoming 9th grade students coming so transitions are happening and we're in the midst of the 2021 school year but eyes are still looking ahead to 22 and 23. so thank you very much thank you mr hartman chief human resource officer mr akiwa thank you mr warney and members of the board just one quick item we're starting to enter foul weather season if you will right now and with our employees and all of our staff members and i guess for families as well we just like to encourage
120everybody to make sure your rds contact information is up to date so that if we need to get ahold of you with any emergency information we've got accurate info and rds we're also encouraging all of our employees to take your time leave earlier um as we say as the conditions change outside walk like a penguin uh which is really when moving from place to place you want to make sure that you're not in a hurry you're not rushed you're not carrying too many things and you're slowing down your pace and i think something else that goes along with that is more folks become car riders and fewer folks become walkers just reminding everybody to practice patience as we enter into the season where everything just slows down a little bit thank you very much hi
121thank you mr kiwa uh business department mr reese i have no report this evening thank you thank you and uh director of communications ms allen thank you good evening i would like to extend a thank you to those of you that could attend the groundbreaking ceremony at taft it was cold but i think the students had fun in particular i want to thank dion and will from skillman who went above and beyond and making sure that we had supplies that we needed and setting up the site which included pouring a gravel path that morning so no one had to walk in any mud another update as we prepare for kindergarten pre-registration we are going to make the we are cp newsletter that went out over the summer a twice a year publication so we'll have
122a summer version and now we'll also have a winter version that will announce kindergarten pre-registration and arrive hopefully in early february thank you superintendent of schools dr terrell so coming into thanksgiving i'd be remiss if i didn't have a list of thank yous it's been a tough year tough 18 months coming up on 24 months quickly here i want to thank our teachers and support staff and administrators for their work with our students thank our students for your ability to continually adjust want to thank our parents for their support of their children and understand that each and every parent only wants what's best for our kids and we appreciate that and then thank you to our board for your continued support and leadership here within our district as we continue to move forward in spite
123of the challenges that we face as a community and as a society over the last year or more thank you thank you dr terrell um other business of the border school trustees uh anybody have any other business to discuss or just open discussion for a few minutes before we move on i would just like to say obviously the four of us and brian included um we all have different opinions on things we all have different thoughts beliefs but we make it work as a board and a lot of people out there don't realize that obviously this is our only job based on what you do today so um we are elected by you taxpayers and you residents so we do take that to heart and once again i've said this in many meetings here in
124the past we have what's best for your kids at heart and that's what our goal is when you take this oath of office is to make sure you're providing the best education possible in a safe environment and that includes looking after your taxpayer dollars it includes taking care of employees and making sure all that's done and when you're meeting once a month and i can tell you that hasn't happened since covet hit um there's plenty of conversations plenty of emails to read and additional things that have been required and only one of us dislikes it and it's it's a task and especially you know whatever obviously is said over and over again no one ever anticipated anything like this i can tell you that when i got on the board 16 years ago and we
125are doing even though may not seem to some of you we are doing the best of our ability making it work with our administrative team and dr darrell and i just passed one thanks again to them because that obviously adds extra burden to them besides the regular daily jobs that they have to do and you know uh actual description of a regular job and add that additional work based on the covid and how it's impacted them kudos to them for going up and beyond and making it work for your children everybody involved school corporation and that includes the teachers union i saw you there thank you next no i just kind of add to that scott that you know it it doesn't stop right so we made a change tonight that's going to invoke a
126different group of people that are going to have concerns and complaints so it's just going to shift but my point of bringing that up is we're always trying to do what's best for the kids and that's something that mr angel says all the time and if you keep that uh first and and forefront of your mind it's you just you act on that alone it makes it pretty pretty simple so uh that being said we're always i feel like this group always is looking to do things better uh there was a gentleman here with the cool coat i forgot your name the snazzy jacket there brought up a good idea for you know process improvement um you know we are in a bind with where we put the comment period because certainly if we would
127have moved the consent agenda up in front of the comment period that would have been a disaster um but i want to remind people publicly that it was probably i'm taking a stab at the time frame but it's probably been a year but it's definitely been this elected board that changed the policy to allow people to speak about items that were not on the agenda it was on my list of things to mention as well all right the wording used to be you could comment on agenda items only and it got changed to educational issues brought in the opportunity for public comment exactly so it was there would have been you know two years ago or a year and a half ago there wouldn't have been any opportunity for people to speak about their mask
128opinion one way one way or the other um or for people to give uh personal accounts of of things that that may have happened to them so um that being said i think i i appreciate the i appreciate the you know the input uh because i i feel that you were definitely trying to you know genuine in your concern and trying to help make things better so i do appreciate that um that's it i think we yep that's it mr hoffman i have a few things you want me to go first you have anything i just want to wish everybody oh man is that this one um for for the other business topic um dr terrell i think that'd be in all of our best interests to get on track with a board retreat against
129here i think mr hoffman and i spoke about that um maybe tagging a date in february possibly march uh guys any any thoughts um i think the retreat in my opinion um and this is just like a throwing out some conversation right here while we can while we're all together uh in my opinion i i think we've done it in the past where we've come in and sat down and we've had presentation after presentation after presentation um that there's appropriate time for that and maybe some categories that will be what you know maybe we can lit maybe we should we can submit a list of things that we find as a priority that we need to talk about and then dr terrell you could put together the people to present if necessary um but i
130would view this as a you know a lengthy three or four hour session that um we have a lot of new roles in our cabinet ms pasquez ramirez gian fermi um miss allen that not so much a presentation sure if there's something of importance that they'd like to bring to us but we don't get much of an opportunity to have a conversation you know hey so that was really neat what you did with this how about that or how about this and if that's not that's not right i get it and i whatever anyone could explain to me that that's not the proper way to do it but we've never done it that way before so i think it'd be kind of interesting to just give that a try i mean you talk about three
131to four hours i know i we could talk to mrs pasquez for three hours alone right i mean so as long as we turn up the heat but uh um mr hoffman you mentioned something uh the other day you and i were talking about um you know potentially honoring um you know but that could be a topic that you know that so um i think all these things that we in passing kind of hey this might be a neat idea or this school corporation down south is doing that i i would like to just maybe ask you guys to submit um a list myself included to dr terrell of things that are of importance a little bit of demographer talk we don't need a professional demographer in here to do it but we could just
132talk with what we see with our eyes you know hey this this area is blowing up what are we gonna do about the school or you know cafeteria sizes and schools that are getting touched on that we didn't didn't speak of i had a couple of things uh oh important um i think we need to ask mr reese to sit down at this retreat and dedicate a good amount of time to the long term budget we've been spending a lot of money and we we have that um that the funding and the financing and the bonds to be able to do this but i think that's part of the retreat that would be very important um so i think that's it for that uh some reason this will go on and just to clarify for
133the people that are in the room and anybody that might be watching our our retreat that we call it takes place in this building it's not a correct we do not it's not a vacation destination there's no tax payer hot dogs and four old four four hours old coffee or not hot dogs uh donuts yeah exactly not the data to be talking about a retreat but i just want to clarify that i uh this may be more of a concern of uh board statements appreciation later but so either mr aquila or she infirming anybody the daughters are in the back of the car the other day and there's this three words something another that the unfortunate circumstances of an intruder in our buildings uh there's a new phrase that they're taught and um anybody know
134that after their tongue no well my point of bringing it up was i'm driving and they're in the back seat like just keep repeating this and the light bulb went off on my head that there must have been some training take place in the elementary school in case there were potentially an intruder it's sad to discuss it but i want to say thank you that i mean what whoever was in charge of showing them that that week or that day uh um it really stuck and it was catchy and anyone anyone in the elementary know would know what i'm talking about but uh it's you know one of those things it's sad sad that we have to have the practice take place but at the same time because we do we're fortunate that it's being
135done in a way that the children are reactive to it and you know listening um my last comment on the just circling back and not to beat a dead horse but as we move to approve uh the recommendation on the covid policy um you know i feel like i've sat here as a board member for five months and many times probably people don't know what i'm thinking you know which way is healing in tonight or where's he going with this and um i somewhat still feel that way but that's why i wanted to hit on that two percent trigger because i think it's really important that when you look at a school right now that might be at you know 10 students that are positive and at a number of 14 or 15 they're going
136to be required to wear masks so if you are on the fence about what the right thing is to do whether we should be in mass or not if we continue to live in this world where there's only four students out of 400 in a school that are positive that's a pretty darn good thing so let's just keep rooting for that you know let's just i mean two percent so i i feel like it's a really you know it's it's numbers we've heard around the state you didn't just pull this out of a hat you know um but it gave me a piece of mind to approve the recommendation and not just do it like wavering but with some confidence that well if things go bad we're going to be triggered out of this pretty
137darn quick and it also gave me a piece of mind mr hoffman and i did speak about the when to start it whether we should be you know next week december 6th end of the semester and it that also kind of gave me the peace of mind to go with the december 6th date because you know what by by the following week the 13th we're going to be in school for one more week and if the numbers if the numbers jump we're gonna get some data um and we're gonna we're gonna know how to how to how to handle things pretty quickly and if you know god forbid things are bad and miss kobit continues to spread aggressively well then we're just gonna be back in mass again and everyone could have their arguments and
138debate with one another whether or not effective and it will be out of our hands we set our trigger point and we could have a good peace of mind about about that um the uh the other topic tonight that uh dr charles is going to ask you to think about and inform us at a later time when there is some further information shared or gathered or whatever about uh resignations and the process if you'd like to include one of us please let me know and i'll find somebody to be there for you whether it be me or someone else who wants to do it um if we are if we're not to be included then we're not to be included but if you'd like us to be we'll certainly make sure somebody's available for you
139thank you um okay that's it for me anybody else on uh other business how about board statements of appreciation and recognition my vote notwithstanding i i do want to recognize the administration for their efforts in putting together the recommendation regarding the mass policy it's it's not very often that i go against the recommendation of the administration uh this is the first time since dr carroll has been here and uh only a handful of times under the previous administration thereby not going along with the majority so i i do appreciate the work that went into making that recommendation i do appreciate the continuing effort to monitor the situation and and overall give this administration extremely harmonized high marks towards kobe policies and monitoring thank you mr often mr angel in these statements appreciation other than mr
140hoffman's sentiments and happy thanksgiving to everybody and hopefully they have a wonderful and blessed holiday and i said i want to recognize the continuous training of safety training our schools and uh gosh we talk about sports a lot at this board um with the uh you know the performance that we continue to have in in crown point athletics and we try to acknowledge as much as we can also the band orchestra and the choir but you know without any specifics uh they're just doing an excellent job that whole group the musical group to be at a basketball game and to feel like you're at the united center is pretty impressive uh so you know kudos to them keep up the good work i think that they uh you know we try to thank them and
141the community tries to thank them but they can't be thanked enough for the progress they're making uh certainly last 20 years and what they can do at those at those events before you get ready did you skip over dr terrell uh no oh okay i got it tonight i was like i'm still shaking here because it's so cold in this seat everyone probably thinks freezing um okay any last any last words of appreciation other business if not uh do we have a motion to adjourn so moved moved by mr angel second by mr babjack all in favor signify by saying aye you