001we're good [Music] okay everybody good all right good evening everybody welcome to this december 14 2020 regular business meeting of public hearing board of school trustees the start time of six o'clock this evening if we can begin by asking mr angel to lead us in the pledge of allegiance i'll rise for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible yeah item two we have uh patrons registered to comment that'd be registered to comment for the regular business meeting do we have any anybody register to see from diner no thank you and we can move on to uh item three um do we have we look for a motion to uh could have a motion in a
002second to suspend a regular beating to open up the public hearing a motion to suspend the regular meeting and to open the public hearing motion by mr angel second second by tom hoffman and uh second by tom hoffman good evening tom um everybody so with uh with tom with you being present through zoom we're gonna roll call for votes so uh rather than all those rather than doing all those in favor saying five by saying aye we're going to go down the line so uh scott angel hi scott babjack hi brian smith hi and tom hoffman opposed that motion carried 5-0 now we'll suspend a regular meeting and open up the public hearing so the next item on engine is for the board to hold the project and preliminary hearing on the proposed construction projects
003if you're interested in speaking at the hearing please make sure you have signed the sign up sheet in the back of the room which excuse me i'll pull this down back of the room which should include your name and address after presentation by the administration and its advisors there will be an opportunity for the public to make comments about the projects at the hearing we will ask that each person limit their comments to three minutes and that the topic be limited to the proposed projects under consideration the notice of this preliminary determination hearing was published as legally required on november 26 2020 in northwest indiana times the first preliminary determination hearing was held on december 7 2020 at this time i'm going to ask cheryl zick our school attorney to explain the purpose of this
004hearing good evening board good evening community members tonight's hearing is being held pursuant to indiana statute pursuant to indiana code 2026 737 before school corporation may spend more than a million dollars to build repair or alter a school building that will be financed by lease or bonds it must hold a public hearing at which explanations of the potential value to the project of the school to the school corporation and the community are given in addition pursuant to 61.1 203.5 a school corporation must hold two public hearings and adopt a resolution to preliminarily determine to issue bonds or enter a lease for a project which has a total project cost in excess of a non-controlled project these public hearings and the adoption of the resolutions are the very beginning of the legal process and the resolutions
005will establish the maximum financial terms for the proposed projects so after the close of the public hearing the board will consider four resolutions this evening the first of which which will be the project resolution this resolution is required by statute when the school is planning to spend more than a million dollars per building it contains the estimated hard and soft construction cost and the cost of issuance and establishes the total project cost it also contains the estimated tax impact the second resolution the board will consider tonight is the preliminary determination resolution it requires required when a school is planning to finance more than five million three hundred fifty thousand dollars for a given facility it contains the total project cost maximum annual payment and the lease term and other financial terms such as the estimated
006principal about principal amount and tax impact the third resolution and some of these do cross over each other but they're based on statute is for the resolution determining need for the projects this is required when the board has conducted an investigation as to the proposed projects that the school corporation cannot provide necessary funds to pay for the projects it's determined that the project's need exists the resolution allows the school corporation to take steps necessary to secure the projects and the leasing of the projects from a not-for-profit school building corporation the fourth and final resolution the board will consider tonight is a reimbursed reimbursement resolution this relates to the financing of the construction of the projects it would permit the school corporation to reimburse itself from bond proceeds from any cash which might be spent on
007the projects prior to the closing on the bonds it's required by federal tax law in order to preserve the school corporation's ability to reimburse itself thanks mrs yep now we'll hear from dr terrell about the process of determining and communicating the project to the community and the need for the projects thank you president warney good evening board and members of the audience this evening what we'd like to do at this time is to go through our project list again and also give information regarding how we got to this point tonight first one just to review again briefly of the timeline so the facility study here for crown point community school corporation began in 2017 with a district-wide facility assessment to 2020 there was a continuation of the assessments in the study with priorities items such
008as winfield elementary which is currently taking place and that was given priority at that time and then now at this point in time in the review considered with the my team as we went through this and looked at the needs for our district throughout this we have been very mindful of keeping the board of trustees strategic planning goals in mind one recommendation should support the mission of crown point schools which is to ensure that all students become lifelong learners through the highest quality educational programming to maintain renovate or replace current buildings as appropriately supported by verification of need and three keep the school corporation tax rate at or below the current level as we've gone through this we've identified facility priority needs first is driven by the enrollment increases that we continue to see throughout
009our district at all grade levels second is identifying robert a taft middle school a building that has served us well in this community and at this point in time is in need of replacement overcrowding at crown point high school and looking at the curriculum opportunities and the need for advancing technology our elementary schools addressing the overcrowding and capacity issues and then our additional student learning facilities and getting all of those up to where they need to be to meet the needs of our students at this time i'm going to ask miss dolling if she will talk about the overall student population the trends we're seeing there thank you as you all have heard from us a lot we have continued to see a growth in our population since the 2009-2010 school year we've seen an
010overall increase of 19 in our total student population and at that time we've also grown programming and student supports and we just don't have the ancillary space to house them all efficiently just some high points for reference in our elementary schools we've seen buildings with 25 percent of the 65 enrollment growth over that 10-year period at taft middle school in particular they've had 25 population growth and crown point high school has had a 15 growth in their population we continue to utilize our demographic study we did outperform it we are preparing for uh our next study but at this point um we we have our actual numbers so we understand the growth that we're feeling and we also understand that the residential expansion continues um some divisions are continue to be developed in winfield there's
011the area in st john the center township that's 207 acres and approximately 600 homes and then last the business development we're very fortunate the three communities that make up this corporation have continued to develop their business corridors which drives the development in the residential area because these are high quality areas to live in thank you so the solutions as we have gone through this and identified the problems is to look at a new taft middle school again these are concepts there are no hard plans that have been drawn up yet looking at a the ideal situation would be a 40 40 acre site would house or have a capacity for up to 1400 students grades 6 through 8 including technology safety measures that are in place making sure that we've got a separate entrance for
012those who are car riders as opposed to those who are coming on the bus along with sufficient parking for our staff also looking at the alignment of the programs and objectives for the middle learner and again as we have talked about making sure that the hvac systems the mechanical systems are energy efficient as we go through this we are also looking at crown point high school the renovation and addition there expanding the current student capacity from 2800 to 3400 looking at a new two-story classroom edition adding a robotics lab with stem opportunities new science labs expanding the cafeteria new lockers and commons to help improve the circulation of our students and relieve the congestion there also looking at repurposing the construction lab into a cte program and again making sure that our arrival and dismissal
013for our students and the circulation there is as needed and necessary improvements have been made we are also then looking at major additions at a couple of our elementary school the first one we'll talk about this evening is macarthur elementary school looking at expanding the student capacity there up to 700 with that means classroom additions and additional classrooms a new project lab for stem activities upgrading the cafeteria new gymnasium that we will put in a position that will allow our community to have access to that building that portion of the building on the weekends and evenings without going through the rest of school adding large group instruction making sure that our main office and student services areas are updated to meet the needs of our students and our parents as they come to the buildings
014sensory rooms clinics again restroom upgrades technology upgrades of course furniture upgrades and again looking at really working on the building systems the hvac plumbing electrical systems and improving our arrival and dismissal for our students we also are looking at major renovation and addition at timothy ball very similar to what we saw at macarthur again trying to get that student capacity up to that 700 mark one of the things that is a little bit different at timothy ball from macarthur we are looking at ramp accessibility to the second floor for our students so that they do not always have to use the elevator there is an elevator there that meets all of the requirements as needed just giving them another opportunity of how to get around the building at this point in time we want to
015talk with you just a little bit about the preliminary estimates for our program budget and i'm going to ask mrs dowling if she will go into the this as well as the other financial implications that go with the projects thank you dr terrell so the project since dr terrell outlined them we discussed a new taft middle school additions and renovations to prom point high school additions and renovations to timothy ball elementary school additions and renovations to douglas mcgarker elementary school preschool and early childhood development renovations district-wide playgrounds which would impact all of the elementary buildings the other district-wide improvements would include an expansion or renovation at wheeler elementary school additions and renovations that are to be determined based on the facility study and then technology upgrades district-wide that would sorry that would ensure that we're
016technology-ready in every classroom in the corporation and so the total project estimate at this time is 214 million five hundred thousand dollars which is on screen this includes all the construction contingency soft cost is an estimate for this next is our comparison on 19820 the combined debt and project referenda tax rate within lake county school districts you can see they run on the low to the high end where that nice bright yellow right in the middle at 75 cents which is middle of the road for us the most important part of this that we can stress is that our intention is to keep that rate where it is right now even with this new project so it would be no school tax rate increase just to give you an idea on our existing debt service
017the yellow is our existing debt and you can see in 2024 going into 2025 we retire a significant portion of that debt from some of our other larger building projects including cronkwein high school wheeler middle school jerry ross elementary so what we're proposing is to replace that with the debt for this project which is what you see in glue so keeping the rate steady sorry and then still giving ourselves room in the gray area for annual bond issuances if necessary to continue maintenance based on that same capital improvement schedule part of this process we have to uh which they'll talk about the legally required components but for us we have to for the public's prep purpose excuse me show you the worst case scenario but we want to show you also where we expect it
018to be based on the information we have in front of us right now so at 2.1 interest you can see that gives us an assume repayment of 13 years and 8 months if you do the five percent which is where we're sitting the maximum that's where you see that higher number but we do anticipate that being significantly less at the point that funds are sold but by law we have to present to you the worst case scenario if you will as a part of this project i'd like to introduce next voucher from baker tilly he's our bond financial guru i'm just going to go through the components that we legally have to review tonight to be in compliance with the station thank you thank you ms dowling uh president warney members of the board it's
019a pleasure to be back here a week later at what seems to be midnight based upon how dark it is outside so as as ms dowling mentioned uh we've been working with your team for the past several months on this project to prepare for last weekend this evening so we have established the maximum parameters for this project they heard ms dowling talk about establishing that the maximum amount of the projects would be issued in total of 247 million fifteen thousand dollars that in working with your construction professionals targeting a total project estimate of 214.5 million dollars and we'll show you here in next slide or two how that breaks up into individual accounts based upon the strategic needs of the district the total bond issue at that max parameter 214 million fifteen thousand dollars there
020will be three accounts on how those dollars are allocated the first one you heard ms dowling and dr terrell mentioned 214.5 million dollars obviously the largest share will go to that pot of money to pay for the new construction and renovation of the projects the second one they component called capitalize interest which we are setting aside dollars from the bond issue to help pay bondholders back during the duration of the project and that is being done intentionally to keep the tax rate at an estimated 75 cents so this is part of the overall strategy to avoid any increase to taxpayers during the duration of the first couple of years until we have our current bonds maturing to wrap around the existing so again dollars being set aside as a maximum amount to avoid any increase
021to taxpayers then lastly the maximum parameter for cost of issuance which is being set aside to pay for banker fees underwriter fees banker underwriter fees attorney fees bond council local council municipal advisor fee or financial advisor fee where we would also be paid out of rating fees title fees and any other type of professional fee related to this bond issue so this again is a maximum parameter that we're estimating as part of the project so again i want to reiterate back to ms dowling's point that two main drivers for why this is a good time for this community to consider these investments into the assets is that bonds begin to mature after 2023 which enables us to strategically fit the repayment structure into the current schedule without increasing those annual payments to to taxpayers and
022also the interest rate environment currently the interest rate environment is the lowest it's been near the history of our country so we've built the max parameters assuming a 5 interest rate however what we're seeing the current market is 2.1 so again the interest rate environment and how pragmatically the this board has managed its debt really affords us this opportunity and again just to reiterate back to ms dowling's point in this chart the gray is the outstanding debt that you just saw on the prior slide the shaded blue is the capitalized interest you heard me refer to a couple moments ago those dollars again are being being paid for from the bond proceeds to avoid any increase to taxpayers but most importantly the blue is represented by the estimated or maximum repayment term of these bonds
023so again we're setting a maximum parameter a maximum repayment term of 18 years and eight months however based upon the bond market we'll condense that as much as we can to avoid any increase to taxpayers but make certain we get the best pricing available for this community those who have impeccable eyesight and much better than mine is the maximum repayment term and you can see the most important column under the assumed interest rate of five percent then how we built the actual individual assumed semi-annual payments beginning with the july 15 of 2022 payment schedule thank you thank you any questions at all for brock before so to give you our tentative timeline and what we're looking at here we would like to begin uh in the spring of 2021 and then with all projects being
024finished by december of 2024 and that concludes our presentation this evening thank you well this time we'll open the public hearing remember if you'd like to speak please sign in on the sheet which is located with this screen in the back um or if we have anybody viewing from home that would like to dial in i'll give you the number you probably have that in front of you uh if you join the agenda but i'll repeat it at 219 663-3371 that's two one nine six six three three three seven one uh wait for the extension prompt and then dial the extension one zero two five one it's extension one zero two five one as i mentioned earlier we ask that you state your name and address limit your comments to the proposed project and financing
025and keep any comments to three minutes avoid being repetitive please if possible um ms dylan do we have anybody uh signed up this evening or do we have a sign-up sheet okay so present here at uh the building we don't have anybody that would like to oh somebody walked in oh yeah take your time also as we said we're accepting uh collins as well and i'll ask mr angel to be our time keeper if you want mine thank you [Music] um come forward to the podium please and just if you wouldn't mind as we said restating your name and address my name is sandor bradstrom i live at 270 east 124th avenue my daughter goes to washington i mean eisenhower school i just wondering are are these bonds bundled with other bonds and then purchased
026as a bundle group or are they put out on the market by themselves so that you know is there opportunity depending on how they're put out onto the market to possibly pay them off earlier or do you stick by the strict schedule i'm going to refer to brock or katie for the answer for that great question so these bonds are part of a public offering so they are a group of their own par mount so as we sell these to the public at the lowest interest cost so we establish ahead of time the amortization schedule so investors know their bid and what their interest rate that they want to receive back on these individual maturities are so they're part of one set of bonds being issued at a public offering it's part of a public
027offering that's correct this is part of one dead issuance exactly right thank you brock thank you for the question coach do you have anything else here thank you please give kind of a 30-second uh window for any collins to take place again we if nothing happens and we have a call we can accept it as long as we're still in the public hearing part of our meeting and that the next item we have um is approval of the resolutions that were summarized by ms zick we're going to break these down individually and we'll do a roll call for vote so to begin with we're looking for a motion to approve and waive the reason reading of resolution 788 project resolution we have a motion too moved by tom hoffman second second by mr angel any
028comments or questions we'll do a roll call um david warney aye scott angel aye scott baby hi brian smith hi i'm tom hoffman all right that motion pass 5-0 then we'll move for the same a motion to approve and waive the reading of resolution 789 the preliminary determination resolution tom hoffman second moved by tom hoffman and second by mr baby do we have any questions or comments about this resolution we'll take a vote now david warning aye scott angel aye scott badger aye brian smith hi and tom hoffman all right and motion pass 5-0 and then we will move to resolution 790 the need for project resolution a motion to approve and read the wave wave the reading moved by tom hoffman and second by mr angel any questions or comments about resolution 790 we'll
029take a vote now david warning aye scott angel aye scott babjack aye ryan smith hi and tom hoffman hi motion passes five zero and our last resolution this evening was the need for product resolution do we have a motion to approve and waive the reading resolution 791 declaration of official intent to reimburse expenditures about moved by tom hoffman and second by scott abject if you have any questions or comments resolution 791 we'll take a vote now with david warney aye scott angel hi scott babjack aye brian smith hi and tom hoffman all right this is a 791 pass 5-0 also i believe we've covered all of them so last call to receive any public comment we voted on these resolutions all were approved unanimously last call before we close the public hearing no phone calls
030are coming through so we have a motion to close the public hearing and resume the regular school meeting so move moved by mr babjack second second by mr smith do a roll call to take vote david warney aye scott angel hi scott fabric aye ryan smith hi and tom hoffman thank you we'll now continue our regular business meeting uh item four would be the consent agenda dr terrell for your consideration this evening we bring to you the executive session meeting minutes from 23 the regular business meeting minutes from 11 23 as well and then also the 12-7 2020 special session public hearing proposed project minutes we also 4.02 then is our year in business office procedures 4.03 our personnel agenda and then 4.04 the voucher registered checks as listed thank you dr dr terrell for
031the recommendation to approve the consent agenda as presented we have a motion so moved moved by mr smith second second by uh tom hoffman with a roll call for vote david morning aye scott angel all right scott babjack hi brian smith and tom hoffman i've got one correction on that i'm sorry on the personnel agenda item i'm trying to work with my phone so i apologize well there's two e eights with respect to kyle hanaway there's an error correction will be made by says l-o-w-i-n-g the one time i'm not sure if that's allowing or i just want to make that clearer in a minute yeah we're looking at it right now is that on the personnel agenda yes it's number eight is it's number eight at the bottom prior to the appointments that should be
032following you should be allowing okay that's what i assume but i did want to examine yeah thank you with that correction i approve thank you ms goffin all right and we can move on to action by action items this evening 5.01 policy revisions and additions second reading and adoption of policy 6320 mr aquila thank you mr president board members um in november i brought to you a edited version of policy 6320 which uh is purchasing in that update with the help of mrs dowling we updated terminology and limits that affect the process of perch purchasing in that particular policy so there have been no other changes to this editing as i come to you now here in december so we would like to request that the board weigh the second reading and approve the policy
033this evening thank mr akiwa for the recommendation to prove this to approve to waive the second reading and adopt updated policy 63-20 we have a motion to approve so move moved by mr babjack okay the second by mr hoffman we'll do a roll for vote david morning i have questions for you sorry any questions or comments from mr aquila i i just have one regarding the comment from the previous meeting uh for our attorney cheryl zika review did we take care of that for the compliance aspect i think we're in good shape yes yeah okay i just saw the one so i just want to make sure we have that covered thank you any other questions or comments from mr ikea david we need to wave the reading of that as well yeah please okay
034got it just who motioned we do motion yeah yes do we have we started we have a motion to approve thank you scott and your questions comments this on my second thought it was tom it was tom brady sorry yes so scott babjack motioned to approve and and waived the reading and uh tom hoffman did second that it will take a a vote through a role david warner i scott angel hi scott babjack hi brian smith hi and tom hoffman all right thank you that motion passing five zero thank you mr akiwa thank you and 5.02 is the accompanying high school cnc equipment purchase ms dowling thank you mr president director of secondary ed i would front load with this purchases coming b40 because it meets the threshold of over 75 000 and that's why
035we bring it to you for approval for anything at that level and this is for our current technical ed program to support purchase for advanced machining equipment and with that i'll refer to mr james yeah the high school is very excited at the potential for this acquisition the state is moving all cte programming into a next level programming of study if you will modernizing the standards and increasing the standards for all these pathways and dual credits that our students progress through this equipment will allow us to stay relevant and keep our programs moving forward there will be three programs we'll be able to use this equipment not only the machining program but engineering and the robotics program i encourage you if you haven't viewed the couple two-minute videos of the machines you'll see how advanced
036it is our students that complete these pathways will be really marketable be able to go into industry and get a job immediately because this is what they are using so we're very excited for this opportunity mr trap our machining teacher mr leblanc our robotics teacher mr mulasky lynn alkier from the high school all worked very hard to get this proposal together and get the right equipment and of course mrs dowling helped make sure that we were financially ready and and in the right lanes to do this so we are excited about the possibility of really moving this forward i'll answer any questions about it if you'd like i'm going to get a recommendation and we'll look for questions um we've heard recommendation to approve the purchase from haas factory outlet in amount of 79 976
037dollars for a lathe and a mill to support our advanced machine programming at crown point high school we have a motion to approve still moved moved by mr smith the second by mr hoffman now do we have any questions or comments for mr g firm or mr i just want to say i'm excited for the cte program i think it's great to give them some love if you will and show them some support give our kids our students the best opportunity to succeed so real excited really check those videos out you'll see this is really really cool stuff i would say thank you thank you i agree with mr smith i think these are somewhat unrecognized programs that are very valuable to our students and certainly to the community so agree i'll do a roll
038roll for vote david warney aye scott angel aye scott fabric all right brian smith hi and tom hoffman all right motion carries five zero and 5.03 resolution 787 edition of the inpr s covered positions missed out thank you mr the state pension system the indiana pension retirement system requires us at any time that we add a category or position to be pensionable eligible that we have to actually pass a whole resolution that is before you six full pages simply to add those positions and so in this case what originally created this need was the director of communications position in the past we've used specific positions and categories and so we don't have either of those available that would suit the director of communications the same to be a little forward thinking would apply for a
039social worker which we've added into here as well we do not currently employ a social worker in that capacity but having some foresight wanted to add that while we were here before you as well as the preschool coordinator position which is new as well because it doesn't fit under any specific category that we have available so once this resolution is executed we'll send it down to state this bonits the benefits coordinator will continue to make those contributions it's really a perfunctory act if you will administratively that the state wants us to do going forward for these type of positions so the administration would recommend approval of resolution 787. thank you miss dolly you heard the recommendation approved resolution 787 edition of the inprs covered positions do we have a motion to approve so move moved
040by mr babjack second second by mr hoffman do you have any questions or comments from stalin that will do take a vote david warning aye scott angel aye scott baby aye brian smith all right and tom hoffman all right motion passes 5-0 thank you ms dowling now moving on to 5.04 is the disposition of absolute curriculum materials mr harvey thank you mr president uh periodically we do have curricular materials that have been adopted uh that need to be disposed of uh because they're not being used currently uh these resources that you see in front of you were adopted in 2011 they are taking up space at crown point high school and uh so there is a process by indiana code for us to uh to dispose of those and the first level would be to
041give those uh resources away to students we can seek to donate them uh and if we can't uh um dispose of them that way uh it is appropriate to uh dispose of them by uh discarding them seeking your approval this evening to uh to dispose of the curricular materials thank you mr charman for the recommendation to approved administration dispose of the curriculum materials listed in the most economic manner that best meets the requirements of india code 5-22-22 and net code 20-26-4-5 and administrative guidelines 7310 which may include sale donation or deeming it worthless and disposing of its normal refuse do we have a motion to approve so moved moved by mr angel second seconded by mr babjack and do we have any questions or comments from mr hardman well the only comment is that i'm
042sure we have better ways to dispose them but i think back in the day those were probably homecoming bonfires homecoming bonfires [Music] any other questions or comments from this department i will do a take a vote david warning aye scott angel aye scott abject aye ryan smith hi and tom hoffman all right how much carries five zero thank you mr harvey thank you let us know when you have that so we can get more insurance all right um before we move to information let me just take a quick second i i should have mentioned this before closing the public hearing but i wanted to um i wanted to thank our representatives from skillman for you know coming this evening and answering questions and gibraltar and uh um you know brock who is here speaking from
043baker tilly uh appreciate the work that you guys put into helping us through this this project and i also want to you know appreciate the time and interest and the progress of the future of our community and the those that part anybody who else has participated and uh please note that this is just the first step in the legal process and the board will continue to work with the administration and for and its professionals to look for efficiencies to conserve tax dollars while meeting our educational needs and i also didn't ask just as we were closing i thought we should just ask back to that if anyone from the board had comment that they would like to make didn't give an opportunity to speak if anyone has a comment well as i said before the
044last meeting this is we're doing what's right for the kids and their education and the process and to be able to do that with no additional tax tax payments tax dollars being thrown out to our community and our tax holders and parents it it's just an amazing position we're in so i'm hoping that everybody's on board with this because once again it's right for everybody involved including our teachers staff administrative people and i'll just the sentiments that david mentioned to our individuals from our partners um it's just amazing that they're you know showing up to make sure that we get every question answered mr clink who's been helpful in the project our attorney cheryl and her firm so thank you to all that are involved in this and once again i just it's the right
045thing to be doing and to be able to do that in a situation where financially there's no better time thank you i would echo the sentiments of mr angel and i would say that in my 18 years on the board tonight from the building of the high school uh colonel wheeler middle school and jerry ross elementary this is this is probably the most significant move that we propose and i think it's long overdue and as mr angel said in light of our financial situation this needs to be done benefit both of our students our teachers and staff and our community certainly is going to support their valuations of their property and keep their tax rates low as as they currently are so thank you mr often okay we can move into uh item six information
046items we have superintendent discussion groups uh anything to report from our community cedar lake winfield crown point not from cedar lake no okay how about mr hoffman anything you'd like to share i i shared with dr carroll the last crown point board meeting we got the annual tiff report and that is available for review and if the board desires at some point they can arrange the brief explanation by the city's consultant with respect to the tif districts to go through and explain that okay thank you and uh moving on uh mr hartman you want to go next or would you like to okay we'll go to uh chief academic officer mr hardman thank you again mr president uh you know we come to the close of this year and uh i was reflecting on the
047continuous learning plan i think it's better maybe described as a continuous plan for learning we've been planning throughout the course of the last nine months for learning we have another change potentially coming up as you know the survey is out to to our students parents right now to make a determination for the second semester uh so we continue to plan continue to work with sabrina and mark and heather and you know artie and katie and dr terrell and the staff and our students and trying to do what's best for our parents and our our children so it's been a continuous plan and in some ways i'm excited about coming of a new year i think we've taken the opportunities that are that was laid before us to be able to improve the learning environment for
048us digitally and hopefully we will continue to capitalize on that as we move forward into the 2021 uh calendar year as we move into that we are merging a couple of projects together uh we have a couple of projects one is through the uh it was a big found it was kind of it was based on the lilly grant for counseling and social emotional and we've been working through that with indiana university and also with the audit that's come out with special education we're reaching now for the high hanging fruit we'll be doing that through some work with iu also in the next uh next probably 18 months and we're going to merge the two together so that we have and we can address the needs of the whole student in crown point community school
049corporation so we're excited about moving forward with that uh with those goals over the next uh like i said 18 months in the school corporation thank you thank you chairman director of elementary education mr mears thank you mr president and board members i'd like to take this opportunity to provide um information regarding the current process that we are in as a district in preparation for our we to access testing that will start taking place in 2021 in january this is a federally required assessment that our english language learners will be taking and it measures their proficiency in listening speaking reading and writing i'd like to thank and advance jennifer grill who is our english language learner district specialist for her leadership of the english language learner team and for a training that she will be
050providing when we return in january to prepare our test administrators and test proctors our english language learner team members are currently preparing students for an effective test administration as well we also will be holding our parent advisory meeting for english language learner parents on january 5th to inform them about the assessment and how best to prepare and support their student during the testing window lastly i would like to thank our parents guardians and caregivers i'd like to thank them for their effort feedback and support we know that teaching and learning has looked very different this year and i thank them we thank them for their commitment to working in partnership and we look forward to continuing to learn and grow together i think as mr hardman referenced this has been a process that we've looked
051at very strategically based on where we are at in the phase of our educating of students and we've always remained steadfast to making sure that their engagement and the support of our students is a collaborative effort so we look forward to continuing to work with them in 2021. if there are no questions that's all i have thank you thank you and director of secondary education mr gene furman well as we kind of close out this crazy area i was kind of reflecting on what group i i was saying how impressive they've been so i'm kind of go with our extracurricular our our coaches our co-curriculars all our band directors choir directors orchestra theater our coaches that have been out there because if you think about it all the extra time they put in to make
052sure that our kids had that ability to perform and compete and they've done it and it's been pretty amazing to sit in my living room and watch a middle school wrestling match one day and then watch the high school play the next day so they not only you know abided to all the rules and regulations and reduced attendance but figure a way to get it out to everybody so you could still see our kids shine out there so just a a great job too many to name because they're everywhere they're from k to 12 doing all these extra things for the kids but just so thankful that they were able to do that and our kids were had those opportunities and just uh closing out 2020 it's been quite a year gentlemen i have been
053around other corporations been here for a long time this is the most i've worked with the board over a school year i appreciate your approach and and your support throughout it and look forward to the challenges 2021 brings so happy holidays to all you and your families as well merry christmas thank you we also need to give a shout out to brian gill who's made it so you can sit in your living room he and his team and watch those events take place excellent well director for exceptional education ms pasquez good evening mr warney and members of the board i come to you tonight with some really exciting news for not only my department but the district as a whole for the 20 21 22 school year crown point schools will be able to offer
054preschool to our school community at large so right now we just offer that early childhood program for students who go through our preschool diagnostics and qualify for speech or developmental delay this will be for three four and five-year-olds and we're looking at having eight programs two at macarthur two at winfield and four within the learning center this will be an inclusive preschool program which means our students with ieps will be able to be embedded in two classrooms with their non-disabled peers which is huge and was one of the recommendations of our special ed audit so you are approving a preschool coordinator position tonight which is going to help me oversee that preschool program and coordinate the hiring of those teachers and paraprofessionals and placing students and programs so we're hoping to share some more information
055with the community in january and then start our pre-registration process in february before you sit down could you talk we had a question last time regarding preschools can you talk a little bit about the future vision for that and what that could look like sure sure so with our renovations at elementary schools and the additions our end goal is to have one preschool classroom housed at each of our elementary buildings so our students will always hopefully have been in their home school from the time they started as a preschooler through fifth grade they'll have remained in their home school so i think that's important and offering it throughout the community any questions that's exciting stuff nope and especially the combination with our special learners so yeah it's great to know that that's part of what
056the audit asked for good stuff yeah meeting that demand thank you good thank you mrs your resource officer mr aquila yes thank you mr president board members um sticking to the theme of uh online interacting with each other not just with instruction and how we're delivering our educational services behind the scenes it's forcing us to sort of re examine and re-evaluate how we're handling some of our operational uh protocols we are you know currently looking into streamlining and improving our registration process you know we're used to seeing people come in and fill out all kinds of forms and trying to figure out how we might be able to become more efficient you know given the landscape we're dealing with it's also about something we're working on here in the next couple of months is also
057improving the tracking and management of our foster families and those that are considered to be homeless or mckinney-vento families again it's it's really have just the landscapes forcing us to examine how we manage uh our data within our school corporation and also to echo mr g inferma here just i want to just say thank you for you and our team uh for everything we've had to keep our knees bent about and be able to react i think we've done a really good job working together it's been a joy and i wish you a a wonderful holiday season and if you're like the akiwas andy and i are trying to figure out how we're going to lose the 20 20 20 you know anyway thank you mr aqui i saw in the new i saw on
058a newsletter i may have missed some in the past that have gone through but a little bit of a a plug or solicitation or information may be a better way to say it about becoming a substitute and trying to you know almost essentially recruit some substitutes that may not know what they need to do so i just want to mention i hope that that helps us out and i hope that we can you know um gain some subs through the community by just you know i'm not is that something have we have i just missed it we've been no you you're hitting the nail right on the head i mean frankly the labor supply for substitutes uh it's been a unique um phenomena you know we we probably have had more applicants for substitutes in
059the last 12 months than we've ever had in a 12-month period the challenge is are they able to actually go sub you know many of our subs are home with their children um and so they're not able to get out and get into the buildings as much and there's also you know some concern as well you know in this landscape so i do believe we've got a healthy supply out there and it's our hope and wish that you know as things improve uh in our community and the nation you know that we get some more folks out there but you know now that you're just saying subs uh i'd be remiss if i just didn't say the subs that we do have and those that are coming and helping our buildings and have helped are
060just phenomenal people yeah so yeah you you notice that correctly well thank you sure about chief financial officer mr i want to add to mrs preschool presentation that we did build this into the 2021 budget as well so it is financially planned and built into the existing budget that will begin in january to echo your sentiments about um our partners working through this skillman baker tilley ice miller gibraltar design steve klink and cheryl zick without them and especially with stillman and gibraltar on the three years ago when we started this study none of what we've been talking to you about would have been possible so without them just it wouldn't happen so i think that makes you all the just to give you an update we get an annual update on our circuit breakers study
061which we're working on right now with policy analytics um fortunate here at prom point we consider to see in our corporation boundary growth and our assessed value and so we do this as a preventative just to make sure um nothing unexpected we plan as well as we can so that we don't have any surprises going into the 20 21 week of 2022 budget year as well as working on a demographic study as we talked about an update it normally comes after the census um dr mckinnon has some concerns about the census data and reliability so they actually have a whole new set of factors and data sets and they said he said indiana tracking mechanism in the country so very hopeful we'll get started on that next fall to prepare for an updated demographic study
062i know for for me personally the 2021 legislative session although i'm happy 2020 is coming to an end for a lot of reasons 2021 brings a budget budget session for the state of indiana which is always of interest to all of us for a lot of reasons for us in particular because it's a budget year for them and so we'll be anxiously monitoring that um going forward and then to echo the sentiments just merry christmas happy holidays happy new year i'm improvements that we've been discussing thank you mr question for mr dr terrell superintendent of schools mr hardiman mentioned the strategic plan that he and the directors of education are going to begin working on and i just i need to tell you guys i'm just really proud of the work that is being put
063in from our cabinet level to begin this process as we move through looking at the audit that took place last year but allowing that to then springboard us into not just looking at the exceptional ed learners and what needs to happen for them but really allowing this to be that continuum that's going to drive all of our educational experiences for our kids and one of the things that we all talked about very early on was common language and our approach as we continue to develop our continuum of education and so while this is going to be that driving part the spark if you will that started with the audit now is going to go into pre-k 12 all the way through looking at how we do things coming up with a common plan not something
064we just put on the shelf or have boards sitting in a conference room but things that are actually living documents where we can continue to change and make those adjustments in flight to meet the needs of our kids but even beyond that now is as we're going to use that as kind of the springboard to then across our corporation bringing in finance bringing in our human resources and every other area of our district to really allow this then to help us develop our strategic plan which will include all of you then in the as we move forward with that looking at our board goals looking at our mission our vision just so that we're all aligned with where we need to go we've got some incredible exciting things on the front that are coming for
065our buildings and meeting the needs there but also as exciting as as we look at the educational experiences and the things that we can provide for our students i think when you partner those things together it's really putting us in a position where we're going to be able to take that next step forward and put crown point even higher up on the list if you will when it comes to school corporations in our state and i've got to tell you that i'm so thankful for the way that our students our parents have responded to the issues we've been going through as you've heard surveying them again about second semester again it's really tough to know not know what's going to happen out there and see some promising things but at the same time just not
066real sure the way that our students and parents continue to step up and meet those challenges and support us i know being out in the district in our community and hearing from people and talking with them was at a restaurant last week after a middle school wrestling tournament or meet between taft and wheeler and was stopped and four or five different parents just talking about how much they appreciate the board's willingness to support what's best for our kids and best for our community so thank you for that our teachers and staff again as it's been mentioned they just go above and beyond meeting the needs there and i think finally i just want to leave it with thank all of you for your support leading by example with coming up with looking at what might
067not necessarily be the most popular at time to support but yet doing it because you know that's what is in the best interest of our kids of our staff members and for our community as a whole and looking at that bigger picture rather than singling it out into just one area so thank you to all of you for your continued support and look forward to what's coming in thank you thank you thank you have a 7.01 is other board business does anybody have anything this evening to discuss um has there has there been any talk on the superintendent calls or just any word from the governor at this point as to how vaccinations will be rolled out and where teachers will will fit into that picture i know we're very early yeah in those phases
068but i was just wondering if you have any health department perspective on that so pretty much just like you um you know we're hearing that they're gonna make teachers and educators at the forefront of the line for vaccinations there has not been any information released with any further detail other than that we hope that as things start to progress and get ramped up they will be able to bring more information back to you um as to what that's going to look like okay yeah not right now anybody else have anything i have i have a couple that i'll start with this one uh you know we don't get the opportunity to to kind of iron these things out but if you guys notice we had a discussion a couple meetings ago of how the board
069emails should be represented on the crown point website i either misunderstood maybe or miscommunicated what i was picturing so right now we have it listed as individuals with a with an cp email address underneath them but on that main page there's not a cp board link that i can find i think would be more beneficial i'm not trying to waver back and forth each time but i think it would be more beneficial to have a cp board link because we all need to you know if someone in the community wants to seek me or brian or scott or anybody out individually to discuss something that that's up to them they could find our personal contact information that's not a problem but i feel like when someone's going to the cp website to email the cp
070board it would be simpler for them to just hit cp board um does anybody and we could we could shelf this and discuss another time but if anyone has any thoughts of agreement i'd like to just iron it out yeah i think there's a couple so what what i see right now is our each of our individual emails are there what is your suggestion then if there's a one central email so this way they hit one link to email all of us and it'll go to each of those cp emails it would be an automatic forward automatic proposal but they can do that yeah i would just think it'd be easier for that community patron to be able to do it that way and then obviously if they know us individually or have a connection
071someone with us personally they can send it yeah no i mean that makes sense because once we don't act yeah we don't act alone we don't act as one we're just fine no i can follow up with dr terrell though as long as i just wanted to make sure we all agreed on what we visualized there if we could yeah we could add that into the hopefully very future revision of the entire website that would be awesome we're working on it all right okay there's a lot of things we're working on lots of tabs and clicks that's a big one mr hoffman you agree with those thoughts okay thank you yeah so let me ask for clarification and as a possibility so as we i've got the board of school trustees page pulled up and
072so at least it lists david warning president with your email address underneath it now and then it goes through with each one of you at the bottom of that list we could then put cp board as a group where they could click if and make a group one as well but still have the individual access to you as well do you want both or do you just want one that comes to all of you and i'm fine with either one just giving you options that are possibilities i say you leave the individual ones and just add a group add a group one that would be i wouldn't have a problem with that sorry he couldn't hear you scott yeah i'm sorry tom i said i'm fine with right now our individual email addresses are are
073listed on there our school corporation email addresses um i'm i think it makes complete sense to have a board one board email address that goes to all five people and then people have the option if they want to reach out to you individually they can use that email but i've found that so far people have not had a problem getting a hold of me if they if they really want to social media and the like so i would suggest whatever we can do to put them all on dave that would be great i don't have to be bothered so whatever system we can do perhaps a flow chart where it all just funnels into it i think because the board president speaks for the board all the emails should come into the board there should
074not be people contacting individual board members on the board website or email so let's go to the board board issue is not an individual issue that is my recommendation and i would concur with that so have a board email that then forwards to each one of our personal can you hear brian tom what can i do he said that he concurs with your your thought okay thank you yeah i suppose i'm not hung up on the format the the item that has to happen is that we all have to see the email i don't care what what format that takes if somebody wants to email me individually fine if i get a forward from a group box i'm fine with that also but how about i propose a recommendation my to take what we've just
075discussed i would recommend that we remove the individual names have a cp board that goes to all of us equally all the time as tom said the whoever may be holding board president position would then be responsible for replying to those but you know we all you know have the opportunity to interject when necessary so my recommendation would be to clean up the website and have just a cp board address listed there would it allow just for that just based on that which i'm i'm for that but would allow then for a response to come let's say scott maybe knows the person to where our email address can send it to the individual's email address in a response if there's something more than what's needed i mean once again the board's going to reply so
076you're going to reply as our spokesperson but i just didn't know so if there's some correspondence that for some reason maybe scott knows him in the pub so i'm getting the thumbs up from the man behind the camera who's the one who sets all this up so that that definitely would and i just think it would clean up that aspect once again we act as five we don't act as one right sure yeah it's a tough it's good thing we have the discussion and it's worth having because we are even though we act as a board we are elected individually correct we're not elected as a group um so there's a balance and i'm just i'm not sure what that is but like i said um as long as i get to see it and
077it's coming to me i feel i don't necessarily feel like it's dave does speak for the board and represents the board as president but it's also workload that's being placed on him that if there's a i think a couple meetings ago what we what we did do in a positive move agreed about by everybody was we made sure that those emails were being seen by everyone that was and that was the big step in the right direction so and i think you're very good with that making sure that everybody's heard before the response is given if a response is justified in that case i think this this discussion is just nothing more than that it's stemming off of the fact that we for you know however long saying that we all need to be better
078at communicating and as a board we continue to be better as in communicating we're trying to iron out you know simplify the process a little bit so and if we need to hash out the final details this we can do that maybe when we reorganize in the second week of january sure so that everybody you know with brian suggesting that all the emails going maybe we vote him elected president and then they will go to him [Laughter] oh yes you do okay well then we'll get that all cleaned up in the in the near future then um the other thing is that i had i could probably put this into the statements appreciation but i just want to recognize miss maloney and the continued effort to provide food for our students and then the breakfast
079if you guys uh make sure you saw dr terrell's email that there's going to be a breakfast um thursday morning the 17th december 17th uh miss bologna the um of her helpers are going to be providing breakfast for the staffs at the at the schools and we can choose where we'd like to go then yeah so what i'll do is i will get the times from the principals okay and that they're gonna take place and then we can just create like a group email response so that way we don't have all of these show up at one building but i think it'd be great if you guys could spread it out my guess is secondary is probably going to be a little bit earlier than than elementary just simply because of start times but if
080you guys can stop in just to say thanks that's the whole intention i had a conversation with a couple of you about what can we do uh for our our staff and our our teachers and so we just thought this was a great way to just um and also we want to showcase our food services they've they've struggled with this too you know our beginning of the year new teacher dinner they usually i mean they go all out and it looks unbelievable and it did this year too but they still feel a little hampered by what's been going on and just give them an opportunity to really show off as well um so we thank you guys for supporting that and if you can get out there that'd be fabulous well i live out in
081the winfield area so i can have breakfast twice at jimmy ross there you [Laughter] record i'd love to go but it's a little bit far for me to drive the last two things quick because uh michael adamson from the isba missed my initial when i reached out to him initially dr terrell was copied on the email he got back to me by last week to say that he had certainly missed it so we're looking he gave me a handful of dates in january to get together with him through a zoom to just review evaluation the purpose and process and whatever we we have in place and then as you guys should have seen make sure that you remember the january 13th reorganization meeting what 7 30 a.m and mrs green sent us that reminder last
082week so just wanted to hit a couple of those items and um it's not time for me and uh do any other um for other business anything else okay then we can move to um for statements appreciation and recognition we'll start with mr smith yeah thank you dave um you know i feel like this year was like four years putting the one i'm sure so many you feel that way and just really i'm grateful to work aside and you know right alongside with all of you and so we have a great administration great building leaders great teachers i really think you could see that our community really rose up this year in a big way wasn't perfect but they really pulled together and it's what makes crown point special and so i just want to
083say you know merry christmas to all you guys happy new year i really appreciate it from about my heart everything you've done and so there's an old saying that if you're not moving forward you're moving backwards and i think we really put that to a test this year so todd i appreciate you coming in and and not missing a beat and just moving i mean moving on things to to improve this corporation and so you know with a heavy heart i i really am thinking about all those that have lost loved ones that have students in our school system that have been impacted teachers that have been impacted by the virus i know we had a uh just a tragic story we didn't lose him but he was fighting for his life one of our
084students just a few weeks ago we pulled through but there's gonna be long-term effects so you know i'm thinking about all those things going into this season and this holiday and it just really weighs on you so i just want to let everybody know that he's lost a loved one or who's whose child is you know struggling or they're struggling with their health that you're in our thoughts and prayers and we haven't forgot about you and we won't forget about you and so i just want everybody to hear that and understand that i know it's going to be difficult things may look different for families but like everybody else here said i'm glad 2020 is over very much i'm looking at 2021 so we got great things on the horizon and i'm excited for that
085thank you yeah i mean i i obviously um what what a crazy year um i you know i look back everybody had a chance to reflect on you know what their thoughts were on the year and and for me what stood out was i've been a part of a lot of teams i've been a part of a lot of teams a lot of different companies teams within teams and what's been really awesome to watch is how this team like rose up to the the challenges that you had to face and we've made improvements you know when you when you think of the third week of march and how this all went down to where we are today um with the improvements we've made and curriculum and um just adapting to the situation it's it's been
086nothing short of of amazing so i'm very proud to be a part of this this team and grateful to be a part of it for um another four years here so i'm very much looking forward to that and then you know on top of on top of that what mark was saying about the extracurriculars i think the extracurriculars are the the only thing keeping me and my family sane at this point one boy wrestling others playing you know flag football just still being able to get out there and do those things where there's a little bit of normalcy and think about how we've got um you know how our teams are performing now we've got a number one ranked state girls basketball team we've got a wrestling team that's going to possibly win a state
087championship as well and they're having to do this you know with all the with all the additional adversity and challenges that come with having practices and managing contact tracing and all that stuff so um cheers to to all the coaches that are putting in that extra work to to make all this happen so thank you thanks guys thank you scott miss rachel so let me start um brian mentioned seriousness of covid but i like to give out public service announcements psas so mine would be if you ever got to go into a store and you're in a rush uh wear a white mask but the night before have a nice meal like at one of our local restaurants dip the mask in like veal lamone and then walk into a store with a huge stain
088on a white mask because i will tell you people run the other direction so that was all by accident but was the only mask i had in the car tried to wear it the next morning and i'm telling you i don't think more people moved out of my way a wise way in my entire life i smelled that i don't know what it was what was the dish again yeah viola which is one of my favorites at the local lacretures here i'll give them a plug sometimes you know everything is serious regarding it but sometimes having a little humor on the part of safety protocols because i did have the mask on and once again kind of felt when i looked at it oh my gosh i gotta walk in the store like this it
089was all good but uh my thank you recognition is to the community first of all that community taxpayers parents supported three of us for reelection with everything going on between coveted letting go of a superintendent hiring a new superintendent and they've remained behind us and that's even for those that sometimes behind the scenes don't agree with everything we're saying and we still want to hear those opinions because everybody's as valuable so i want to make sure that they're they're aware that us as a board sees them hears them not all the time can we respond based on the situation and not all the time are you going to agree with us and are we going to agree with you but we do thank you for that support as we look forward to doing this project
090and i think it's nice to know when people are silent they usually like what's going on so we're hoping that this moves forward like i mentioned before for the best interest of those kids our staff our administrative leaders and everyone involved in it including themselves the taxpayers who will see no additional costs so with that happy holidays merry christmas god bless you all as we move forward through this let's get to 2021 and wish for the best thank you scott mr hoffman a couple of things uh first i would like to report to all of you not related to this school business but my 92 year old father-in-law successfully underwent a valve replacement surgery has a second to go but he's doing fine if you're a reader i would recommend to anyone to read the
091book by dan crenshaw who's an ex-navy seal and now a congressman from texas the book is called fortitude and it addresses all the uh problems created by social media and some of those things and i uh it's a highly recommended read so i'm interested i i'll be happy to write each of you a copy of the book and i think it's it's well worthwhile i will send one to todd and i think it's there's a lot of valuable information as well so i look forward to it tom i also i also commend our administration as brian did others that undergoing 2020 and i am one of those who will be happy to see it go by the wayside thank you mr hoffman and for myself i just want to uh just say merry christmas and
092happy new year to everybody and uh thank you again for letting me uh almost be a part of your team it's it's an honor to be a part of the crown point community school system so um that's it for me and uh do we have any other board comments before i look for a motion to adjourn that's [Music] motion by tom hoffman and second by mr angel last call of the night dave warner eye hi angel scott jack aye brian smith and tom hoffman thank you good night everybody tom if you can hang on katie's got a question for you