001Check, check. Good evening, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to the DeKalb County Central Unified School District Board of Education regular meeting. Today is Tuesday, May 19th, 2026. At this time, I'll ask all that are able to please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Present. Thank you, Angie. We'll begin tonight with our presentation. Good evening, everyone. I'm Superintendent Steve Peters. Certainly want to welcome you here for this evening's presentation. You have a a a short presentation, but we're honoring fifth grade students from each one of our elementary schools. So, we really hope that you're able to stay here for the recognition of all of
002our students from all four of our elementary. At this time, we will begin the President's Education Awards. This evening, we'll be presenting two different awards to a select group of hard-working and dedicated students. The President's Award for Outstanding Educational Excellence and the President's Award for Outstanding Educational Achievement. Both of these awards are presented at three levels to fifth graders tonight. Eighth graders will be towards the end of the week or the last remaining days of the school year. And our seniors have already received their awards at their senior awards night earlier this month. The President's Award for Outstanding Educational Excellence are given to students who score above the 85th percentile in reading or mathematics and who have an A- or above or above grade point average. These students were established to encourage these students these
003standards, pardon me, were established to encourage students to achieve high academic standards by recognizing and rewarding for educational excellence. Each recipient will receive an attractive certificate signed by the President of the United States. The President's Award for Outstanding Educational Achievement recognizes students who show outstanding educational growth, [laughter] improvement, and commitment for intellectual development in their academic subjects. These awards are given at the principal's discretion in each building to a limited number of students who work hard and give their best effort in school and in some cases overcoming obstacles to learning. At the conclusion of the ceremony, all students receiving the awards will report to my left with Mrs. Weishart, our middle school principal. She will direct them into our lecture room where the star is here to take their picture for the newspaper. Uh then
004we certainly understand that this is a busy time of school year and as a result, there may be a number of our students who will not be present this evening to receive their award due to their participation in extra and co-curricular activities. So with that, we will begin the presentation this evening. I would like to introduce uh the principal of Waterloo Elementary, Mrs. Amanda Rice, and school board member Mrs. Connie Day. >> [applause] >> Good evening. Before we get started, if I can have the Waterloo students come over here and line up with Mr. Horr. He's going to try and get you in alphabetical order. That way we can kind of expedite the process. Also, um families who are here, we ask that you hold your applause until the very end and do one nice
005big round of applause for all of our recipients. Okay, we'll get started. Jonah Aiken. Braxton Badman Jacob Bay Braxton Bruce Emmett Blair Maverick Doit Gideon Deal Ariana Edly Lillian Eighner Blake Hershberger Jackson Kurtz Lorelei McCormack Paisley O'Connor Shaylin Schuler Samantha Taylor Adeline Vance Addison Vernon How about a round of applause for our wonderful students? >> [applause] >> NEXT, I WOULD LIKE TO CALL MRS. ROSIE BRYANT, principal of Country Meadow Elementary, and school board member Mr. Tony Veltri. >> [applause] >> If I can have all of the assistant country directors who are here, please come forward and sign in on the sign-in sheet. And if you are one of them, Jada Watson, if you could please head down that hallway and someone will meet you there to get you started to get your Okay, we're going
006to go ahead and get started. Can I have Epler, Juliana Atkinson, Malia Baldwin, Reagan Brand, Jayla Dean, Logan Hargarten, Gwendolyn Latham, Serenity Mesa, Delaney Miller, Cora Ottenweller Valentine Gonzalez Romero Jacob Greenearson Allison Shaffer Nora Yoder >> [applause] >> I wish Mr. Austin Harrison as principal at J.R. Watson and school board member Warren Anderson, followed by Valerie Armstrong beginning with McKinney students. Thank you, Mrs. Green. At this time, any students from McKinney Harrison Elementary School, please join Mr. Ford in the back corner over there. Taylor Anderson Serena Bakowski Hannah Brown Kaylee Campbell Ben Caylor >> Deonna Chrisley Scout Cleverly BB Clipper Azure Cordial Hayden Davis Caleb Deal Sally Disk Levi Fox Kennedy Frye Blake Galbreath Evelyn Gibson Ria Grinstead Kate Hagar Jacob Haffelfinger Miles Henderson Laban Fernandez Kobe Hoffmire Laney Carmel Lottie Kemp Luca Leroux William
007Mahoney Reagan Myers >> [clears throat] >> Evelyn Nevins Riley Niles Macy Palumbo Justice Pierce Bristol Reed Joseph Rigsby Kendall Shimon At this time, could Mrs. Valerie Armstrong, board member, please join me? McKayla Schmidt John Snyder Adeline Speece Alex Spanbauer Lexie Spanbauer Henry Stanglin Malia Stowell Grayson Sturgis Mason Sturgis Jace Sullivan Teddy Todd Claire Vetter Drew Weikel Ezra Worlser Adeline Wilcox and Aubrey Williams At this time, please join me in a round of applause >> [applause] >> At this time please welcome me in joining Mr. Ford of McKinney Harrison Elementary School to join Mrs. Archer. >> [applause] >> Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for coming out tonight. Congratulations to all of our winners here this evening. Our first recipient is Meredith Valentine. Charlie Beck. Ruby Blair. Evan Brown. Madeleine Brown. Owen Brown.
008Aubrey Carney. Brantley Carter. Matthew Chapman. Jack Christian. Dresden Criswell. Spencer Criswell. Emmett Conners Elliott Cooper Yes, I can. Alex Cox Violet Davis Grant Decker Titus Foltz Isaac Gaber At this time with word of the word, this is Katie Beaster, please join me at the front. Thank you, Miss Anson. Gracelyn Hudson Patience Jackson Wright Joy Jan Kimberly Johnson Easton Jones Jace Kramer Avery Lee Queenie Lynn Jonathan Marshall Saphira Matthys Claire May Luella Morris Sidori Miller Travis Mohler Olivia Molina Gavin Moyer Grace Naughton Miller Jack Ober Dexter Penrod Charlie Schreiner Eli Roche Jordan Reed Laila Robinson >> Carson Stafford Hubert Sandel Jude Sunday Alexis Suttle Tanner Taylor Deliza Temple Mackay Serenity Terry Gale Reese Wessel Dawson Lowcock Ottilie Williams Jovan Williams Lyric Wood And finally, Nathaniel Yankee. Ladies and gentlemen, how about one more round of applause
009for the McKinney Christian Academy? >> [applause] >> All right, this is the team that made me wait to do our work. This is why it's hard for your photo. Thank you so much. At this time I'll turn it over to Congratulations to the game store history presidential award winners. I'd like to thank everyone for being here tonight. At this time we'll take a 5-minute break. I know you all have busy schedules, busy lives, so for all of those who would like to stay for award winning, we'll be resuming in 5 minutes. Thank you. >> Mhm. >> What are you saying here with me? >> Are we ready to resume? Mr. Finn. Good evening. Thank you. All right. Appreciate the opportunity to come back tonight and speak with the board, the community, and get some information
010out to the community on how we're doing with our capital projects. Last month we reviewed and updated you on everything that we've done in previous bonds as well as a sneak peek at some things that are happening this summer. Just sent out an email with a map to our main campus, middle school, and high school principals today showing where all the staging areas are going to be for all the projects we got going on this summer. So, it is exciting. Uh tonight going to take a look at a document that I've got a little I've got it up here and obviously folks at home probably can't see this. I want to stress that this is available online. So, folks tonight I think it's more let people know this is out there, take a look at
011it, comment on it, give us your feedback. Certainly welcome that. But just to kind of explain what we do in the maintenance department, the facility department along with the administration both at the building level and central office level. This is a living breathing document. This is not carved in stone. Uh this is something that we're constantly looking at, we're updating as new things come in, as we update things, we update the doc. It also is a way for us to have a quick visual of wow, here's some areas that we as a school board, as an administration need to take a close look at in the next few years. Some of these things might be 10, 15, 20 years out. Some of them might be two or three years and some of them might be
012hey, what can we do right now? And that's the purpose of these documents. These have been developed. I think it's It's important to note that we've had a ton of feedback on these documents. Not just staff and administration. We had a needs assessment completed by Barton Cole Diliman several years ago. That was back I think almost 7 years ago now Steve. You probably remember that better than I do on the exact day. We took information from that assessment that was a district wide assessment. Our current architect that we've been working with on a lot of our recent projects, Farnam Miller, has provided feedback. We've also sought the advice of experts in the fields of HVAC and roofing to examine and evaluate those systems that are certainly high dollar systems to let us know, okay, what
013what the age of these items, what shape are they in, what preventive maintenance needs to be done. And we are doing that. We have a licensed HVAC staff member on our maintenance department that is 24 hours. Literally, I called him tonight to make sure the air conditioning stayed on. So, for our for our meeting over the votes here. So, he was working after hours tonight to make sure we had air conditioning on. So, he's his feedback from him and of course our administration and staff. So, we've had a lot of eyes on these mechanics, facilities, doors, windows. And of course our teachers as well will tell you they'll be the first to tell you when the air conditioning isn't working. They will. Especially when you get these hot humid days that come out of nowhere.
014So, this first document focuses on HVAC throughout the district. We again outside evaluation on these systems as well as our in-house licensed HVAC staff member constantly updating these ideas and providing preventive maintenance. We've finished recent projects at Country Meadow and Waterloo. This summer we're adding more to the update and we'll have more adjustments on this document with the completion of the controls work at the middle school, controls work at Watson, and new air handlers, as you can see here on this document, for the high school. This document, we we anticipate and hope to get 25 to 30 years out of our air handlers. So, the green section is kind of the area of these air handlers or boiler units, for example, or chillers that we we feel very confident we're going to get that time
015in. The red area is where let's let's we're getting close. We're getting close. So, you can see that there's white there. Well, we're well beyond. So, the business is we've kept these up and running and we've gotten a lot of life out of this equipment, a lot of bang for the buck. But, we are, as you can see, replacing the top six air handlers this summer. That project has already started. And I can't scroll through the entire document for you, but I'd certainly like folks online to take a look at. Here's a building, the second one down, that's the middle school. We've done a lot more I have to do this backwards. There it is. The middle school, sorry about that. You can see that we're much more up to date on the mechanical HVAC
016units at the middle school. Uh and other buildings in different situations. Some have been updated. This is generally something that we don't do the entire school at one time. We might handle just a few and move on. Try to uh keep everything up to date so they don't all hit at the same time. Second document is a roofing document. We uh And we need an assistant for this next time, Mr. Harrison. You were asking me about that earlier. That was a nice And this gives you a little snapshot of where we're at on some roofing and repair in a a of our buildings. top building. And I again, it's kind of the same green. I use a little bit color different color code again on this. Uh DeKalb Middle School at the top, DeKalb Middle
017School, highlight that one. As we have some more work we've done some work on the middle school, not just the black paneling that we recall, we had this this ugly two-tone brown panels on our aux gym and main gym. We replaced that and we replaced several sections of roof. We have another section that will be happening this summer as part of the GO Bond project that the board approved last fall. That work again will start as soon as school's out. And just going through the rest of these items, we also have summer work. High school is getting there. We have summer work going on here in a couple of sections that'll happen as well. That'll start later in summer and it will spill over a little bit into the fall. Um here's a building here.
018This I love a little bit of McKinney cuz everything almost everything is brand new and that's McKinney right there. We are in great shape. I also really love those metal roofs that we have in places like Country Meadow cuz that roof will last forever. Gutters up there, not so much. We do have a little bit of attention we need to take there. Moving along to building exterior, also includes doors and windows. This this document we we did this a little bit different. I I should have mentioned that our facilities operations and advisory group also took a look at this and provided us some feedback for this and how this could look. I broke this into uh different assets, doors and parking lots, walls, windows. And green, basically we're we're feeling very good in the next
01910 or more years. Yellow, I'm sorry, I keep double clicking with my fingers here. Sorry about that. Need that assistant. Yellow's at At the bottom At the bottom I put a key. That's at 5 to 10 years. Those are areas that we feel like if they're yellow, we can maintain that with our crew with with upkeep. Could be you get leaks in the roof all the time. Not all of those leaks require a brand new roof. Matter of fact, 99% of them just requires a patchwork. So, those are areas Windows seals can be replaced when those can be resealed. So, those are kind of the yellow paperwork and once we notice we're doing more and more maintenance on a particular item in a particular school, that's when we'd move it into a red. Okay, every
020year this area is leaking. We need to take out, you know, our patches on top of patches on top of patches aren't cutting it anymore. Red, of course, is something that I highlighted that I feel like we need to take a closer look at the next 0 to 3 years. And as you see there, the common theme is our parking lots are maintenance team can repair parking lots. We've done a lot of crack seal and fill. We do hire that out. We do a lot of cold patching. We've done the middle school and high school campus already twice this spring and then maybe a couple more. Mr. Wagner will let us know if there's a few other ruts that that need patched before graduation. This was a very difficult winter on our parking lots and
021those cracks got a lot bigger and the snow The number of time that we spent with our plows, those plow edges hit those cracks and just pull that asphalt right up. So, that that would be an area that I'd highlight to the board and administration take a close look at our parking lots throughout the district. Due Because of the feedback we got from our facilities operations and advisory group, we added a couple more The first three tabs were tabs I created and I brought to the committee and the committee said, "Hey, what about our educational program? What about some other items that may be something that we need to consider in the future?" This is just some educational This is our educational programming. There are a couple things that I think you're going to hear
022a little bit more about from Mr. Peters when it comes to the co-op and and that's a huge adjustment for our district. I think it's going to be very positive. I know there are a lot of people excited about that. You'll hear about that later tonight and where we're add on that. That's obviously something that will require some work on our part to prepare spaces and make sure our students' needs are being met in all of our buildings and all of our facilities. Media centers, we've had a lot of discussion on that over the years with our board and that's also something What does that modernization of a 21st century media center look like? So, those are a couple educational pieces that we know we have in the near future. The final one, I want
023to stress this one. This is our final My final slide, anyway. This is not a pri- You see, there's no priorities here. This hasn't been This is not for that. And we may add that later. These are things that I have gathered through the our committee that I've mentioned multiple times, from our walk my walk-throughs with principals that I've conducted through and their comments to me as I'm just in the building game, man, we need to take a look at this. Hey, what about this? Is this on the radar? Parents and community members have provided some of this feedback. And then any high students, I have children that are in events, I hear things all the time. It's hard to watch a game without someone coming up to me and say, "Hey, are you guys
024ever going to insert item?" Or board members, I've heard from board members. I know Mr. O'Neal a couple months ago talked about some needs for the baseball field and and for soccer. So, we've I've added those things here and I also, again, I want to stress these are not have to right now. These None of these should be seen as more important than anything else. It's meant to be a conversation starter or a placeholder for the things that we are thinking about, talking about, and might need to consider for further discussion. I think I would also invite the community if they want to take a look at this document and they see something that they think is missing. Maybe it's apparent country meadow and they've seen something that maybe I haven't seen or or any
025of us have seen, they can bring that to our attention. We can put it on the list and then our our committee and our board can certainly take a look at those things and help create a plan and prioritize those items. But again, want to stress this is not It says repay lot. Oh, they're going to repay the lot. Well, no, it's it's considering repaying the lot. Do we have a lot of parking lots? Which one is the worst one? Which is the one that have, you know, what funds do we have available and how many can we do right now and which one has to take, you know, wait for next year? We just got to hatch [clears throat] the gap. So, that's all I have for tonight. I know it's been a I
026hope that was good for you and again I want to stress I hope folks in the public This is online so they can come see it on our website. Thanks, Matt. Thank you. Well, again, I want to I want to say what a great job you guys have done. One of the things that we've got to look at is we go to training, we go to IASB, and this was one of the things that came back from that training activity. So, when when we're going to training activities, we're not just going to go. We're actually looking for information and alternatives on how to make the district better. And the administration has done a great job with this and and now expanding it even further than what the original process was. So, you guys have done
027a great job. This is the way we planned it. We need to get on the ball. You guys have done a great job. Thank you, Tony. I I I will add though that something I'm very proud of personally since I've been in this role. I I feel like if if you look at the presentation from last month and and you look at what we talked about tonight, we've really been very balanced in the things that we've hit. There's a lot of like you look around this building to Cal Middle School. I was principal here when we did all this beautiful work here. Um Mrs. Weiser has and this great furniture. I mean, kids come here for a basketball game and they look and they wow, what a cool place to go to school. We've done
028We've had some boring things. I I kind of look at it in three categories. We got stuff everybody sees on the inside of the building. Waterloo had a great facelift. We have brand new school at Buckhorn We got the band program with all that amazing equipment. We got all this new furniture, peanut balls, and carpet. And we got the stuff you can't see in the building. That's the boring stuff. That's like when you get your oil changed. It's you know, they they tell you all the other stuff to do. $29.99 and then you end up costing $419.99 because of the oil filter, transmit You know how that all works. But this is the boring stuff. The roofs, the HVAC, the the controls. Um And what are controls for? Well, people like Greg Gauldin can be
029at home and adjust our air conditioning so we're nice and cool tonight. Or there's a basketball game and it's particularly hot or humid in in the wintertime or a volleyball game in August. Third thing is our outside things that we see, our exterior. That's our doors, our windows. A lot of projects coming up for that. Of course, our extracurricular and co-curricular facilities that are just looking great as well. So I feel really good that we the board, the administration has touched on all three of those areas for our students and community. I was going to wait till miscellaneous, but I think when people drive in and I know at my house mowing is a high priority even though no [clears throat] one sees my house. But I love driving in and seeing all the nice
030lines in the grass. I know that coming in and mowing when there's 6 in of water and 20% of the ground. So, I I I love the grounds crew that's working their butt off. I know the new mower has helped a lot, but you know, this time of year we're all busy. So, I'm going to thank you and your crew for what they do for us. You're welcome. It's mowing has been tough. We've gotten stuck in many many times. We're we're we're balancing mow long grass or giant ruts. You know, what do you want? Um so, it's it's good. I thank you. >> It's good. Thank you, Matt. And the the Philippine operations advisory group is meeting monthly. So, I think the next one is June 14th. Probably so. I think that's right. Yes, if
031you would like to June 17th at 1:00. Thanks, Matt. Thank you. Thanks, Matt. All right, thank you. Matt Matt didn't want to add, but we are always looking for volunteers to mow. So, if anybody has free time, is retired, and wants to jump on a mower I talked to Mrs. Long. That sounds like a good case for us. Do you have to have a driver's license, though? No. Good luck with Okay, well, that brings us to IME. The adoption of the agenda. Can I have a motion? I'll make a motion. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. Item F is the consent agenda. That is items F1 through F5. This includes our board minutes, financial report, claims, personnel, and field trips.
032I'll entertain a motion. I'll make a motion. I'll second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. Item G is donation. Donations, we we've had just another banner month of receiving funds from our community organizations, individuals. Um Country Meadow received large donations from the United Way and Noble County Farm and Fleet for their fourth grade field trip. We had a donation of three AEDs, automated external defibrillators, from the DeKalb County Health Department. Jennifer Hegar, our district nurse and nurse at Waterman Elementary, uh helped to solidify that along with Austin Harrison, our director of safety. We're certainly appreciative appreciative of that. Approximately a $5,000 value. AEDs are not are not cheap. So, we appreciate just so when we can get them donated to
033us, we greatly appreciate that. Um the high school had numerous donations coming in benefiting the drum line, girls tennis, FFA, choir, band. And we had two athletic memorials contributed to our athletic department in the memory of Rick Lovett and and Mark Biel. So, we're certainly appreciative of folks thinking about um the athletic department and two individuals that had a lot to do with Barbs athletics over the years. Um lastly, the Kerry Waisath um has a donation from the DeKalb Central Foundation. That's great to hear. Uh of over $1,800 to help uh pay for a field trip uh to help defray some of that cost to our families. So, great to see uh the DeKalb Central Foundation contributing uh helping our families out for our there and something thoughtful for our students. Okay. Thank you, Steve.
034And you are up next, Brother Cornett, Mr. Superintendent. >> [clears throat] >> All right. Um first item is a ongoing topic. Um certainly as the board is aware, DeKalb Central initiated a process following approval from a letter of intent to withdraw from the Northeast Indiana Special Education Cooperative, otherwise known as the co-op. And that took place back in December of 2015. Uh this action provided the district with the opportunity to thoughtfully evaluate our current model for special education service delivery and consider alternative approaches that may better meet the needs of our students. During the April 2026 work session, the board received a detailed presentation focused on the programmatic um aspects of the evaluation. That work, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Angel Balsley, examined our current services, student needs, staffing structure, and the district's capacity to
035operate an independent special education program. So, I thought that work session was extremely beneficial. We were able to get a lot of information on the program side of things, both what the district had collected, but also working in conjunction with um our higher consultant who has helped a lot of districts across the country uh kind of stand on their own two feet when it comes to special education services. Since that time, big piece that we were missing, the district have received and reviewed a comprehensive financial analysis conducted by Dr. Nathan Williamson. Uh that name sounds familiar. He also worked with us in our title grants. He works closely with with Laura and Karen and others in the district. This work um complements the programmatic review and provides a more complete understanding of the financial implications
036associated with both remaining in the cooperative and transitioning to an independent model. Uh Dr. Williamson uh was going to be here tonight, but unfortunately had a an emergency medical emergency within the family. He was not able to leave the Chicago area. So, we did the next best thing. He has recorded his presentation. We're going to play that for you. And although he's not going to be here live or be joining us live, there was some challenges with that because we changed the location of our meeting as well. For that, we can certainly entertain There's no board action to be taken tonight. So, we can answer any and all questions that might uh come from the financial presentation. But certainly make sure the board has any clarifications needed for a recommendation that will come next month.
037So, together the information provided during the April work session and what you'll see from the financial analysis will offer the board a comprehensive view of both programming and the financial considerations related to staying or going. Um so, based on both of those, there's no formal action tonight, but I will be bringing I plan on bringing a recommendation to uh leave the co-op. We had a 6-month period of time from January through June to evaluate all aspects of our special education programming and how that works within the co-op and without. And so, um I hope you'll agree that once we um review the financial analysis for Dr. Williamson, entertain any and all questions that you might have, clarify any anything that we need to clarify, I fully expect to bring back a a recommendation for the
038board to consider taking action on to approve our continued efforts in moving to become independently and meeting the needs of our students and our special education program. So, with that, that kind of just puts a bow on kind of where we've been, and helps people who are maybe listening from home. Uh this information has all been communicated to staff. I have I made sure to include all the information that we received from Angel Ousley. Uh the power the the presentation that we had from April. And then two different items from Dr. Williamson, the the PowerPoint presentation that you'll hear from him tonight. But also his analysis report that I think really does a nice job of framing the financial and dual aspects of what we could expect moving forward. Of course, there is going to
039be there's unknowns. Uh our special education population is in ebb and flow. You know, you cannot predict how many students will qualify for special education services. We cannot predict how many students will no longer need special education services. But we can study the past so that we can prepare for the future and maybe the worst case scenario that we're looking at. So, with that, unless there's any other comments, um I think we'll go ahead and proceed if it's all right with the board with the presentation from April Williamson. Looks like it's about 13 minutes behind. Thank you, school board. Uh my name is Dr. Nathan Williamson, and I am going to be sharing some analysis and information regarding special education in your district. So, to start out and introduce myself, I have been working with
040DeKalb for a couple of years now, primarily on the title side of things with federal grants. Um but I'm an owner and a consultant of MGT Education, and we work with a lot of school districts across the state regarding fiscal matters, including special education. So, your team, you know, had asked me to take a look at things from our lens, and then also because we work with such a large number of school districts, uh we are able to utilize that information when we are making sure that we're thorough when we are analyzing your info. So, a little bit about me before I get started, prior to being a full-time consultant, I used to work at the Indiana Department of Education where I oversaw most of the state federal grants that went to the school districts.
041And when I was at the state, I worked closely with our special ed office, but I did not oversee special ed work. But as a local administrator, I have overseen special ed and actually served as a special ed director. And have also served as a chief business officer. And so, I have a unique role in that I understand the programming side of things when it comes to special ed, and then I understand the fiscal side of things of running a district as a whole. And so, I tried to put those two lenses together to really help bring out the information I needed when working with your team, which is great by the way. You have some pretty talented people there at the town that I am honored to get to work with. So, let's go
042ahead and dig into some of my findings. You all possibly would have gotten the written report. So, some of what I'm sharing today is just reiterating that information as well. And so, as part of this analysis, I was able to look at quite a bit of financial data going back several years. If you're familiar with Indiana school finance, we have to code all of our expenses to rather granular codes that tell us whether it was a general elementary expense or was it a high school athletic expense or was it a you know, light bill that we're paying and so on. And so, I'm able to drill down by pulling exactly what was considered a special ed expense. So, we looked at your special ed expenses in your financial system, and then I spent a good
043amount of time discussing, interviewing, collaborating with your staff member your staff members your special ed staff members as well as your finance team, you know, your superintendent, your assistant superintendent, your CFO, treasurer, business manager, and then your special ed staff. So, I was able to ask quite a few questions of quite a few different people to make sure that I wasn't forgetting to include something. So, you know, a lot of this is going to be an educated projection based upon what we know today. And based upon the plan that should you decide to operate as a standalone special ed program, what staff numbers do you need, in what places, what class sizes, how many therapists do you need, and so on. To really try to get you all a firm number to understand what the
044impact is. And so, after taking a look at all of that, you know, the the big takeaway that I have is if you were to operate as a standalone program rather than in cooperation collaboration with other school districts for your special ed cooperative, operating alone, you're going to spend a very comparable amount than what you're spending now. So, the difference is is a rather small number. In some ways it's less, in some ways it's more, but overall, it is very very similar to what happens in a year over year. So, if the primary concern of do we operate as a standalone program is the fiscal concern, I'm here to tell you that those are quite minimal. And so, you know, obviously finances are not the only reason to make decisions in education. We we often
045often and primarily have to look at quality as well. But still, if you all believe that you are able to operate a special ed program at a higher level a higher level of quality through your own services rather than as a standalone program, then fiscally I'm here to say that there's not a concern in doing that. That you would be able to do it sound there. So, um let's dig into that a little bit more. So, um your estimate of your expenses for what the town is going to spend on its own, you know, and what we know are outstanding bills, um we're expecting to spend about 4.3 million. Um but that being said though, you know, we have you know, some special ed costs that are still going to come in that we don't
046yet know. Um and we'll talk about this here in a minute with our special ed cooperative bill. Um, so this is really two dates and then what we can project out so far. And so FY26 is 25.6, so that gives June 30th of '26, which obviously we're not quite there yet. So that is a actual estimate. We then took, in working with your special ed program, what are all the staff members that you would need if FY27, which is 6/30/27, you were operating alone? Um, how much would we spend? You know, based upon the staff members that you're expecting to have on hand. Um, and so that estimate would be, you know, 4.6 million. And so it is, you know, a 7% increase, but it's possible that your FY26 is going to increase beyond that
0474.29 million that I have there because June 30th is not yet here yet and we don't have 100% line of sight as to exactly what our bills are going to be, which is part of the issue of, you know, not operating alone. You do give up a little bit of control over how much your costs are going to end up being. And so right now your revenue for special ed is relatively comparable to your expenses uh, for Indiana. We get additional money for special education through both the state and federal governments and so those extra dollars on top of the money we get for any child basically covers this extra 4 million 30 next year. It does look like your expenses are going to outpace your revenue for the first time. This is one of
048the benefits of working with us. We've worked We've worked with over 100 uh, local education agencies within Indiana the past couple of years and you are actually quite unique in that you've been spending over uh, less than or about to what the state has been paying you for special ed. Most school districts, they've been in the red or spending more than their revenue for special ed for quite some time now. And so this shouldn't be a concern in the overall big picture. Obviously increased expenses are always a concern and you have to plan for them. But the fact that you're spending more is honestly much bigger than the school districts have had to deal with for quite some time. So, the 7% increase we've been spending about that same amount of an increase anyways, and
049so, operating alone is not going to accelerate that and if you were just to continue with your current participation in the special ed cooperative. However, with that being said, with greater control allows for you to possibly further contain those increases of cost and that might actually be better long run. >> [snorts] >> So, this is a year-over-year increase in special ed spending. Though, you know, obviously all of these bars are not at the same level, so some some periods like this first bar, FY23, you spent 7% more. FY24, you spent 5% more. And so on. And so, it's been varying. You know, the FY26 estimate this year, it looks like we're in a good place where we are going to spend less, but we really don't know that final bill from the special ed cooperative.
050If we were to estimate it at 300,000 and again, we're not quite sure, you know, >> [clears throat] >> the FY26 true total cost could more look like this where we would be spending more this year than several prior years. So, the key part with most of these slides is, you know, the FY27 the last column in purple, and this is our estimate of how much you would spend extra next year if you operated alone rather than through the cooperative. And if you can see that projected increase is very similar or in some cases less than what you have been spending year-over-year in terms of increase. And so, this is why I'm saying this is there's not a substantial significance financially from spending if you would compare your year-over-year trends now to what we'd spend
051operating alone. So, that then goes to my point of well, what would you prefer to do in terms of quality? And that's what should drive your answer here. So, just some additional information about what made into the 4.6 million estimated if you were to operate alone. Uh You know, obviously you're going to have new costs for the first time like having a director of special education where it's right now you rely upon the special ed cooperative. There's going to be some shared services like therapists and and so on and other positions that are going to shift from the cooperative to your payroll. However, it's going to be relatively net neutral because you are going to be able to save in other areas and we're going to receive the federal money directly for the first time
052where it's now the money goes directly to the cooperative. So, you know, here's some other positions that are going to look different. As you can see in some programs, and again you work closely with your special ed team, you're going to have more costs and and other ways you're going to have reduced costs based upon serving more children alone who live and attend in the town central. So, uh when you add all of those together, the some fewer teachers here, more or maybe shorter services there, that's where you end up with total projected increase in costs that's quite comparable to your history. So, you know, from a financial standpoint, you're just going to spend, you know, a substantially similar amount uh operating alone than compared to the cooperative. And as long as you keep that
053authority that you're now going to have as a standalone program and keep it in the eye in line of sight of what those costs are. Um so, you might be able to slow that rate of annual increase with the greater control of operating alone. Now, the opposite could happen if you don't have that good line of sight. However, I have full faith and belief in your team uh of making sure that you're making sound financial uh staffing decisions in future years as you're needing to hire people against uh the number of children that you have. So, you know, and and so lastly, I would say, you know, it's going to be my recommendation that financially it's really up to you in terms of quality. What do you think is better? So, if I were your
054CFO, I would be saying financially we can do it. There's really no difference to me. So, what's better for our kids? And if you believe that it's better for kids to operate a sustainable program, strong recommendation there. So, I hope today's speaking to you in this manner is helpful. If you have further information, glad for you to reach out and connect together. All right. And I would echo just one thing that I would I think we we voice faced this with what we felt like was going to be best for our students. But, we also knew then, secondarily, we needed to be sure that it wasn't going to break the bank financially. So, really Nathan has provided um given clarity on moving forward and having total control of our spending. We might actually be able
055to control the expenses that we don't have control of over right now. So, uh just entertain any questions, thoughts, whatever whatever the board would like to discuss about this moving forward. I appreciated this um thorough breakdown of how they listed the what the current staffing was and what the possible changes were. How close was that like staffing structure compared to what you guys anticipated? I think we provided that information to Nathan kind of based on what we knew our structure would have to look like if we left the co-op and new programs we currently do not house that we would have to create and provide if we were on our own. So, I think that was working in conjunction with like Kelly Hudson and boots on the ground, talking with teachers, helping to put that
056structure in place, and just with everyone that he had referenced that we were working with. Angela Balsley, our consultant, was very instrumental in in helping us put that together as well. So, what is that what he suggested to you? I I excuse me on that. But, he he suggesting that or that's what you guys proposed in this record? We I mean, I think we proposed the structure based on what we knew we were going to need if we left the co-op. I think he was running the numbers to see if that was financially something that was going to work in our favor or what type of increase that was going to be. Okay. That's what I was confused on. I was like, you guys thought were presenting like what you guys thought would be would
057work. So, I think he thought as well. Angela was involved with that. Yeah. She She was the programming side, where Nathan was the finance side. Yeah. So, Angela took Kelly's information, dove into that, checked our current situation, and that's where she helped come up with that >> [clears throat] >> and things like that. Okay. That makes sense. So, we we had two different components. She knows the expert in the programming side, where Nathan's a little removed from that. He still knows his stuff on that. Yeah. But, he's more on the finance side now. So, we had two different people helping us with the two different scenarios. Okay. I think maybe a luxury that we have, regardless, we we are members of the co-op for one more year for 12 more months. If we if the
058board does approve moving away, we're still in that same situation, which allows us a perfect situation to plan and prepare throughout the entire school year next year. So, that's when by getting into the weeds of those different positions, we'll have to really fine-tune what exact positions do we need, what programs do we need, where will they be housed, and that will be something that will obviously keep the board updated as we go down that road, but also keeping our our staff informed, too, because uh we have really If you think about special education in the district, you have those that the district hires, and those that work in our buildings that are co-op personnel. So, that group might be a little bit anxious. We totally understand that. We've communicated with them, obviously. Uh working with
059HR, working with and our building principles and with our staff, we're going to be creating, if we do move forward with leaving the co-op, we'll be creating positions that individuals then can apply for. Um so, it may not be, you know, it really offers the opportunity to uh select the best candidates for those roles, and I think that's What's the best part of it? I noticed on that one slide that we talked about the 4.3 million 4.29 Uh and I don't know what date that number was put into play, but I figured we got about 10% left of that time frame to June 10th. So, you know, if you figure 10% of 4.3, it's the same amount each month. That's going to add 400,000 more dollars, which puts us above the projected 27 [clears throat]
060number. It's probably more than 10%, so I would say it's probably closer to 4.8. So, I think this decision is is really sound. You guys have put a lot of time and a lot of work, and I really appreciate it. What's the What's the controlling factor in determining the rate? Is that based off of property values? Is that based off of ADM? Is that just a the move Well, the the biggest part of it, you know, with IDEA and um federal grant money, is all based on enrollment and how many kids we have. That's one of the reasons it's very difficult to to guestimate on things, because enrollment and your special education programs can fluctuate greatly from year to year. But, it is, that said, the revenue stream for special education is not going anywhere
061as far as I'm can discern. I mean, it's going to be supported if the federal government is not going to pull the rug out. Instead, um so that uh I don't know Those Those fluctuations what causes it to fluctuate? It fluctuates based on the exceptionality of the exceptionality. What What programs they're in, you know, the different programs they're offering special education world, all get different varying variables to them in terms of what the funding is. An example of that, Tony, would be a student that is IEP or is a specialized student solely for speech services, that's going to be your lowest funded student. Compared to a student that maybe is placed in a full-time self-contained emotional disabilities classroom, that's going to be one of your highest funded students from the state and federal. So, that
062is an ebb and flow constantly throughout the course of the school year. We have case conferences meeting literally daily, really deciding some of those things. So, You want to compare >> the general population where every student >> Right, we're at about the same amount. Yeah. You still get that basic grant for every student, and then if they have an exceptionality, if they're a special needs student, you get additional funding on top of that. And that money is then used to provide the services that are available to the kid. And actually we become very strategic as we go through these conferences and list and put put it in the actual document because those documents are one of how we get our funding. So, we And sometimes with conferences you have to do them not once a
063year, two or three times a year depending on the needs of the student as you get them in the room, you just you just never know. So, one independent Are we going to get over the normal IEP all those classes? But we still have people from outside the district? As we do now, um and we do have special needs students that do apply for out of district transfers. Um the one thing that we we maintain consistency whether a general ed student or special needs student, uh transportation still needs to be provided by uh the parent for not a district transfer. Um inter-district transfer, we have a little bit more, you know, if you're living within the Cal Central, we do have some intra-district transfers between our elementaries. And of course, if they're special needs student
064and we house programming at one of the four elementaries, we would we would provide that transportation to those for those students to those programs. But as long as we're consistent with how we accept out-of-district transfers, in which we will be, whether they're special needs or a general ed student, we shouldn't have any problems. I was saying that my question is both of the reports, that was one of the things that they really stressed to consider that that sometimes that costs may not balance out. Right, right. So, We'll be very aware of numbers um because one of the one of the reasons we can deny or decline an out-of-district Once you say you're you're an open district and you accept out-of-district transfers, there's very few reasons you can turn down a student. But one of them
065is you don't have room. So, if a program is at capacity, you can turn down the acceptance of that transfer request. The same that you could for well, fourth grade at Walnut School is at capacity, so I we will not accept any more out-of-district transfers. And it did reference that transportation would be the most expensive. Yes. Finally, that if we're not offering that, and and really I I would wager to say that we we're not really at a point in transportation as many districts aren't uh to be able to increase our capacity for adding routes. Um this should actually help us because several our loaded programs like Bright Horizons and the Joyce House are programs that exist outside our district and require you know, one vehicle to transport one student, but it takes hours to
066get there and back. So, this will actually, I think, help overall in the transportation department. And if we do leave, we've also um had a conversation with other districts that are not in the co-op that we wanted to look at partnering on a program that maybe we don't feel like we have enough students that we can afford to do it on our own, we might partner with a neighboring district to say, "Hey, we'll cover half, you cover half, and we can meet the needs of these students." So, we have those options out there available to us as well. Do we know who's leaving the co-op and approximately how many students we might be gaining? Um So, I I can tell you that there We were one of four districts that submitted a letter with the
067intent to leave. I do know that two of the other districts have rescinded their letters. I don't I I can't say with certainty that the third one it is, but I our recommendation our recommendation is to ultimately leave uh and for you guys to consider that in June. Um as far as the number of students, there's over 4,000 uh special education students in the co-op. So, the co-op itself is larger than one [clears throat] of the districts. So, potential, we we will we accept out-of-district transfers. So, if if parents want to send their children to the Cat Central, there's an application process, and so we will we will look at those accordingly. And with the hiring of certain people that those parents of those students have been used to now could quickly transfer to us
068if they are following someone they know as we know. I'm sure there are several factors that parents think about when they think about where to enroll their child. So, I think that would be appealing to some. Yes. If you have follow-up questions or there are obviously a lot of our staff our staff has all this information. Our co-op staff has all this information. So, everything's out there. You may get staff coming to you they feel comfortable coming to you that you can redirect them back to Kelly or Lori or I. We'd appreciate that or if you can send what questions or concerns they have so we can provide clarification. We want to make sure I know there's some people that are anxious about this next year's going to be you know depending on where their
069position is but I can tell you that we have a lot of people who are really excited about being able to take this on on our own. So, you you truly believe it's best to do it. Next year will run similar to this year because we'll still be in the hybrid model. Okay. No vote there. So, information only a lot of hard work and dedication. Absolutely. Well worth That brings us to item 8C the vote 2027-2028 school calendar recommendation. Yep, one of my favorites here. I won't go into great detail but we we've maintained a very similar calendar for what's been over a decade now where we tried to establish we have we know we have 180 instructional days. I try to stay a year ahead. Next year's calendar is already approved, so this is
070for 2027-28. We know that parents many parents are planners and so they want to make sure that we have approved calendars. Uh parents love consistency, parents love to have things in place that are clear. So this is just to make sure that we get the next year's calendar in place. Some things that that I considered going through this the review of the calendar. Uh we know we have 180 instructional days and try to do as many of those as we can in person. Um obviously some winters are are worse than others and we had 12 virtual days. That's that's about six five or six days uh past the average. We usually have six or seven days in a winter. So this past winter stung a little bit um uh with the number of virtual days
071that we had. The Cal Central does not apply for waiver days. Um and I don't intend to apply for waiver days. Uh some districts will apply for they'll they'll apply for a waiver day to take a student day, make it a virtual day, and turn it into a professional learning day for the staff. So essentially you're losing us an in-person student day. I don't I don't like the idea of applying for a day that might be perfectly good for an in-person student learning day when we already have inclement weather days that we missed a number of of school days for virtual. So I feel like we we try to stay with our 180 instructional days as much as possible. Um the the year's divided into two semesters. That's probably more useful at the high school
072um than any place else. So we try to uh separate it with winter break. So really when looking at the calendar, I I start with where winter break is going to begin and work work back from there and that kind of determines where we start. And of course that's taken into consideration fall break, Thanksgiving break, fair day, teacher in-service day, um Labor Day. And so, that ends up determining where we start school. And then after break, with the number of days that we have remaining, we plan those accordingly with the goal to get out of prior to Memorial Day. Um that's kind of the goal. It doesn't always happen. Um and this year's a prime example of that when we approved Martin Luther King Jr. Day and it bumped us to a school day after
073Memorial Day. So, that's why I've been asked that question. Maybe you've got that question, too. You're like, "Why are you going to school after Memorial Day?" So, that's why. Um because we we did we did uh take Martin Luther King Jr. Day off of from this year moving forward. Um we really look for uh very intentional breaks of a 1-week fall break, 1-week of uh spring break, and 2 weeks of winter. Graduation is set for Sunday, June 4th at 2:00. That's Uh we've always appointed Memorial Day weekend for graduation. Uh so, if we can get it in before Memorial Day weekend, great, on a Sunday. But usually it falls after Memorial Day weekend on the following Sunday. Uh a question that I get and we did review the calendar with our liaison committee, our staff.
074Um and there was very little discussion. I think people have become very accustomed with this cuz it's a very it seems like a very clear uh calendar. Um The question that I get is about building in inclement weather days, like building in the snow days. Okay? And so, the proposed calendar does not include building inclement weather days. I've been here long enough and I'm I'm an old history teacher, so historically, when we have built in snow days, they never materialize. So, embedding snow days has created challenges as families and staff often would make plans when they'd see a three-day weekend. And then lo and behold, when we have inclement weather, those three days go away and then you have a lot of attendance issues both from students and from staff who made plans, and now
075you're changing the calendar. So, we got away from built-in snow days quite some time ago, and I just think this calendar really lends itself to being very clear, very established. Um, there's been any rare time that we've had to maybe add a day at the end of the school year, or we've had too many virtual learning days in a row and we just call it a a traditional snow day, knowing we have to make it up at some point somehow. So, I bring this calendar for your consideration. Again, it falls really in alignment with our past calendars for about a little over a decade now since we went to this format, and I would just ask for the board's consideration to to approve it so our our families know what to expect in two school
076years. Thank you. Mhm. Yes. I'll ask the board for a motion to approve the 2017-2018 calendar. I'll make the motion. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Yeah, I I there's confusion I think in the community that they think that the teachers love virtual days, and that's far from the truth because typically our teachers have plans for that day, and you can't typically do the same thing you wanted to in the house when you're trying to do it virtually. So, um it happens. It It's not fun for anybody. I know that parents are trying to scramble to find babysitters, and who's going to do this, and it's just it's just crazy, but I think for the most part most people deal with it as best they can. Um, you don't want buses
077driving on ice. It's just know that the priority is number one and safety. And we don't want kids driving on ice cuz I've been around kids and they're not really good drivers. So, virtual days are what they are. Just we're not planning them on purpose. We're not making any money like calling virtual days. That's That's not the purpose. It's just weather's bad, the highway department doesn't want us out there, police department doesn't want us out there. So, just suck it up. We'll be okay. Thanks. Any Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Motion adopted. Okay, item eight, three, our wellness policy. This is the first reading adoption. Thank you. Uh before we proceed this evening for the first reading and consideration to adopt policy number 4200 our wellness policy,
078as you may recall last month we talked about this policy needing to be revamped and revised and updated. This kind of came quickly as a result of our state audit of our food service department. So, we worked with IASB on this policy. This comes from the DOE. It was a sample policy and we filled in some of the blanks. It's a good policy. However, um and it was posted online for the public to be to see and comment if necessary. Had Had some input from a community member, a teacher actually, and I was wondering the same thing. Um in front of you this evening I gave you page five of the wellness policy and you see that I've highlighted under article 11, um letter A, number two. Um if approved, I would like to strike
079that paragraph completely. I've been waiting for clarification and learned today actually um that this is a local decision. I was scratching my head a little bit. I talked to Mr. Wagner. He was doing the same. We saw no statutes that had come through or statute change that said that we weren't supposed to be using waivers anymore for physical education. So it is a local decision and we would like to continue to exercise what we've currently been doing with waivers. So we would like to remove that from the wellness policy all together. Interestingly enough, I think we're all aware that that the diploma requirements are kind of moving targets for us right now. I could be coming back to you in 6 months with a whole other proposal because of what the state decided. I don't
080know how Mr. Wagner keeps track of it, but he does. It's amazing. So that that is one change that I would like to ask you to consider as we move forward with this first reading and then also consideration to approve the policy without that number two. Does that make sense? Um so I ask I do I need to remove that first or do I just strike it there? I think you could do a motion to to approve the first reading and the policy with the deletion of item number two on this one. I think you could do that. Okay, at this time I will ask for a motion from the board to remove item A2 on there as as completed and adopt the change. I need a second. I second. I have a motion and
081a second. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. Thanks, Lori. foreign exchange? Item H 4 is permission to apply for and accept the 2026-2027 state and federal grants. This is actually a number this is an annual obligation that we have every year. The pre-application for our federal army federal land grants kind of 1 2 3 and 4 has just been published. So, I know that Nathan is looking at that right now. We've been looking at that a little bit. But, each year we do need to seek board permission to not only apply for federal grants and other grants as well. I like to talk about formative assessment grant and higher ability grant and and there's a list that um we just like to have the board's blessing on
082and then also to approve receiving that funding. And um so, that's what I'm here tonight to do is to ask for permission to apply and then of course collect the 2026. This time I'll ask the board for a motion to apply and accept the state and federal grants. I'll make a motion. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, Mrs. Okay. Up next is item H5 is the Calhoun High School block wall agreement. Great. I'm going to I'm going to stick to the script on this one because this is out of my my wheelhouse. I I have to say I have learned so much about the manufacturing world and just equipment and and robots thanks to John Klingon and his
083program. I I've learned a lot. And um so, this evening um I need to let you know that the BAM program is in the process of purchasing an Auto 600 AMR and related equipment as part of a recent Don Wood Foundation grant. Auto and Rockwell Automation along with Fanuc America are actually those big yellow robots that we have. Right, Ken? I'm trying to show off a little bit. >> [laughter] >> They're Fanuc America are collaborating with the school on cutting-edge systems integration application and education initiative. As part of this partnership, the manufacturer will provide proprietary design documentation, technical information, and intellectual property necessary for equipment implementation, operation, and educational use. To receive this information, the school is required to enter into a non-disclosure agreement, NDA. The purpose of the NDA is to ensure that confidential
084and proprietary information provided by the company is not shared, distributed, or disclosed outside of authorized school personnel and approved educational use. Execution of the NDA will allow the school to access the necessary technical documentation while protecting the company's intellectual property rights and supporting ongoing collaboration in advanced automation and robotics integration. So, this evening we're respectfully asking the board to approve the Cal High School Baron Advanced Manufacturing program to sign the non-disclosure agreement for the Auto 600 AMR. Thank you, Lorna. At this time, we'll ask for a motion to agree to the NDA agreement. I'll make a motion. I'll second. The motion is seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Motion passed. Thank you. Thank you. Item I is miscellaneous. I'll open that up to our board members this can
085go first. Do you have anything? I'll minimize mine. Uh I got here a little after 5:00 and I saw the tech department laying on the floor, making sure all the mics work, and the screens work, and I appreciate you guys so much to do this. Cuz, you know, having meetings in the board room is one thing, >> [laughter] >> but moving it You guys do great work. I appreciate that. Um graduation, holy smokes, it's coming up soon. I just want to ask everybody that's coming to graduation to be kind. Uh it gets a little crazy when the doors open. I've been there, done that. Please don't run. Please keep the lower three bleacher seats for the people that can't climb. I know that your kid's important to you, but there's people that can't walk steps,
086so just be considerate of other people. Um if you need a seat on the floor, I think you can reserve one, but you need to call the office, [clears throat] not the day of graduation. You probably should start doing that now. But don't wait till Saturday, cuz you won't get a seat. There's room on the floor. Just call, they'll have your name on it. It's a great day for everybody, but it's going to be hot in there, especially if you're in the bleachers up the top. So, we're all excited. Thank you. Thanks, Johnny. You know, Uh I will share something. I've had three sixth grade girls uh actually reach out to me and ask me a number of questions about change in curriculum at the middle school. And uh I'm actually impressed that we got
087sixth graders asking a board member about how their curriculum is structured and and and how it's going to change and what it's going to affect. And the first question that they asked, which I think was the most important one was are any teachers going to lose their job because of changing the structure? And I gave them the number. But for the students, they were thinking about the teachers first. And I thought was we're sending the right message in this district. They had a thought. I'll I'll give you the question. I I didn't really want to answer that question but I did. This counselor don't want to talk about the problem. >> [laughter] >> So, but I didn't have that primary there and he gets it's sitting right there on top. So, we did the instruction
088with the teachers should be aligned. I also want to go add, sorry. And again, but the camera was always on us but I think if you we could have turned the camera around and look at the standing room people in the back. Although it's kind of like a church, there's always seats in the front and everyone wants to come in the front but we had standing room only. It's it's great to see our our kids that I had in class. Some of them had Katie, some of them had Steve, some of them had Mark. Uh some of them had me and survived. Uh some of them miss the old me but it's nice to see the faces look a little older but the names are gone for me but it's it's really nice to go
089back and talk to students that were here and they say, "Wow, this school is really good." And I go, "Yeah, keep coming. Keep coming to get the high school the same. It's It's getting better. Things are getting better here so just tell your friends who don't live in the town district, we'll take you. Just keep them coming." I will make one recommendation for next year's meeting for this. You probably all agree with me. Our meeting was the project here for everybody. >> [laughter] >> And then doing it was we met with Peter. He was fast. He did a good job. I will mention that last week we attended a safety conference at Katie and Tommy and I were able to attend with Mr. Harrison, our safety director, and Mr. Peters. I actually learned a lot.
090I really enjoyed it and my eyes were opened to some of the craziness on the internet. >> [laughter] >> I don't know how to best phrase that, but yeah, it's kind of eye-opening and I think we're looking into having some future discussions and bringing some people in to also educate our students and parents and keeping them up to date on this scary world out there. So, it was good good information. Okay. I'm going to keep remembering things cuz I'm older and I should have written them down. Middle school had the gauntlet uh which was quite an experience for me. I was asked to be the taxi driver. I'm not sure why they chose me to do it. Um it was quite interesting to see the kids' faces and the questions. You you interact with them
091and you know, I think most of them did a really good job. Some of them just need to relax and and just be who they are and and have a little confidence that you know, it's it's interesting talking to people they've never seen before, but uh Katie and Bob were here and I was here and it was just it was just a fun thing. Uh they did say they want the taxi driver not to be so loud next year, so um if we have a taxi next year, maybe we'll get a quiet one. The kids are great and I I couldn't believe how many words they shook our hands or they made eye contact, and I mean, the parents have done a good job with getting kids to be able to communicate with meeting numbers.
092It was fun. Yeah, and I always appreciated being invited to come. All right, I'll leave it to your administrators. I have a couple of things, but tell me tell me something. I think we're good. Sorry. Okay. No one signed up to speak. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to say anything, please? Should I walk up there or Okay. You can take the mic. You're probably loud enough. >> [clears throat] >> All right, Chris Schmidt, band director at the Cal High School. I'd like to I'd like to thank the board for allowing me to speak today. Uh just wanted to bring up a just a few things. Uh number one, graduation's coming up. Our band students are excited to play for that every year. Uh making sure that they're they're they're well taken
093care of is a big priority of mine. So, if you you see any band kids, tell them thanks because that's basically the only way I get them to show up to show up that day is [laughter] with thanks. And because we we have such a great culture here. Um we we have so many people that are interested in Cal, and I sing the praises of this district everywhere. It's a really awesome place to be. So, really thank you. Uh also want to bring to your attention, we just received our banner for the band program. We got our like umpteenth year year in a row of getting our All Music Award from the ISLA the SD School Music Association. Uh that means that we achieved a gold rating in the marching band season in either a
094regional or a semi-state. We did both. Um so, an ensemble had a solo and a ensemble reach the state level. Uh also getting your concert bands to perform at a group uh the rating group one rating to get gold rating both of our intermediate and advanced band. We got gold rating in there including sight reading. And yeah, it's been a really great year for band. Lots of good stuff coming. So, I just want to say it's great to be here one more year at DeKalb and can't wait to make can't wait to get many more. Thank you very much. Thanks for sharing. >> Congratulations. He always likes to have her. You want to speak? All right. Well, at this time I will close our meeting by saying that our next regular board meeting is June
09516th and that will be back at central office. Um and at this time I'll ask for adjournment. I'll make a motion. Is there a motion and a second? All those in favor signify by saying "Aye". Aye. Meeting adjourned. Thank you all.