ECS Board of School Trustees’ Meeting 2/24/26

001Well, I is it social workers week this week? >> Hello. >> How are you? >> This is I'm fine. How are you? >> Did you ever fix your >> uh He's fixing it tonight. What is have any idea what's wrong with it? >> Um well I mean besides the fact I don't do well mess me as well. >> Mhm. >> All right. Apologize uh for being tardy and the tardiness uh for the work session. So, I'd like to call the February 24th, 2026 Elkart Community Schools uh public work session to order. >> And what do we do? You want to call up our first presenter? >> Thanks. Good evening. >> Good evening. >> I'm David Bird. I'm a principal at ETI. This is my third year as principal at ETI. I'm going to spend a

002few minutes just giving you some highlights of what we've been um having going on last few years. And um also mentioned something new that I know Mr. Weaver will be really interested to find out. As you know, our building um is sits on um the campus right on California Road. We've got that great beautiful space, the glass bowl, the glass box, the fishbowl, whatever you want to call it. Um it's our great multi-purpose space. We use it for new teacher training, administrator retreats. Um and this year in about a month, it will host the military ball for our junior ROC. So, we just >> So, it's going to be a new new adventure for us, a new adventure for for them. But I know that um when we have that in a little over a

003month's time, it'll be a neat new location venue for that group. So, we're excited about that. So, wanted to share that out tonight. Um again, we do a lot of hands-on stuff at ETI. Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn to quote Benjamin Franklin. Um robotics, um technology, engineering, all sorts of things that make up the um the DNA for uh ETI. Um, just to give you a glimpse of what our student body looks like, we have 444 students currently. It's about 21.3% of the students at Elcart High School. 353 of them are male, 91 are female, and um, our current 12th grade class, 131 students. We have 154 in grade 11, and 159 in grade 10. So, um, again, 21.3% of the entire student body at

004Alcart High School. Um personnel though, I've got 24 fantastic teachers, 10 in the ETI building, 14 in the main building. We have two ETI dedicated counselors, plus the counselor in the early college division that help us out. And we've got a great support staff of four people that make make everything hum at ETI. We we're sort of our own little island in the middle of this campus and um we take great pride in that and very proud of the people that that support us. Um without them, we couldn't do what we do on a daily basis. We just love love the kids that come through the UTI building because we see so many of them throughout the day. Um we have several great pathways to get our kids ready for life beyond Elcart High School.

005Um in advanced manufacturing we have an aerospace engineering pathway that has 79 students enrolled in it currently. Um aerospace engineering ironically every year we have students that go into aviation management or aerospace. We send kids to Embry Riddle. We send kids to Western Michigan. I want to send more to Indiana State because that's, you know, my alma mater. Go Trees. Uh, but we have at least one or two that go into aviation management. In fact, one of our seniors tonight um that'll be honored at basketball will be going to Western Michigan for aviation management. So, that's kind of a unique niche that um we really are um excited about and have been uh very fortunate. We had a young lady build an entire plane last year working through this pathway. Um, we also have our

006advanced manufacturing engineering pathway. We have 63 students currently working through that pathway, working to get ready to go. Um, most of them will apply to Purdue. Uh, but we're fortunate. We've had several that have been accepted at Notre Dame in the past. Last year we sent a student to Harvard. Um, just really excited that we have this degree um, and quality of programming that we can provide for our students. something new for ETI that um happened two years ago when we uh absorbed we didn't absorb but natural resources programming got absorbed among the other um four schools of study we've added the agriculture program our agriculture program is about 10 years old now I think in Elkart community schools am I right with that Mr. we you got that started. Um one of the largest

007in the state of Indiana. We have um 83 students going through the animal science pathway and 129 going through plant science right now. Um we have a school-owned farm that um gets great use uh with our agriculture pathway and it's just a really neat um tool that we can provide. Uh it was very exciting um last week when we had a state FFA officer come and tour um the school, hang out with our students, get to see the farm. She had never seen a school own farm before. She was very excited about that. Uh we're very excited with the things that we've been able to do with that property and that kind of leads to the innovation part of our naming and engineering technology and innovation. Um we also have two certification pathways we're using

008this year. A new one for us is the USIC underground utility locating services group. These are the people that go out and will find your gas line, your electric line, cable line. I almost said telephone line, but nobody really uses those anymore. Um but they um it's a new program for us. We have five kids enrolled in this. Um, next month there will be four USIC labeled trucks appear on campus because at the end of the programming these students are offered a job. They get to use their own truck and they get to go right into the workforce upon graduation. And that incentive is that they have their own truck and it'll be parked right on Elcart High's campus. Um, within the next four weeks we'll have those trucks delivered. So that'll be a ne

009neat addition to the campus to see those parked outside. And a new one for us this year also is the Fusion 360, our design processes uh certification. We've got 42 kids enrolled in that. So that's going to be a um unique pathway that we'll be developing over the next few years along with our underground utility location servicing group. Um again, engineering. Uh when you think about that, you think robots. We have an award-winning robotics team at Elcart High School. Last year they traveled to Maryland and um into Bethesda, Maryland as you know outside of Washington DC defeated schools from Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, District of Columbia uh to bring home the trophy with their um with their award-winning robot. The way robotics works is they can't build the robot until January of the current season. So,

010they just started work on their robot a few weeks ago and their first competition will be um next month, early next month at Penn High School. The way these uh robots work, the first 20 seconds they're programmed to operate independently. They do their own thing and then the remaining 2 minutes and uh 40 seconds of the competition is when they're manually controlled by the programmers. So, they're always tinkering, always working um as you see with these images on making this robot um perform the task as assigned by the first robotics competition um hierarchy. Uh but again, we're proud that we have an award-winning again traveling to and defeating schools outside the Washington DC metro area, I think is fantastic. Little old Elcart can compete with the big guys. Technology again, we have our underground utility

011locating service technology. We're also using some um newer technologies within our agriculture program. Again, the agriculture program is one that we value very much. Um Elcart being a very agricultural community. Um we aren't prod producing just farmers, but we're producing people that are involved in like drone precision drone technology, um crop servicing, things like that. Um working with animals. So we really um again emphasize and enjoy the technology we have with our a programming as well as the innovation. Now one of the cool things about innovation we've made pigs fly as you can see there are pigs flying in our physics classroom. Um we also use um our a program to um we built a state-of-the-art greenhouse using repurposed materials. We're looking at ways of trying to maintain the um honeybee habitat. And then um

012we did a nice program with Lake City Bank where we were given problems. We had to come up with innovative solutions to solve these problems, the quote unquote unexpected events. So it's a way that we try and innovate within our school study to do that hands-on learning that the kids really seem to enjoy as evidenced by the student looking through the uh eyeball of a goat. So just it's one of my favorite photos. They do some really neat things. Um of course we have some fantastic students. Everybody knows Joseé Nava. I don't need to talk about him. Um, but it's nice. I don't remember Mr. Anderson. When was when was the last time we had a Lily scholar? >> Years. >> So, it's nice to have a Lily scholar with Alcart High School. Spent quite

013quite a few years with that. Um, but again, we have other fantastic students. We have right now we have 95% on track to graduate. We have 257 taking dual credits. $3.9 million in scholarship monies awarded already. And we haven't even gotten the dollars for scholars amounts or the um Elkcart High School scholarship foundation amounts yet. That's where we are right now. Uh so far for this current school year, Notre Dame, Purdue, Indiana, Ball State, St. Mary's, uh Western Try, and Northern Illinois have accepted students from ETI. Um there are more. I just don't know them all. I don't have them all memorized just yet. Uh we have 226 21st century scholars which is a very important and nice piece for them if they as they continue through their high school um career. This will set

014them up well for when they go on to college. Um now for the visuals again we had Lily Sloan who is a state officer for our FFA visit and do stuff with um all of our agriculture classes but she also spent some significant time with our FFA officers um doing some team building exercises and things like that. Um when kids are in principles of agriculture, they learn how to change tires. They also work with engines because mechanics are an important part of what um you would see in the agricultural field. So the kids go to the career center. We partner with the career center. Um again, they learn how to change tires, change oil, do things like that. When they get to advanced animal, they're dissecting piglets. Um it's not always the best smelling class

015to go visit, but it's certainly fun to go visit because the kids get really excited. It's like the yo, wow, look at this. Look what I found. This is really cool. It's a heart. Wow. Yeah, we love it. Uh we had our ETI principles honor roll breakfast. Um 3.5 GPA or higher for semester 1. 102 of our ETI students uh made the cut to come to this breakfast. Uh provided with all sorts of good healthy breakfast items. Uh do this before school. Kids have a really good time when you see the smiles on their face. I have a good time because I get to present each with a the honoral certificate. Um you just you can see just how happy these kids are. Um just having a grand old time. We just really enjoy it.

016Uh finally, some more just ETI pride. We just have a lot of pride at ETI. We really enjoy um the kids. They enjoy being a part of the program. Um we're just happy to to have them every day. And then finally, we have some community partners that I want to recognize. City of Alcart. We've done some great internship um building inventory uh programs with them in the past. USIC is a new partner for us um again with the underground utility locating. And then Notre Dame, we've sent several students to the QuarkNet lab in recent years. Plus, we have some students from Notre Dame helping with our robotics team this year writing some code, doing some things like that. So, it makes a really nice um connection between uh ETI and these other organizations. questions, comments,

017concerns? >> No concerns, Mr. Bird. Outstand outstanding job. Um, love all the activities that you're not activity, life experiences that you're um exposing kids to at ETI and your your leadership is very steady. I love that um they see your face as soon as you get there. You know, every kid personally and you even do goofy challenges like sticking you to the wall and all those things. I just want to say great representation for your school. really appreciate you. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anybody else? >> Um what was the fusion process you mentioned? >> Um Fusion 360 design processes. So they'll learn uh CAD um other computer programs like that that will um allow them to get that certification through cert. >> And uh what is the uh requirements uh

018for a 21st century scholarship? >> That's something that started way back in the in in middle school. kids sign up. Um you have to basically um I forget all the intricacies, but it's um starts in middle school, works all the way up through high school. If you get it at the end of high school, then it allows you to go to any uh Indiana college um tuition free, I believe. >> Right. Right. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Um, I do not know who's next. Health and public safety. >> Good evening, Dr. Huff, um, Mrs. Reese, Dr. Roush, members of the board, um, and folks who are in the audience tonight. Thank you. My name is Chris Da Ribble. principal for health and public safety. Um, this is my second year leading health and public safety

019school of study. I started off with natural resources and before they closed. Um, I've been working for Elcart Community Schools for over 30 years. Starting off as a teacher at Pinewood, then at Northside, then at Elcart Central, and then at the high school. So, I've I'm a lifer, as they say. Um, before we start, I want to thank I have some teachers that are here tonight. Um, Mrs. Schaw and Mrs. Nelson have come to support me um and our team in the presentation this evening. So, um, okay, I'm going to It's just the side arrows. >> There we go. All right. Um, one of the things I wanted to mention before we get started is our front office team because without these people around me, we would not be able to accomplish some of the

020great things that we do in HPS. Um, and I left that in there for those of you that are going to be looking at the slideshow later on if you wanted to to have some names attached with it. But Mrs. Schol is our um lead teacher and she's kind of like my right-hand person and helps me um get organized and get everything together for our staff and for our students um by the numbers. So, we are the largest school of study, 462 students, and we actually flip-flop with ETI. Um ETI has mostly males and a few females. We're the other way around. We have 314 females and 148 males students. Um, I think that students when they look at our school of study assume nursing, which there's a stigma that it's mostly females. Um, so

021hopefully in the future we'd like to pivot and change that a little bit. I know Mr. Bird would probably like to, you know, we could maybe even that out a little bit, but we have 64% of our students are minority, 36% white. And again, as I mentioned, we are the largest school study. Um, our attendance is something that we really work very hard with. Um, we actually had an attendance um, a contest that we piloted for the rest of the high school. Right now we're sitting at 89.35% and that is since August. Um and this semester we have 70 students who are have perfect attendance and 12 that have perfect attendance since August 14th. Um I've also attached for you to look at later our attendance tracking sheet um which shows all of the meetings

022that we've been having, the students that we're tracking for attendance, what levels they're on. Um it's something that we touch and work work with every day having our attendance meetings with our students. Um, so we have pathways and many of our pathways are actually connected with the career center because um, we have a lot of crossover. That's part of the reason why we're located in behind the career center. Um, but our project lead the way, those are our major pathways that we have within our building. Um, biomedical science, human body systems, and medical interventions. And then those also correlate with the pathways at the career center. Um, and then we have a lot of community partners that will take our students as interns. Um we've had students that have worked with um the paramedics um

023in Elcart. We've had other students that are currently working in surgical suites in Memorial Hospital. Um we have a um an intern at Bowling Vision Center. So we have a lot of um great um community partnerships and a lot of um students that are out visible helping our community members. We've actually had a student last year that was helping deliver a baby, another student that was helping with CPR in the hospital. Um, so it's been really interesting when they come back and kids are invigorated with this real world experience, something that, you know, we prepare them for at high school, but then once they leave our um, our walls, they can go out and do those wonderful things and serve our community. Um, one of the things I really want to focus on tonight is

024our ROC um, Air Force Junior ROC. Um, this is unique to health and public safety and they fall within our purview. Um, if you've been to a basketball game, you've seen them present the colors. Um, if you've been walking around the building, you'll see them sometimes dressed in their fatings. And I can see the pride in our students when they come dressed, whether it's in their um, blues or their fatings. You can tell that it gives them a sense of pride. So, our ROC students um, have quite a few things happening um, this school year. The first of which um in the fall they do the baton death march which is an to honor our soldiers um Americans and Filipinos who were killed during World War II. They were a group of soldiers surrendered to

025the Japanese as they were marching. Some of them were executed and so every year the ROC um groups across the country will do a a modified march to honor those soldiers who lost their lives during that time. Um we also have our Raiders program which is um their um athletic program and it becomes a competition. Um and actually they're going to be going to nationals in April to compete. So um that's something that they seeing the kids um take part in that is really exciting. Um they have obstacle courses, they run the gauntlet, they do rope bridges and there's a 5k run. Sometimes in the evening you might see them running around the campus too. Even in the cold I see them out running laps to prepare for that. Um as Mr. Bird mentioned, we're

026having our military ball um in ETI and that is March 28th if you'd like to attend. And then in the spring, they'll have their promotion recognition ceremony where students will be getting their new ranks. >> Uh how many are in that program? >> Um I believe that we have 63 in that program right now. So there are several classes across the entire schedule. And so students, some students have them twice a day if they're working as student assistants or if they're um running some of the coursework and teaching some of the cadetses. And so they're the classes are organized based on what year they are in the ROC. >> So you're just talking about the senior class. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> And then project lead the way. This is our um our really um

027hands-on um pathway that we have for our students. And so what I wanted to do tonight is instead of having a bunch of slides to read, I wanted to talk a little bit about, um, some of the things that we can show you that we do. So, um, one of the things that, um, Mrs. Schul does in her classroom, um, we have an anchor activity, which is an entire semester where students analyze a crime scene, and that's the, um, top right picture if you see that. So sometimes we walk through HPS and if you're not prepared for it and you walk by the open door, you'll see somebody laying on the floor with crime scene tape and maybe some blood splatter on the wall. And if you don't know what it is, it's a little

028disconcerting at first, but that is set up for an entire semester. And during this um project, what students will do is they'll learn how to analyze a crime scene. um they start to talk about blood spatter, fingerprints, trace evidence, hair analysis, and then they learn how to bring all of those um all that data together to create a report that might be presented like in a in a trial or to um in a police report. And then during the second semester, they start to study autopsies and they'll use cow hearts, for example, to diagnose a cause of death. And I got to watch that last year. So um the students um will each be given a cow heart that have different um di diseases and the students will then look through that co cow heart

029and determine what was the c the cause of death. Um and then we look at the picture on the top left that's our femur fracture puzzle. It's hard to say. Um students will look at different bones and see how they were broken, what the diagnosis might be and what might it might take to kind of repair that kind of a fracture. And actually, we were just talking earlier about Lindsey Vaughn and the skier who almost lost her leg, and it was only because of the medical intervention that she had right away that was able to save her leg. But I think Mrs. Schul said that's on tap for next year when when they tackle that in class. Uh, then we have our mannequin build, which is the bottom right. And so students over the course

030of an entire semester have a miniature mannequin. And what they'll do is they'll use clay to add they start with the muscles um and to place those and to know how they'll work. And then they later add blood vessels, nervous system, different body systems, and at the end of the semester, they'll have a completely built mannequin, which is really cool. And so the students go in and it's a really hands-on project, and they they each have their own mannequin for the entire semester. Um, so I want to talk a little bit about some senior successes and then we're going to have more pictures about um, Project Lead the Way. I'm going to talk about, but our senior successes right now we have students with over $2 million in scholarships and that was as of two

031weeks ago. Um, 37 of our students are getting academic honors diploma. We have 10 they're going to be technical honors. Uh, 88 of our students are going to be earning the core 40. We have eight general. And we had uh, five January graduates this year. And then, sorry, my glasses I have to take them off. 37% of our students have completed the FASA up to this point, and we are the highest school of study with that completion rate so far. Um, my juniors, so we have 139 out of 152 juniors have 30 or more credits. That's 91%. Um, and then 90 91 students have a 2.5 GPA or higher. And then 71 juniors are enrolled in AP at least one AP or dual credit class. And then moving on to our sophomores. Again, 133 out

032of 170 students with 20 or more credits as sophomores. 103 with a 2.5 GPA or higher. And then 52 sophomores enrolled in one or more dual credit or AP classes. And that's a relatively high number. Typically sophomores don't take those advanced classes. So, it's nice that we see that already our students are starting to take those a little bit earlier in their in their high school career. So, then let's I want to get back to some more of the pictures. I just decided to show put pictures up so that we could see some of the wonderful things we have happening in HPS. So, um if you take the top right um next to celebrations, we have a fetal pig autopsy that we that our students do. So, um they will again each student will have

033a fetal pig that they will work on. They'll start the process of doing a Y incision and then doing an autopsy in which includes weighing the organs and again trying to uncover the cause of death and then at the end of the project the students will then return the organs and which is what happens at the end of an autopsy and then repair this incision so that um just as a coroner would do. So students have that opportunity to really go through the process of a coroner or med that would a coroner would do on a fetal pig. Um we have our again our crime scene. We have uh Mrs. Shaw was our uh teacher of the month for Mckin's realy ROC. And then we also partner with our um the law enforcement program through

034the career center as you can see the student in handcuffs. That is just for class. That is not something that actually happened. >> Um and then I I it's worth mentioning I just like to talk about the team of teachers and staff that we have in HPS. Um, we do not have a 10th grade English teacher this year. So, we our English classes for 10th grade are spread across other schools of study. So, it makes a little bit of a challenge for me to work with those teachers, but we make it happen. Um, and again, all of our teachers um our security staff, front end, front office staff, we all work really, really hard to make our student help our students along to become the most successful students that they can be. And it's only

035because we're such a tight-knit team housed within the HPS building that we're able to do that. So, we are really, even though we're separated from the rest of the high school, we are very excited to have our own space where we can work with our students um in a smaller setting. Um, thank you so much. Are there any questions that you have for me this evening? >> I just want to tell you, outstanding job as I shared with Mr. Bur. Can we also acknowledge uh the staff from ETI and from your um school while they're here, if they're here? >> Yes. Mrs. um Nelson and Mrs. Scher here from HPS. Thank you so much for coming. >> Can you give them a round of applause? >> And I there's a lot of activity that goes

036on at ETI and I'm sorry, ETI, I'm sorry, um, human services. You're everywhere around the school district. You are exactly what we look for in an administrator. I see you at football games. I see you at at kids events. I You're everywhere. All look, they're laughing because they know it's true. When you said it, you're a lifer. I I you really lead those every single day. I my conversations with you, I've enjoyed every single one of them. Um, also, can you talk about one when I was in human services, they have that HPS? Why I keep saying HBS? HPS, excuse me. When I was in Thank you, Miss MS. When I was in HPS, um, one of the things that I saw was the they received like a new type of it I don't want

037to say adult, but something that they can work on that talks about the um, it's really high-tech. It talks uh, allows the kids to do a lot of the new like procedures when you give like CPR or respiratory failure. That's something that I think that is not really seen in other places. Can you talk a little bit about that? Well, I think that's that's part of the in the career center. >> So, um >> I saw a lot of your students I saw some of your kids over there or maybe I was mistaken. >> So, some of our students were over there. So, and I know that that's just I think with if you're talking about like the surgical suites and things like that. So, and that just opened I believe last year >> and

038so that really gives our students an opportunity to really stand in that space and get a sense of what it would be like to be in a surgical unit. And I know um that through that program they get a lot of that hands-on experience, things that they might may be asked to do in a hospital setting and some of our students frankly have done some of those things in a hospital setting depending on where they're located, where their internships are. >> When I spoke to a young lady, she said that she was in your school. So that's why I tried to make that connection. So thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> I'll just say uh the only class I've ever dropped out of in college was a bioanthropology class. And perhaps if I would

039have had this experience in high school, I would have been brave enough and prepared enough to take that class and not drop out. But it's great to see the kind of work that our students have been prepared to do. So, >> it's great when you especially s sometimes I think kids come over as sophomores and they don't they're trying to find their footing a little bit and when we can get them in some of these these project lead the way classes and really you know the books they they the books are shoved aside and they really just digging into it and you can see this renewed focus this energy this excitement because then I think some of them start to realize I think I know what I want to do. Now, we do get a

040couple kids that say they don't they know what they don't want to do because maybe they see blood and things like that, but for the most part, it's very inspiring, I think, for kids and it shows them, you know, there's so many possibilities in the medical field. So, >> thank you. >> Great work. >> Thank you. And I will say this, I do have students that think I have an evil twin because I'm everywhere. >> Sometimes they do. >> They think I've got like a doppelgang or something. >> And much like Mr. I mean like the way that inside of your building and inside of your building uh the the relationship with your teachers with their students is unbelievable. It is it's like walking through like I'll kind of slide through there to get to

041the early learning. It's like walking into what I would feel when I walk into Mr. Bird's building home. >> Like the kids are home when they walk in there. And it's interesting to see how the teachers interact with students that aren't even theirs. They just know them. So that's a great job on your guys' part. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next, human services. >> Good evening, President Scott, members of the board, Dr. Huff, all the attendees here today. Thank you very much for being here. My name is Denny Trigg. I'm the principal of human services. It's my privilege to be here to present our school of study um and all the great things that are going on. Trying to find the arrows here. We model the Elcart promise, the importance of relationships

042as we look at the Elcart focus um for EHS. Just really happy to to to be a part of this and make sure that we um are working with all of our students and and moving forward as we look at human services. So we have we are the school of study who is upstairs in the main campus of of the primary building. Uh the second floor is is human services. We have 427 students in four different pathways at this time. Uh we have early childhood uh hospitality hospitality management, education professions and human and social services. all four great programs and I want to talk about each of them as we talk about our celebrations and what we what we have going on upstairs. Early childhood, this is one of the uh most fun things to

043talk about when we talk about our uh our pathways and offerings. We look at the culmination of what students can do at the end of their uh college career readiness life readiness plan. Uh this begins April 21 and goes through May 8. And if you you want to talk about really changing the vibe of of of an atmosphere when you have 12 three to 5 year olds enter your building into a high school campus the families that have put the trust in you to not only your your teacher Mrs. Birkhart who does a great job with this the building as a whole but to know that it's our students that are working with these littles. Um it is such a a proud moment. They bring a lot of energy a lot of fear. you see

044all of the things that you would when you drop off a kid somewhere where they have not been tears not sure how to how to address that that change and you get to work with these students and and let them see the skills that they've developed to be able to manage this and they do an outstanding job. Um it is one of my favorite hands-on three-week processes um with these littles coming into our building working with these students throughout the day. They're there for two and a half hours Tuesday through Friday for three weeks. And all the little things if they have an accident or if they have a temper tantrum, Mrs. Burkhart works very hard with them to try to what are the skills, how do we process this, what how do we deal

045with it? Um, and the community as a whole and how they've helped uh navigate this with our students. Um, Dr. Huff has been somebody that's come in and had a chance to read with the littles. Um, so you've seen that firsthand and I would invite any of you if you feel like seeing some great energy, come in after April 21st and get to see these kids come in. Um, once again, it's not just about the littles, but it's about these students and knowing that they've developed the skills to work with them because it's a scary time for them to actually get hands-on and see some of these experiences that they've seen in a textbook, they've had the chance to kind of work through, but to see it firsthand is is just really great to see.

046Um, and that's that's just something I think that we cannot celebrate enough as they work through this pathway. Education professions is another another pathway where there is a great hands-on experience towards the towards the end the second semester of their third year. We have cadet teachers through this pathway who are working in five of our middle schools throughout the district. We have cadet teachers at Northside Middle School, Westside Middle School, Mary Dailyaly, Riverview, and Woodland. So, they're throughout working with teachers, getting this this experience throughout. And I know there are several images up there just of them actually getting the chance to work with other students um work with teachers on how how can we develop these skills um and just wanted you to be able to see that by showing some of these images

047um as they go through because it is a really cool experience for them. I think it gives them the idea of do we really want to pursue this pathway because there are challenges with it. Um this is our human services and what and what we what we do. hospitality hospitality management a new pathway just kind of starting back up um has been a great addition very popular with the students um 80 students 81 I believe it's a freshman division already 84 in their first year here at the human services many of you may have been invited or made had a chance to show to the um food truck showing um where students had a chance to create their own menu their design, their layout in their their plate, and it was judged by invited members

048to come through and see how they were doing and what they thought. And the students did a great job um with displaying that and being prepared um being hospitable as as providing customer service as people went up to see the um items. Just a great experience for those students. um at the human services campus as we as we're over on this side. They have regular cooking labs at this point on a on a monthly basis. Um here coming this week, we have the um health department coming in talking about food safety. You know, how what do we what are other things do we need to address and look at? And we continue to build this out as we grow into these upcoming courses that students have on this pathway. Human and social services. um the

049namesake. This is what we do. Um we are fortunate of course to have on hand school resource officers, social workers who work with our students and can share the skills and the challenges they're going to face and prepare them uh for for the career that they've chosen. They believe the pathway that they're going on now. Um, so it's a great opportunity guest that they have all the time to support them working through with our students. Beyond just the pathways of our school study, we have great teachers across the board in our content areas. One of the areas that I'm really proud of that we've celebrated with our team, um, this graduating class, their 2026 cohort, their SATs from last year, we grew in every measurable metric that we looked at. Showed growth from the the

050class of 2025. such a great thing. All teachers embrace that throughout our school study. Um through work with impact periods, bell ringer activities, changing questions so that they look more like what they might see on the test, doing work to try to help make sure that we're showing these good results. And they did an amazing job. Very proud of them for that. Our seniors, 96% are on track for graduation at this time. Over three million uh in scholarship money earned. So doing an excellent job uh at this point with that. I think it's 3.3 million at this time. Very large number. And as a a father of two in college, you can very much appreciate this uh money that would be earned, right? Um just a burden taken off our families and it's something I'm

051very excited that we're able to offer. I know it's not just human services, it's across the board. It's a great thing that we're doing for the community there. First semester college credits. We have 106 human services students who are in dual credit and AP courses. Uh have earned 667 dual credits as of first semester. Our attendance rate 88.66%. Um and this is something we continue to work on. One of the pieces that we try to recognize, we celebrate perfect attendance. Uh we had 41 students with perfect attendance first nine weeks, 14 students the second nine weeks and six as a whole. That drop off most of those students one two absences at most. We still had a large number with exceptional attendance. Um working very hard to make sure they're there. So we had a

052Sunday bar celebration for them. Um they really enjoyed it. We did a exit survey. How could we continue to to celebrate this? And they they appreciated the Sunday bar and would like to do that again. So that's something we'll continue to work on, continue to celebrate student success. Um, each month we recognize, we have our own students of the month, but we also do that additionally as a school of study. Um, so we recognize students with the goodie bag and recognize her pride uh as as a focus and and just try to make sure that they know that we appreciate them doing that they're doing a good job. Um on there you can see uh another piece which is really kind of close to uh the school of human services for different reasons but our

053cornhole our inaugural uh unified cornhole team uh 16 teams in the state were selected. We came in fourth and state finalists were one of those schools selected came in fourth in the state here recently. So really happy about that. Um, part of the reason for that, of course, Coach Sheiley on our staff with human services, part a member of our team. So, take additional pride. Plus, we have a large number of human services students that are attached to that. Community partners, Growing Kids, the Vine Restaurant, Basher Children's Home, um, help us with internships for our students is how they've been connected with us. Primarily the biggest thing that I want to make sure that we're celebrating these accomplishments are great. It is because of our team, our teachers, counselors, office secretary, um, and just across

054the board. We have teachers that teach AP, you know, biology, English, speech, pre-calculus, government, history, very skilled teachers doing an excellent job. And I know we have a few here tonight. So if you would please if you would stand for me so you can be recognized very quick. I greatly appreciate any human services teachers that are here. Couldn't do these things of course without these great teachers and staff and I'm very grateful for them. Thank you. >> Any questions? >> Questions? >> No question. I I'll just make a quick statement. Um, not to suggest that any other educator is not, but I will say that Miss Birkhart is amazing. I got a chance to, as did Dr. Huff, uh, get a chance to read to the littles. And you're right, the spectrum of the students

055that come in, uh, and her ability to just navigate that seamlessly all while still providing instruction uh, was was great to see. So, I just wanted to make sure that she got that shout out. >> Absolutely. Thank you. and also complimenting with that teachers because I have been able to see them firsthand in the elementary schools. I'm pretty lucky. Um I've seen them in the elementary schools working hand on, you know, hand in hand with the kids and they are so respectful and so patient and some of them are moving like all the whole time they're there from class to class to class, program to program. So they're really doing a great job. It's a well representation of your pathway. >> Thank you very much. So, um the scholarship money you mentioned 3 million and

056I think Christa mentioned 2.9. Okay. A cumulative uh that's just for the seniors. Correct. >> Correct. Okay. Is that a uh so if I total that up that's 5.9. Is there any more? >> Yeah, I think ETI had 3.9 if I saw that correctly. >> Okay. So, yes, there's there's >> So, is there more than that? >> Yeah, it's it's it's a great thing. Anybody know what the my question semi number is? >> A lot. >> Yeah, I do not know the to >> last year. >> Okay. >> And they meet they do a wonderful job of meeting on a monthly basis to keep track of that. And sorry, I was speaking to that. They do a wonderful job meeting on a monthly basis to keep track of that. I know they hound the students

057once they get an acceptance letter to to kind of keep up to date with that. So, u Mr. Shurig, I I know that when we met our data meeting last year, it was a very huge point of pride with you um with your team. So, uh, miss, I think we will exceed what we earned last year as well. >> That's a huge win for our student body as well as our community here. >> Well, and I think the dual credit, uh, attainment across all the schools, I think, can't be over overstated. Pushing kids to challenge themselves earlier, as Miss Rible said, is something that we encourage. Kids can do hard things, um, but they can do it greater things with the skills of expert teachers and leaders like yourself. So, I just want to say

058I I appreciate you. And also, you just have a very calm demeanor about yourself. I was like, "Oh, I love the way that you carry yourself and the pride that you have in the district." Thank you for all that you do. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. >> All right, that was the uh the last one. So, we will uh end the uh public uh work session and reconvene at 6:00 for a regularly scheduled board meeting. Thank you. uh board of trustees meeting for February 21st or 24th, 2026. Uh at this time, I'd like to call the meeting to order. And if we'd all please rise for the pledge of allegiance. >> Next on the agenda, we have the Elcart Promise. Mr. Ivory. >> Absolutely. Every student is known by name, challenge supported by highly

059effective staff and in partnership with the community will graduate career college ready and life ready. >> Thank you sir. Welcome. >> Uh next on the agenda we have our proposed resolutions and our 1028 uh hearing. So at this time I'd like to recess our normal board meeting and call the 1028 hearing to order. >> Mrs. Ross, you may proceed. Thank you, President Scott, and good evening, uh, board members and in the community. I will provide an overview of these four resolutions, um, as you see on your agenda. Afterwards, I will ask that we suspend the public meeting um, to open the public meeting and then suspend it after comment. Um, after so, and then I will request the board to approve these resolutions. So to get started, the first resolution before you is to confirm

060the execution of the amendment to lease and matters related there too. As you may recall, preliminary approval was um to proceed with these bond issuances was provided by this board and presented to the public on January 13, 2026. So tonight's amendment will allow the building corporation to issue up to $6,865,000 in 2026A bonds and up to the same amount in 2026B bonds uh to finance the district-wide elementary school facilities projects and the districtwide secondary school facility projects respectively. As a reminder, the elementary project will uh provide consistent and improve aesthetic over our remaining elementary schools and the secondary project will include but is not limited to mechanical, roofing and other maintenance needs at the secondary schools. Uh the next resolution is an simply an appropriations resolution which would approve the additional appropriation of the bond

061proceeds and interest earnings for the two aforementioned district projects. Moving on to the third resolution before you. We're seeking approval um to authorize the issuance of an additional 2026 bond for the purpose of providing funds to reimburse the operations fund in connection with prior facility improvements in projects. This this bond is also $6,865,000. The fourth and final resolution is pertaining to appropriations of this uh reimbursement bond. It would approve the additional appropriation of the bond proceeds and interest earnings of the reimburseable bonds uh to the operations fund. Um the project completion for the um district-wide elementary and um secondary bonds um completion is estimated to be no later than December 2028. Um the tax impact of the district of of all three issues would be about 1 cent to our uh debt service fund rate.

062Um, with that said, at this time I would ask that we suspend the meeting and open it for public comment. >> Thank you, uh, Mrs. Ross. Um, we will, uh, now suspend the meeting and as you requested, um, we will now open it up for any public comment regarding our 1028 hearing. Is there anybody that would like to, uh, comment on the, uh, resolutions? as as described by Mrs. Ross. Hearing none or seeing none, we will actually end the 1028 hearing and reopen our regularly uh scheduled board meeting for board vote on the resolutions as presented. The uh first resolution is the uh resolution confirming approval of the first amendment to the lease uh and the issuance of the 2026 A and B uh mortgage bonds and related matters. Uh do I have a motion

063from the board? >> So move. >> I have a motion from the board. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I have a motion and I have a second to accept uh the resolution uh as presented. Do I have any board discussion or comments regarding uh this resolution? Seeing or hearing none, all in favor? I >> opposed. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Next, we have the resolution approving the additional appropriation of the 2026 AMB First mortgage bond proceeds and interest earnings and related matters. Do I have a motion regarding this resolution? motion. >> I have a second. >> I have a motion and I have a second. Do I have any questions or comments from the board regarding this resolution as presented? >> Seeing or hearing none. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion

064passes unanimously. Thank you. >> Next, we have resolution approving the 1028 issuance of bonds, reimbursements, and related matters. Uh do I have a motion on the resolution as presented? Motion. >> I have a motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I have a motion. I have a second. Do I have any questions or comments from the board? >> Seeing or hearing none. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion passes unanimously. And lastly, we have the resolution approving additional appropriations of the 2026 general obligation bond proceeds and interest earnings and related matters as presented by Mrs. Ross. Do I have a motion for the resolution as uh presented? >> Motion. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I have a motion. I have a second. Do I have any questions or

065comments from the board approving this resolution? >> Seeing or hearing none. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ross. >> Thank you. Next, we have on the agenda your invitation to speak protocol. Each of you should receive a pamphlet uh on your seat. Um if not, uh Dora has additional ones in the back with a little uh piece that you can tear off. Please put your name, date, uh organization you present, represent, and uh the subject you wish to discuss. At this time, uh, during public comment, you can speak on any agenda or non-aggenda item. Uh, please step up to the microphone and state your name and announce your relationship with the school district, at which time you will have three minutes to um to make your

066uh public comment. Um, we would ask that no participant may speak more than once on any of the same topic. Um and also we ask that because of the Family Rights and Privacy Act, if any of your comments or commentary uh deals with um personnel or personal student issues, uh please refrain from mentioning any names uh as those uh related to those issues as this is not the appropriate uh venue to exercise uh uh those types of matters. So with that said, Dora. Okay. Thank you. Uh first up tonight would be uh Tiana Batist Wadell. Good evening. >> Good evening, >> Dr. Huff, Mr. Scott, and ECS schoolboard members. My name is Tiana Batis Wadell. I'm a parent and child advocate for Jackson Aspire Foundation. I come from South Bin, Indiana. In the spirit of

067transparency, first off, thank you for providing the recent student discipline data for ECS. I appreciate your transparency and willingness to share this information with Jax Aspire Foundation. I would like to better understand ECS's strategic plan to address the disproportionate rate at which black students are referred for disciplinary action and receive suspensions compared to other student groups. Additionally, what is the current status of a district specific analysis or conclusive report related to the 2025 Elcart County JDAI system assessment to ensure the district is not disproportionately contributing to the county schoolto prison pipeline? Lastly, could you clarify what type of intercultural competence or equity focused training the teacher at Pinewood Elementary School received to help ensure that a discriminatory assignment is not presented to students in the future. Thank you very much. you. Uh, next we have

068Dorothy Bergraph. >> Good evening. I am Dorothy Bergraph. You said it right. formerly Overgard aka OG from Elcart Academy. Um, as a special educator at the high school alternative program for approximately 10 years, I'm highly trained to notice patterns of behavior. I am noticing a pattern of behavior that needs to be addressed regarding decisions made by the district that greatly and negatively impact our programming at the alternative program. In the 10 years that I have been at Elcart Academy, we have had four principles and moved twice from our home on Typton to the career center and now we are housed at the freshman division. We've lost our middle school program, then gained it back. We've experienced broken promises and letdowns. Since I only have three minutes to speak, I won't go into all of those

069details at this time, but feel free to ask any of the staff members at Elcart Academy and they will fill you in. When what I will fill you in on is a string of decisions that has caused me to stick my neck out and speak up here tonight. In 2019, Junior Life was removed from the Typton location in an attempt to save money. The district made a decision to move middle school alternative programming into the middle schools as a school within a school model. Those programs were never fully or consistently staffed when they moved. Two of our teachers left for another district because of this decision. And last school year, we were tasked with welcoming the middle school back into Elcart Academy. However, the middle school program was never fully staffed, and we were forced

070to start a program that had three teachers, a special education teacher, a social studies teacher, an English teacher, and then one TA and an academic dean. We were never able to fill the science and math positions, which means that our Pride Middle School Academy students never received adequate instruction in math and science from a licensed educator in those subjects. Um, a forementioned staff members um has since left. Our middle school still isn't fully staffed and recently our high school program has moved to has had to move four of its teachers to middle school after being told that our high school staff would not be moved to work with middle school. While the high school students are now left to attempt to earn credits through Apex and they are struggling. Prior to this semester, students were

071receiving live instruction with highly qualified teachers at the high school level. We've had the district admin come to our building through all of these changes in the past with a pad and pencil to take note of what our concerns are. Each time hoping that this time will be different. However, many of us do not feel heard because it seems that our concerns were never truly addressed nor taken into consideration when the district bulldozed changes through our building without even having the staff to effectively implement these changes. Fortunately, we're flexible and we currently have great building leadership through Mr. Hammetry. Sorry, I'm not supposed to mention names, but he's amazing. Um, to help us guide us through all of these changes. The pattern of behavior that I am noticing is that our program gets overlooked and

072forgotten. program has been treated as a place to dump to remove uh programming as seen fit by whatever administration at the time thinks is best with little to no consideration of the people that call Elcart Academy a second home, a family. Not to mention, we continue to raise graduation rates year after year and save students who may otherwise drop out. I'm out of time, but thank you for your time. Thank you for your consideration and I just hope that moving forward the board school administration really thinks thoughtfully and carefully about the decisions that are made at the alternative program because these are our most needy students in the district. THANK YOU >> Jennifer >> Bats. Hi there board members. I am Jennifer Bats also at the academy with Dorothy. I'm a high school math teacher

073at the academy. Um my colleague Dorothy spoke on the apex programming at the high school that was forced in uh forced into us because of four of the high school teachers moving to the middle school. Schoolman school enrollment is down because of that of that and graduation numbers are dropping because a of the apex programming. Our students need to be taught as we used to do prior to this semester. Please considering consider letting us go back to regular programming after getting us fully staffed, including a counselor. Mr. Himemetry has done a great job, but you have over you have overloaded him too much. I'm concerned about where we're being moved. I know it hasn't officially been announced. Um I'm just wondering if this makes sense for the corporation. I don't I don't really know what

074to say uh other than um maybe you've decided to use our area for something else. But one of the things that does concern me that's really nice about where we're at now is that security at Central is already there. Um and then there's also police officers there. So we have security issues. Uh it's right there. We can utilize it. Um, I'm just thinking also out loud that um a downtown school uh seems like to be a better place maybe for the move because um we have a lot of uh students in that area that come to our school, the alternative school. So, that's something else I would um want the board to consider. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Uh, next we have Alex Fanaeka. >> Good evening everyone. Uh, thank you for the chance

075to speak here tonight. Um, I'm here to advocate for Hawthorne and the wonderful staff and all the services that they provide. Um, I'm blessed to be the father of three wonderful kids. My 5-year-old Max, he's autistic and he used to be nonverbal, right? Um, as a parent of a kid with special needs, you face many challenges, right? And one of them which is very important is finding the organization and uh a team and a staff that you know is able to support and is able to educate and is able to help your kids grow and develop skills, right? That uh can help them have a quote unquote normal life, right? Uh so three years ago we were fortunate enough to find Hawthorne and um I couldn't speak enough great things about them. Um so Max

076has benefited from going through their PACE program and he's currently in their title uh title one prek program and now Max is able to communicate his needs verbally himself. He's able to dress himself. He's able to feed himself. He's able to regulate his emotions. He's able to brush his teeth himself. And uh we're hoping that uh next year he's going to be able to be ready for prek. I mean, for kinder, I'm sorry. And um you know, for those of you who don't have a kid with special needs, uh it's a pretty big deal, right? And we owe that growth to the amazing staff that they have over there at Hawthorne and the dedicated services that they provide and all the special spaces and uh that they also have in their facility like their sensory

077room where kids can have a safe space to be able to regulate their emotions and go back to the classroom when they're when they're ready, right? the motor room where they can uh build confidence and be able to improve their, you know, coordinations like grabbing a spoon or fork to be able to feed themselves, you know. Um, they have obviously treatment spaces where special ed uh personnel can give therapy services, you know, and uh last but not least is their wonderful staff, right? I was spent three years there and uh we've been blessed with the opportunity to drop off and pick up every day and you can tell and see and feel how that staff is a true team and how they care and treat kids as kids, not just numbers. I think they all

078know each every kid's name. And you can tell the difference because kids go in with a smile and they come out with a smile. My son Max, who's five and a loves going to school. is excited every morning to go there and it's because of the amazing staff and the services they provide. Um, now I understand the need to be efficient, right? As a business owner, I understand that you need to, you know, improve your efficiencies time after time. Um, but I just hope and pray that as you guys continue to make your final decisions, uh, you take in consideration keeping the staff together and be able to make sure that the kids that are after Max don't lose those services that they have that they provide there. So, I just pray for your guidance

079and uh, as you continue to make this difficult decisions to please take that please take that into consideration and uh, look at our kids as our future and uh, not just numbers. Um, so thank you for your time. Very well said. >> All right. I think I've got the middle name. Uh, Amanda Bleman Campbell. Middleman. >> Good evening board members and Dr. Huff. Uh Bidleman Campbell was correct. I thank you for the opportunity to speak. Um please forgive me. I'm going to try to get through this without crying. Uh my I am here to speak about my daughter and the special education at Riverview. She is a student at Riverview even though the consolidation dashboard did not calculate the general the special education in the general education classrooms. But I assure you she is a

080student at Riverview. For my daughter and so many children like her, famili familiarity and stability are not luxuries. They are essential for learning, for their confidence and emotional well-being. My daughter thrives where she is because she feels included. She knows she is known not only by her teacher whom she adores, but by the entire staff. They greet her by name and with great big hugs. They understand her needs. They celebrate her successes. These relationships cannot simply be moved or recreated somewhere new. She was in cheerleading this year, which was made possible because she grew up with these kids, with these girls, her girls as she calls them. They know her and love her. With this proposal, we are going to have to make a heartbreaking choice of her special needs friends or her general education

081friends that she has grown up with. Inclusion is more than a policy. It's a daily experience of being welcomed, supported, and valued. removing her from the community, she would would take away her very foundation that helps her grow. I respectfully ask you to keep special needs classes in with their general education peers where our children are safe and supported. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, >> thank you. That was the last Gabriella Medal. Close. >> Yeah. >> All right. >> Good evening, board. Um, I'm here to follow up On my last time that I spoke regarding the incident that happened with my child being searched, um I did get somebody to reach out. Um so thank you for that. I did get a meeting. I did talk to somebody about what happened. Unfortunately, the person

082that searched her denies or doesn't deny it. She denies putting hands on her because she doesn't remember. Um, she was actually she was actually questioned a couple weeks later. Um, and in her words, "All the girls look the same. They all have long hair. She is a translator. She is not an admin. She is not a resource officer. She is not a police officer." So, I want to make that clear. um in your student handbook um you guys specifically say that only those staff members can do re um searches. So I just wanted to let you know about that. Um and I also want to touch about a lot of things that I have been seeing in the media. um you know the police officer, I mean sorry, the bus officer getting pulled over and

083those allegations and of course the um staff member that was also accused of inappropriate things with a minor. Um in my kids's words, why does a pedophile get to be paid leave and a bus driver not? So um my kids are pretty pretty smart. some of you guys know them. Um, I want to have them have I want them to have that answer. I know you guys have to go based on protocol, you know, litigation, all that stuff. I understand. Um, we need better hiring methods because as you guys know, this is not the only instances and I have many other instances and proof that staff that are hired and do not would not pass a regular criminal record. So, I would like for you guys to look into that so that our children are

084safe. I have so many neighbors that would rather drive their kids to Northwood, New Paris, Gymtown, Goan, and they live in Elkart Community Schools. That's the reason why you guys are leaving or having people leave. Lack of transparency, lack of communication, lack of accountability. And I think that's that's your answer. So, thank you for your time and I hope you guys really do look into this and work on it. Lifine number four. >> Hello everybody. I'm Linda Fine. Um, and I'm just going to read what I say. Elkart Community Schools is a place where students are to be known by name. I challenge our leadership with this question, though. Do you know your staff by name? This past Friday at 4:30 p.m. many teachers were given re riff notifications via email. 4:30 on a Friday.

085Teachers who are dedicated to Okart Community Schools. Teachers in positions that were posted that were posted for three years or more. Teachers on schoolwide committees. Teachers that are sponsors, co-sponsors, coaches for student groups. Teachers that have binding contracts with Elkart Community Schools. Teachers that have some of the highest ENL improvement and pass rates. Teachers who have an overload. Teachers who are highly effective. Teachers that are wanting to teach. Teachers working towards certification. Teachers who are passionate about helping students learn. Veteran teachers earning an additional certification. Many of these teachers are on emergency permits or in a transition program. But in my experience, this type of notification isn't standard practice because it didn't happen last year or for the past several years. Board policy actually states that rift notifications are required between May 1 and July

0861. Is this expectation that these teachers hang on and hope for the best, reapply when those positions are needed and unfilled in the fall, leave Elkart in the dust? This has created more stress as these teachers are now scrambling to complete certification while teaching. Many had plans to do so in the summer because no deadlines were given to them as to when the credentials needed to be complete. I would hold that leadership both at Elcart Community Schools and ETA knew notifications were coming. If you knew as your staff or your membership, a conversation before these emails would have been the right thing to do. Was there no one to call these people or have these conversations? Everyone in leadership owes these teachers an apology. Elcart keeps on Elcarting and in the process, we'll lose incredible

087teachers that are just seen as positions, not people. Thank you. Uh, next uh we have McKenzie Bartellini. Hello. Um, I'm Kenzie Bowini. I'm a parent and a taxpayer. Um, I did just I have a speech here, but then I kind of went off the cuff. Uh, I want to ask Mr. Bernett, did you hear that last speech? Because I did hear you talking to Mrs. Mullen's uh while she was speaking. So, I just wanted to kind of call that out. I don't I don't like being interrupted. So, I just want to make sure that that's very clear that doesn't happen while I'm speaking. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Um, yes. >> Yeah. Yeah, we sure did. >> Thank you. Thank you. Um, I'm a parent and a taxpayer taxpayer, like I said, and a graduate of

088this district. Um, I'm here because working families in the community are struggling and the decisions being made are making it harder when school is canled at 6:40 a.m., which I did uh email Dr. Huff about it. Um, or at 7 in the morning for a 7:30 start time for elementary schools. That puts families in an impossible position to do child care for what I'm in a working home. Both of us work. It makes it very hard and very last minute. Um and I don't think that's safety for our kids. I think that our kids are not safe if they have to stay home alone because they don't have anybody home. Um they're forced to scramble and if closures are necessary, we understand. But families deserve just earlier, more responsible communication. Uh, we're also closing five

089elementary schools. I understand hard decisions um have to be made, but why are we selling buildings instead of using them to expand student opportunity? We have alternative education programs, STEM, tutoring needs, SAT prep, I read. Um, and yet we're shrinking instead of investing. um two third grade classes the other day were combined under one teacher because there was no substitute available available and that's really not sustainable. Um my student is in I read this year um and with her having a combining class that just is very hard for her to learn. Um and then I uh heard Dr. Huff in the last meeting uh you spoke about transparency and I appreciate that. So I'm asking for it. Where's the transparency regarding the transfers from the education fund into the operations fund? Where is the clarity

090about how the rainy day fund is being used while we're closing schools and saying we don't have enough? I'm willing to pay taxes to support our schools. And actually I just asked this uh business owner back here. He came up to speak. I asked him. He said, "I'd be more than willing to help donate to Elcart Community Schools to help them." Um, we're called Elcart Community, so act on it. Other districts use their communities, businesses, churches, local partnerships to support students. Meanwhile, we have families struggling to eat one meal a day and being asked to supply entire classrooms. Right now, this district feels like it's in a tornado, lightning, thunder, hail. And instead of using the resources we have, we're watching the storm. These issues can be fixed, but only if we stop protecting systems

091and start prioritizing students, not administration raises, not start staring at a rainy day fund during a storm, but by working together for the kids. Thank you. Next we have Shelley Sarcasta. >> Good evening members of the school board, uh, community members, Superintendent Huff, and incoming Superintendent Ree. My name is Shelley Sarcasta. I came to Elcart in 1997 to teach students with moderate to severe disabilities at North Side. At that time, there had never been an intense program. I was a first year teacher given an empty classroom with no desks, materials, or sensory supports. Just six students and two pair of professionals determined to build something meaningful. Together with support from families and staff, we created a program that exceeded expectations. More importantly, we honored a commitment that students with the most significant needs would have

092access to meaningful educational opportunities within their neighborhoods and communities. A few short years prior to this commitment, students were educated in a centralized facility that did not best serve their needs. Elcart promised to do better, and for decades, we have. I am deeply concerned that this promise is being compromised. Currently, we have intense classrooms in five neighborhood buildings where students are included in their communities and their families have accessible support. The proposed consolidation would move these programs into three buildings that have limited or or no previous experience with these types of students. In 2018, I was moved to Riverview. While elementary was not originally my plan, the staff, families, and neighborhood welcomed me wholeheartedly. That sense of community matters. When my home suffered a fire, colleagues showed up before I even got there. A former

093student helped locate my missing dog. This is what neighborhood schools provide. Connection, trust, and immediate support. Those connections will not be the same if our students are bust across town, separated from their neighborhood and siblings. Under the current proposal, families would be reassigned probably to Fezer, Mary Dailyaly, and Beardsley that have limited or no recent experience serving these students. Families will have to choose between sending siblings with their neighborhood peers or keeping them together as a family in a different building. Many of our families rely on walking, car pooling, or being within close proximity to the school in order to respond to medical emergencies and behavioral emergencies. Transportation and access are not minor details. They are essential components of safety and participation. Creating a new intense classroom is not as simple as moving furniture. These

094classrooms require specialized equipment, safety considerations, and physical modifications. Existing classrooms will need to be dismantled and packed while we continue serving students with high complex needs. Staff in the receiving buildings will require training and preparation. Safety protocols must be carefully reviewed and particularly as the proposal would cluster multiple high needs classrooms in a single building. Emergency procedures including natural natural disasters and active threats that require significant staff and planning will be needed. This year alone demonstrates the fragility of our current staffing levels. At Riverview, we began the year with two intense teachers, two paris, and 16 students. an already challenging ratio. We are now serving 14 students with one teacher, three paras, and one part-time sub. These students have complex academic, medical, and behavioral needs. Our success has depended on the extraordinary support of building

095administrators, of our secretaries, and of our general education teachers who are on a daily basis diapering students and feeding students as well as helping us in crisis situations. And I know my time is out. I I think I have a backup plan. Thank you very much. You >> Eileen Corson name is Eileen Corson. I am the backup plan. I know that she started reading here, but it'll be easier for me here. This year alone demonstrates the fragility of our current staffing levels. At River Review, we began the year with two intense teachers, two paras, and 16 students. An already challenging ratio. We are now serving 14 students with one teacher, three paras, and one part-time PAR sub. These students have complex academic, medical, and behavioral needs. Our success is dependent on the extraordinary support of

096building administrators, secretaries, and general education staff who assist daily with feeding, diapering, and crisis response. If three intense classrooms are placed in each of the proposed buildings, will staffing levels reflect that increased demand? How will absences be covered? How will we ensure safety during emergencies? 30 students with significant needs require far more coordinated support than 15. I understand that consolidation decisions are complex and impact the entire district. However, the manner and timeline in which this proposal is being advanced raises serious concerns. Intent staff were not meaningfully included in PL planning prior to a public announcement. If this plan proceeds, it must be done thoughtfully, collaboratively, and with adequate time for preparation. I respectfully urge the board to pause and fully assess the impact on our most vulnerable students and their families. Speak directly with parents

097and staff. Consider access, safety, training, staffing, and the physical preparation required. If changes must occur, develop and share a comprehensive plan that ensures these programs can transition without harm. Our students with significant disabilities deserve careful planning, not rushed implementation. Thank you for your time and consideration. That concludes our public comment tonight. Uh, next on the agenda, we have uh, Salvation Army. Good evening board members and Dr. Huff. My name is Ron Sherk. I am the development director at the Elcart Salvation Army. Back last year, uh I began a conversation with administration here at the school in regard to the possibility of doing a partnership together uh of a food drive that would um provide food for our pantry, which in turn provides food for families right here in Elkcart Community Schools. I received a lot

098of very favorable response from uh the administration and that uh began a process of actually planning out a food drive which we were able to hold last November and uh as a result of that we had I think a very successful start for I hope uh just the first year of many years that we can work and collaborate together among all the schools that were participating, which was basically all the schools, including the administration administration buildings and other buildings. We collected over 7,000 pounds of food, non-p perishable food for the pantry. If you take that number and you equate that into meals, that would be about 5,833 meals that were made available to families, to children right here in our community. So, I'm here to say thank you to this school system. I appreciate the

099partnership, the collaboration that the Salvation Army and the school system can work together. We're helping our community. We're working to provide the nutrition for kids to do their very best and have excellence in in their education. So, thank you once again. We appreciate that collaboration. Thank you. Thank you. >> Okay. Next on the agenda, we have a moment of pride. Uh Mason Erlocker and Jania Walker. Please step forward. >> Thank you, President Scott, the school board, Dr. Huff, and the community for having us here today. I am Mason Earl, and with me here is Janiah Walker. There are many great things going on in Elkart schools, and we're going to go through them. >> On on January 31st, we we had our Isma contest. Six holeless and six ensemble students will advance to state on

100February 28th. >> In our wrestling, five grapplers advanced to sectionals on February 14th and Kyle Summers went to state on February 20th. >> February 2nd through the 6th, our sophomore reps gave gift bags to our counselors for counselor week. On February 2nd, we had a teacher of the month from HPS and it was Miss Schaw. February 4th, we had a Elcart freshman division parent night. 8th grade students came down to talk about their scheduling and what school studies are and the new diploma requirements. >> On February 5th, NHS hosted a tape a teacher event and it the money raised went to appreciation week for the teachers on the first week of May. On February 9th, 25 students raised $9,500 for scholar for dollars. These help provide scholarships for the Elcart students. We had an FFA

101visit February 10th and the FFA state treasurer, Lily Sloan, came and talked with our students and led activities. February 14th and 15th, our our bowling club took six in state. Representatives from IUSB came to the main campus the 17th and 18th for direct admin days and students were interviewed and they were told if they were expected right on the spot. >> On February 11th we had a academic letter ceremony. 29 of our our seniors received academic letter letters. And on February 18th, students came to see a champions together video or a presentation and learned how they can be a part of the unified teams. >> All right. And athletics, our boys basketball season is almost over with senior night being tonight. Girls basketball finished with a record of 16 and eight. In boys wrestling, we

102had six people go to regionals, including Kyle Summers, who won regals and got fourth in semi-state. In girls swim and dive, Cameron Tyowski went to regionals. Gymnastics regional is March 7th and state is March 14th. Boys basketball sectionals are March 3rd through the 7th. Upcoming events, we have a FAFSA parent meeting the 20th. We have gymnastics sectional the 28th. New diploma informational night March 3rd. Basketball sections March 3rd, 6th, and 7th. We have a another fast night March 10th. And winter sports awards March 16th. >> And that concludes our moment of pride. Any questions. Great job. Thank you. Great job. All right. Um following that we have a update from Chartwells. >> Hello everyone. >> Hello. >> Hi. Well, thank you so much Dr. Huff, President Scott, members of Elcart Community School Board. Um it

103is a pleasure to be back here again in front of all of you and and updating you on our first quarter results. Um, I would like to just take a minute to reintroduce myself in case any of you are not familiar. Uh, I am Siobhan Kerry. I'm the regional vice president for Chartwell's K12 for the Midwest region. We have here Nick Kanik. He's our area director and directly oversees the on-site team for Elcart Community Schools. Um, >> ah, thank you. Before we start, I just wanted to take a moment though to thank all of you, Dr. Huff with trusting us with the school nutrition for the Elcart students. Um it has been really it's been a pleasure uh to serve Elcart Community Schools. Um the students, the staff, um everybody has just been so welcoming

104um and so just appreciative and it's been a real collaborative effort. Um, first I just want to take a moment to thank a few people. Um, before we get into the presentation, um, obviously all of you, Dr. Huff, um, I would like to take a moment to thank, uh, Miss Ross and her team. Um, Sarah Castleman, she has been our school food service liaison. Um, she has been wonderful. Um, and then most importantly, uh, Mr. Rhodess, DJ Rhodess, and all of your technology support. Uh that was huge in the beginning. Um I don't know what we would have done without you. Um and then uh and then obviously the last uh operations uh Mr. GNAC. Um so those are all the people that we you know have been so great when we first came in

105um and were so collaborative and helpful to make sure that we had a very successful transition. So let's get into it. Uh so here's our agenda. Um, we want to make sure that we reintroduce uh the dining team so that you know who's supporting uh and serving your students of Elkcart. Uh, we're going to go through our achievements of what we've done so far in the first quarter. Uh, and then we're going to give you a financial update which is basically July 1st through end of January and then kind of talk to you about what's what's more to come, right? What's next, what we're focusing on for the remainder of the year and then what we see for next school year. I am going to turn it over to Nick and Nick's gonna present on

106the next few slides. >> All right. So, just want to walk everyone through uh our on-site management team. Uh so, we have uh at the top Miss Tanya Garner, our resident district manager. Uh she brings over 23 years of K12 experience uh all with Chartwells. Um and then we have Jess and Mike Briney who are our directors of dining services. Uh they are new to K12 food service, but they bring a combined 30 years of food service management experience. And then we have Chef Marello Marino. Uh a a very uh uh he's a great guy to work with. Uh and very passionate about what he does. Uh we brought him on the team to uh help with um culinary uh training and also with our um uh nutrition education programs. And then we have Katie

107Buildhouser. Uh she's our resident dietitian and she is to support with compliance um and dietary uh compliance and allergies and she also supports with the nutrition education. And then I also want to point out Miss Kayn Brown and Sharon Stout. Uh we did hire them on they were from the Elcart management staff. Uh and they have also been uh just a terrific support to work with. All right. Next up, we want to talk about some of the achievements uh that we've had already this year. Uh that includes uh a staffing update, uh some of our student engagement events, uh and then uh some of the cafeteria menu upgrades we've done, and then Siobhan's going to finish it up with uh some feedback and also a financial um over overview. All right. So for staffing, uh

108we currently have about 140 frontline associates um employed with us. Um about 80% of those are original from um the district staff when we first took over. Uh we've already promoted uh six of those people into leadership positions uh for the most part into unit lead uh roles in the buildings. And then I did want to point out too that we uh combined uh the staff has over 3,000 hours of training already. Um we had a huge 3-day training event uh to open up the school year and we continue to have training with our unit leads and also the hourly staff throughout the year. So here's uh a few pictures from our most recent student engagement event. As you can see, uh, Chef Marello and, uh, Katie are out there. Um, and this is our

109dis discovery kitchen is what it's called. Um, and we use this to, uh, promote new recipes. Um, and also to hand out some free samples, uh, so that the kids can try and, um, you know, just to drum up more excitement in in the cafeterias. Uh it's a very diverse program that we can also use in the classroom as well uh whenever that is required or requested. All right. So some of the upgrades that we've uh already accomplished this year. Uh so we did uh install new signage at all of the ele uh middle schools. Um we do have a new serving line that did go into uh north side. uh that happened over winter break uh with plans for uh the other two middle schools to uh get updated serving lines over spring break.

110We do plan on updating uh new signage in the elementary schools as well. We did hold off um potentially we didn't want to uh you know go back and have to take signs down uh with school closings and everything. We also updated the uh digital signage at the high school as well. uh some of the updates to uh uh food service uh operations in general. Uh so with the elementary schools they uh all the meals were produced in a central kitchen. Uh that has changed. All the elementarymentaries uh are now preparing and cooking uh batch cooking on site which means that the meals are uh produced in smaller quantities to help with the freshness. And then of course uh as you all know uh more options and uh more variety uh is also on the

111menus. I'll hand it over to Siobhan. >> Great. So so obviously any successful uh food service program uh we for us it's all about the feedback. Um and so one of the things that we did uh was first with parents. So we sent out a survey to parents. Uh we had 218 parents respond to the survey. So thank you uh community. Um and it was to all grow it was all grade levels but mostly the response came from the elementary parents. And this was our way of just understanding what we call a witty what's important to you. Um and so from our perspective we wanted to understand what do the parents want to see for their students um in in school nutrition. Um, so the staff was rated very high, uh, which I was really

112excited to hear that that, you know, they're friendly, um, and they're helpful to students. Um, the other couple of things, obviously, taste of food, variety of food were the most important aspects of the school meal. And then top wish uh list items were alternative service points uh and food and nutrition curriculum which obviously that you know based on our discovery kitchen platform um those are those are those events that we'll be holding more and more in the cafeteria and you know that's another piece you know principles have been very helpful and very supportive of those events. Um, I know they're not always ideal. Uh, you know, when you're coming in and you want to, you know, bring in these, you know, bringing these big tables and elaborate, you know, samples and, you know, kids getting

113up out of their seats and trying and and, uh, and exploring and being curious. Um, and the principles have all been very supportive. So, thank you to the principles as well for um, allowing us to do that in their kitchen, in their cafeterias. Um, the last thing that we did, um, in for us, we really enjoy doing focus groups with students, um, it's it's it's it elevates the surveys. So, sometimes we send out surveys to students, um, and you don't get the context, right? You don't really understand what they're looking for. So, um, we worked with the building principles to get, um, a, you know, a selection of students from all the different secondaries. Um, and we brought them into a room and we did what a typical focus group is. We asked them, you

114know, what do they currently like, what do they currently dislike? Um, talking about, you know, flavor profiles, what would they like to see? And so the key takeaways obviously were again friendly staff, which was really nice to hear. Um, they really enjoyed pizza, the burgers, so anything on our grill station. Um, and then the buffalo chicken dip, which is always a fan favorite on our create station. um wish list. Uh they'd like to see healthier breakfast options. Um faster lines, availability of popular items at the end of uh I think it was third lunch period. I think I have lunch period, but I most of the time it's that third lunch period is always key. Uh and then more fruits and vegetables uh and more drink options besides milk. So that was again very helpful.

115Um and those student focus groups were done through middle school and at the high school. So here's the financial piece, right? So this is just the quarter first quarter. Um so again just to give you an overview our success factors. Um so the reason why these I'm very excited with these um metrics is that we have an extremely dedicated frontline staff. Um they they really understood. I think you know the first couple months the transition was scary. Um and they were you know unsure. Um but then after you know finally by the time we got to October everybody kind of was relaxed. They understood what was the expectation and they understood that we were here to serve at the pleasure of Elkcart. Um the other factor is obviously controlling costs and efficiencies. Um strong district

116administration collaboration. Um I feel like we were talking to to Miss Ross and her team probably every other day there for a while. Um and so they were super patient and always just helping us whenever we came with, you know, a thought, an idea, you know, a recommendation. Um and so it's it was wonderful. Um same thing with uh and obviously we had a huge uh regional uh support team come to Elcart and spent multiple weeks here. Uh I think we had what would you say 30? I think it was it was at least 30 people um from the Midwest region as well as far as um the South uh and as far north as like we had like some people from I think the Massachusetts region. So um so looking at meal counts uh

117so you can see here uh we serve through January so through the end of January we've served over 722,000 lunches 352,000 breakfasts. So that lunch equivalates to about 74% participation in lunch. Um and then the breakfast equivalates to about 38% uh participation in breakfast. Um so we have a little work to do in breakfast. I think one of the things that we got out of the focus group was you know we only serve cold grab-and-go breakfast and so I think that we're going to keep working towards um developing the breakfast menu to serve more hot options and I think that will increase participation. Um we gave you a metrics for the alocart. Um so they we sold just about $227,000 in alocart items. Um currently profitability so this is very exciting. Um through Q1 we

118are at a break even. So that means we haven't lost but we haven't made um and so from my perspective kind of where you were last year um you know it's a huge turnaround. Um and so what we foresee towards the by the time the next five months by the time we get to June we will see you back in the black. So um and then lastly total sales. So total sales this is a combination of all your sales at the register. So obviously your C. So, anything second meal or aloc cart plus all of the reimbursements from the federal government for the meals um is just over I'm sorry I'm hard to see 4 point is that 4.8 >> 469 >> sure 4.69 69. Don't tell anybody I'm getting old. Anyway, so um so

119you know obviously that will continue those reimbursements and and your sales will continue to grow. So the more to come for the the last uh part of the school year and then when we put product costs and rebates here because I think that was a big question. Um you know you know why Chartwells? Obviously, we give all of our, you know, our nutrition education, our value, our team, the quality menus, but the other piece of it is is our is our purchasing. Um, so our purchasing program is huge. It's it's the best in as far as FSMC companies go. We're very proud of it. And so what does that mean? That means that your rebates there, that $459,000, that's about 20% of discount back to you based on your purchasing. So that all flows to

120your bottom line. All right. So what's next? Um so obviously you know we're still going to work on the efficiencies um and keep working on um improving breakfast and you know just on the foundation. I mean again it's only been six months so still continue with training and um and just trying to bring fresh new menu ideas to the students. Um but these are the three things that we want to look at for next year. So the Navigate Foundation um is a wonderful program that we've just implemented uh at a few of our schools here in Indiana. Um it is based on uh it's work-based learning. So it is a 12week paid internship for students that are wanting to you know consider the culinary field. Um and we have this it's a resource. So obviously

121there's some collaboration here. this is something if if you wish to have it, this is what we can provide. Um, but it gives students real world opportunities. They get to shadow us for 12 weeks. They get to work um in the kitchens. They get to have field trips to other venues. So, it's kind of um so I'll give you an example. Down in Indianapolis, we're going to have stu we have six students currently in the program. Uh and they're getting an opportunity to go to Gamebridge Fieldhouse and work with the team there on the Big 10. I think it's the Big 10 Championship, the women's Big 10 Championship. So, they get exposure to some of these different opportunities. They're also going to get an opportunity to go to the Children's Museum and work there as

122well for a day with our instructors. So, it's pretty cool. Um and then from there the students and this is mostly for juniors and seniors that are are considering um you know going into the work force instead of you know military or college um they will get fasttracked into compass if they wish um that we would give them priority uh opportunity for uh position in in our company not just K12 right so that's not always the as I always say the the fun one right but they of the sports and entertainment, you know, getting to work in some of these big arenas and having those opportunities. Um, but there's healthcare, there's uh senior living, there's, you know, business dining, you name it. We have so many different platforms and opportunities for the kids. Um, secondly

123is mood boost. So, this is another program. It's another nutrition education program and it's teaching kids how food makes them feel. Um, so we'll be bringing that uh with our dietician and our chef Marello. that'll be in the cafeterias next year. This is mostly focused on elementary um and it's just helping kids identify what foods make them feel good. And then lastly, this is more for the secondary kids. This is Global Eats. It is our platform um of teaching kids about foods from different countries, different cultures. Um and that we bring usually bring a celebrity chef um that represents, you know, so right now we have six celebrity chefs. Um, some of you may be familiar, uh, I'll talk one for example, um, country of Mexico is Jonathan Zeruggoza. He's been featured on Netflix, the

124Taco Chronicles. Um, and he represents Mexico and will come and, you know, we can do lots of different things, but essentially he can be in the cafeteria. He'll be there for a couple hours doing some cooking demonstrations and talking to the kids and giving out samples and again talking about, you know, his culture and his background and um, so it's a great experience. But we have, like I said, six different countries. I think China, India, Korea, Caribbean, um, and Mexico. So, uh, that's it. That's Miss Lynn and Miss Amber at the high school. Miss Amber was my buddy. I worked with Miss Amber, uh, during opening that first week on Sono. So, it was really nice. She did not look like that the first day. I'm just saying they did not smile. But, it was

125really it was really, really nice to see. uh when we put it together and they sent me some photos, I was like, "That's the photo for us." So, any questions? >> Yeah, >> I do I do have a question. I um >> Well, first of all, great presentation and and I I think, you know, a great start six months into this. Uh the financials uh are reassuring. It's, you know, we're going in the direction that uh we we were hoping that we needed to go. Yep. >> Uh when we engaged with you. So, um I like those early indicators. Um I also like the fact that you have the the surveys and the focus groups with the students to to to find out uh you know what their interests are, what they like. Um I

126think if I remember and I've got to remember far back I we we didn't have any input. I you know I think I specifically remember Wednesday surprise. Um wasn't really sure what it was but uh it was a surprise. So, I I I like the fact that you engage the students and um the discovery kitchen where you try to promote new recipes and this is just out of my own curiosity um with the samples. Has there been anything? It just was a swing and a miss and didn't hit and uh uh that you can recall. Um >> you that would be more neck. >> Yeah. Not not that's coming to mind. Um if we do get negative feedback on it, uh we we don't put it on the menu. >> Yeah. Yeah. I would I

127would assume that by the time it got to Discovery Kitchen samples that you were fairly sure that it was going to be accepted. But no, I I I like that uh engagement with our students because I think that is, you know, really important that uh um they they have a say in and and can convey what they like and what they don't like. So, >> we won't be putting hummus anytime soon on the menu. I can tell you that. >> Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, thank you. >> Thank you, Kevin. Well, and the Navigate Foundation that you were talking about, that is for uh upper classmen, correct? >> Yes, correct. Thank you for clarifying. So, it's it's really for juniors and seniors as kids that are getting ready to go into the work into the

128workforce. Obviously, like I said, it's a it's a collaborative effort. I mean, this is just a resource that we bring to our partners. Um, some school districts have elected not to partner, some some districts have. I think from our perspective, we felt that Elkcart would be a a wonderful place to, you know, to kind of partner with it. But again, there's there's a lot more to to work through as far as children's schedule, so on and so forth. >> Does that partner with like what we already have going on in our career center with our culinary department with our >> correct? >> Yeah, that's awesome. >> Yeah. Again, so whomever that person is, obviously we'll be we'll be connecting with them to see how that all all that works. >> Yeah, for sure. All right.

129Great. Thanks. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Bye. Bye. >> All right. Moving right along. Next on the agenda, we have uh uh Mrs. Wood. We have the Excellence of Elcart. Yeah, that was taken off. Thank you, President Scott, members of the board, Dr. Huff, community members. I'm grateful for the opportunity to share highlights in the areas of academics, arts, and athletics. In academics, eighth grade students across the district took an important step in their academic journey as they visited the Elcart High School freshman division. Students toured the campus, explored programs, and connected with current freshmen who shared their experiences, helping prepare them for a successful transition to high school. Congratulations to our Elcart Lions at the Elcart High School who earned their

130academic letter. This honor recognizes students for outstanding academic achievements based on combination of their GPA, SAT, ACT performance, and participation in the academic competitions reflecting their dedication to excellence in the classroom. In the area of arts, our fifth graders across the district recently had an opportunity to select the band and orchestra instrument they will play in middle school. This exciting milestone marks the beginning of their journey in our middle school music programs and continues to grow their growth in arts. Elkart High School seniors Owen Marx and Christian Overgard recently participated in a unique bass workshop led by Alec Belchure, associate principal basist at the St. Louis Sympathy Orchestra. Students worked on bass fundamentals, listened to professional performances, ask questions, and even had the opportunity to try his instrument, providing a memorable and enriching learning experience.

131In the area of athletics, Elkart High School senior wrestler Kyle Summers was sent off last Friday as he prepared to compete at the IHSAA state wrestling tournament at Gamebridge Fieldhouse. Kyle enters the state tournament as a sectional and regional champion, semi-state fourth place finisher and state qualifier representing Elcart with outstanding achievement and dedication. And I apologize, the title is wrong on that one. But also in athletics, Elcart High School student athletes stopped by Pinewood Elementary School to take part in the March Madness book bracket by reading with elementary students. It was incredible to see our athletes share their love of reading, building connections, and helping younger students get excited about books. Some of our future happenings. February 25th, Westside Bands and Orchestra isma preview concert. February 26th are Black History Month programs at Mary Beck

132and Roosevelt. March 1st will be the gentleman and scholars Elcart Scholar spelling bee and March 3rd will be Elcart High School's back basketball sectional. As always, please be sure to follow our district and social media pages as we share each day the excellence of Elcart schools. Thank you. >> Thank you, Wendy. Yeah, for those of you has an agenda out there, we did have uh the alumni excellence uh award uh that's going to be continued out. Technical >> Yeah, we had some technical difficulties and getting that set up. So, we'll uh uh get that back on the agenda as soon as we can because that is always uh um one of the things I personally look forward to uh is is highlighting um you know students and and alumni that have gone on to do

133great things. So, we'll get that back on the agenda as soon as we can. Um but next on the agenda, we have the consent items. Uh, do I have a motion? >> Motion. >> I have a motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I have a motion. I have a second. Do I have any discussion from the board? >> Yes. And so, um, once again, um, as we just take a a moment of silence again, a moment of peace just to represent, um, Willie Williams. He was the substitute custodian that worked for us for over three years and many of our buildings. Um, we want to just thank his family for allowing us to have him for the time that we did and find thankfulness and joy and peace and knowing that he

134is resting with our Lord and Savior. And we just appreciate Willie and the time that he spent with us and then we'll transfer over um to something that is remarkable with Alcar Education Foundation. And what's great about this is we are moving into ISMA season and that's where you know all of our bands orchestras from the junior high all the way through the high school. We have some brand new um music students that have done the solo ensemble for the very first time and have had much success. So I'm looking forward to Wendy sharing with us next month or next meeting on all the success that our music departments have had. But in the meantime, we can celebrate that the Elcart Education Foundation this month alone donated $25,500 to our music program. So our choir

135program at the high school received 5,000. Our theater program received $10,000. The school in general, K through2 music department received 10,000. And our music program and children's choir at Cleveland received 500. So that can be used for fees for growing for you know tutoring partnership instruments all of those. So 25,500 to grow music which we know that music is a way to the child's heart and education in many different ways. So thank you Elkar Education Foundation for that wonderful donation. And um as we move into the consent items, I do want to say that I am going to ask for a roll call just because I needed a little bit more time. I'm processing some information. So, I want to make sure that we move through that in the way that I vote. Please. >>

136Okay. >> Any other discussion or questions from the board regarding the consent items? >> Seeing or hearing none, uh, Dor, could we have a roll call vote for the consent items? >> And yes, >> we >> Scott, >> yes. Kelly Mullen, >> no. >> Mike Bernett, >> no. >> JC Davis, >> yes. >> Eric Ivory, >> yes. >> Uh 52. Motion passes. 52. Thank you. Next on the agenda, old business. Uh we do not have anything under old business. So we'll move right along to new business. Uh Miss Ross, we have a contract with Vector Solutions for initial consideration and I believe waiver of second reading. >> Yes, that's it. Thank you. The administration presents a contract with Vector Solutions for initial consideration and requests waiver of second reading, please. >> Thank you. Uh do

137I have a motion uh to uh accept the contract as presented and to wave second reading? Motion. Oh, hey. Second. I >> have a motion. I have a second. Do I have any questions or discussion from the board? Seeing or hearing none. All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion passes. >> Thank you, Dr. Roush. We have a memorandum of understanding with Beacon Health System Community uh impact. >> Thank you, President Scott Trustees. Dr. Puff. The administration recommends approval of the memorandum of understanding between Beacon Health System and Elcart Community Schools. >> Thank you. Uh do I have a motion uh to accept theou as presented? >> Motion. >> Have a motion. Do I have a second? >> I have a second. Any questions or discussion from the board regarding theou with Beacon Health System? Um, who's

138going to be doing the instruction? Is it beacon or >> correct? Yes. >> Okay. >> And the teachers will be in the classroom while they're instructing. >> And then there was a certain section number five that was not to be taught. >> Correct. >> Okay. By anybody? >> Correct. >> Why was it in there? It was not to be taught. I don't they they put it in there and just uh and with that caveat that it was not going to be taught. >> Yep. >> Any other questions or comments regarding uh thisou seeing or hearing none. Uh all in favor >> opposed. Motion passes. Thank you Dr. Roush. Miss Ross, back to you. Financial report. >> Thank you. I'd like to present the monthly financial update for January. >> Uh before we dive into expenditures,

139just a highle overview of our budget now that things are coming more into frame in terms of our resources for the education fund. So here I've provided a look back at 2025 versus 2026 education fund revenue. That first row there uh we budgeted a certain amount as you can see there and we actually received we budgeted 97 actually received 93 million for 2026 we're looking at 90 million in revenue from the education fund and that's a function of um average daily membership or student enrollment trends. Um, with that said, the breakdown, you know, is as follows. Under there, you can see what we spent on wages and benefits in the prior year and the percent used of that fund. Um, so just one of the you can see that glaring gap there in wages and

140benefits um that we need to bridge. Um the next item I kind of group together curriculum supplies, professional services, transfers to the career center for tuition. That budget is going up a bit as curricular uh materials are moving to the education fund in 2026. So that's bumping that up a little bit. Transfers to operations. Um the education fund was only able to transfer 3 million last year. Um it was budgeted to transfer nine. We didn't make that mark, but we did budget that for 2026. Um, so the result you see of 2025, if you ahead of those percentages, it is over 100% because we went over budget in 2025. Some of you may have done that quick math uh over budget. So, we had to uh dive into our cash balance and as a result

1412025 um our cash balance decreased from 35 million to 1.4 million. So for 2026, we want to do better and um increase we want to end up the result being under budget. We want to build up our cash balance and increase that cash balance from 1.4 million to 4.6 million. So that's a high >> I just want to make sure you meant cash balance 3.5 million, not 35 million. Correct. >> That's correct. If I said 35, that was incorrect. 3.5. Bring me back down. Okay. Thank you. So, um, here's our working budget, uh, education fund. A little more detail here. Um, there's our beginning cash balance that we just referenced. And here's our receipts that we anticipate. Uh, total receipts, uh, about 90 million as referenced on the prior slide. Round it up a bit.

142Here's our budget, uh, for our expenses. You see wages and benefits. Those total that 70 million that I referenced uh, on the prior slide. You can see the transfers to operations. So we want to end under budget 86 million ideal so we will have a net revenue so we can increase our cash balance. So moving on this is the same information just in a graphical form and just uh what I did differently here wages and benefits are both in blue. So you can see the portion of the pie wages and benefits consume of the education fund. So updates this year um state tuition support is down wages and benefits we have that gap curricular materials restored to the education fund. Um and I we are budgeting net revenue just to watch that amount. So we

143end in a higher better positive position and also budgeting transfers to ops in the previous budget last year is pretty much kind of taken off from the top before you all kind of saw it but I want you to see it as part of the working budget here. So and just so expenditures we're here now on just the expenditures for the education fund in January. Um, in comparison to our budget, um, you see our total receipts and total expenses. Well, expenses surpass receipts. This was a three pay row month. So, that's expected. So, also expected that our net revenue will be negative in a three-pay month. However, since our cash balance is starting off less than we would like, we uh went to a negative cash balance in the education fund. So that's one of

144the reasons why we need to build up that cash balance for this very reason. We should stay positive even in a three-pay month. Uh education uh cash flow not much of a a trajectory here. We could just have our one month here. As you can see, total receipts were less than total expenses. And you can see there at the bullet our cash balance about 250,000 in the negative. Any questions on the education fund before I move on to operations? If none. Um so just a brief overview of our educations um operations fund budget. We'll talk about that beginning cash balance. It's essentially from 2025. Um essentially it's coming up in a second. I'll put it in more context, but let's just jump to receipts for a moment. um revenue from local sources. This is our

145tax based revenue is one of our primary sources of income here and the transfer from education fund. These are primary to sources of income to support the operations fund. So here's our budget and you see our expenses here. We're uh shooting revenue to expenses to match revenue which I'll talk about why we can do that in a moment. and our anticipated ending cash balance which I'll talk about here is the graphical uh representation of this information and we see wages and benefits comprise less of the pie in the operations fund driven primarily uh by supplies this fund that could be custodial supplies and you've got your utilities. So these are big portions of the operations fund. Just some wrap-up notes. Um, our budget is three million less from prior year. Um, we anticipated more revenue

146from local sources last year and so that bumped up the budget. We thought we were getting about 32 million from tax uh supported revenue, but it ended up being 27 million. This year we're actually anticipating 29 million from local um tax sources. So, I would strike that decrease in revenue from local sources. it actually looks like it's going up, but we're being more conservative overall. Um, and just a note on the ending cash balance, we get our um, revenue payments in December and June. Um, that local tax revenue. So, what you're seeing here, why we started the year with such a large cash balance is because of that December payment. Um, so that will happen in 2026. We'll probably end with a large cash balance because we're just getting a payment in December. So the

147December payment funds the beginning of the next year. So it's not money just sitting there that we have that we can spend. It funds and gets us started to the next year if that makes sense. So I want to kind of make a tiein um for people. So our cash balance at the end of January is is about 11 million just under 11 million. And so that money has to get us in the operations budget until June. And we know with our spending, our our average spending per month, we're it's not going to get there. Hence why we're we did we approved the general obligation bond earlier this evening to to be able to give us money to be able to operate the operations fund so we're not in a negative cash balance and being

148able to pay our bills. >> Exactly. You stole my sizzle for the next slide. Sorry. But no, thank you. That's exactly right. I appreciate you reinforcing that. Okay. So, looking at our expenditures uh for the operations fund for January, um you see here here total receipts are quite low, right? Because we don't get that tax payment until June and in December. Our expenses were higher. We average about 3 million a month, but again, this was a three pay month. So, typical in this fund is to have a a net expense because we only really get those two large payments. um ending cash balance is positive. However, look at the cash balance. If we're spending on average about three million a month, we're going to get through that quickly. So, thus the bond uh issue that

149we requested this evening. Okay, I addressed that. And so, finally, to wrap up the operations fund, here's our uh cash balance which we just discussed. And if I may move on to the rainy day fund. No change for the month of January. Still at $6.7 million. And here's our cash balances combined at the end of January. Uh about $13 million 13.7. And here is um from one of our partners policy analytics. It just walks us through. They help us project our cash balances. And we're here looking at 2026. Um they've helped us project our cash inflows, outflows. Um and you will see here, I'm going to highlight this row. Um we are still in a deficit spending. Um we are still working on aligning our budget with our staffing. So um overall 2026, um we

150are in a deficit spending, but this number is trending downward. and we'll talk about that on the next slide. Um this is where we're projected to end the year um for 2026 and then and even beyond. So you see we have some cash flow issues and just reminding the community of this and we are working on this diligently. Um more information coming forth and just also providing here um we do have some consolidation efforts underway that is going to help us with improve our cash balance uh in 2026. We may start to be able to see some of those effects kick in. um probably September, October, we should start seeing some savings there. But you'll see it also helps us improve our cash balance moving forward. 27, 28, 29. But you can also see there's

151still work to do after the consolidation. Um so some of the savings initiatives we've been just diligently working on. You'll see um some of the items there before. I have kept those there for now, but I have updated this one um as we're looking at our payroll from August, which is the beginning of the school year to the end of the current reporting month. Um so this that period last school year and that period this school year, um our payroll um is down over $2.3 million across um the education fund and the operation fund. So that's significant movement. So we are trending in the right direction. So overall our savings this year initiatives are producing over 5.1 million savings. Uh last report showed 4.4 million. So we are hard at work. Other savings initiatives that

152are still uh producing gains are time clock software, the food services management contract as you heard from them this evening and continued work on the district uh consolidation district footprint. Just a reminder, please be sure to check out our uh finance dashboard and learn more about the funds and what they're comprised of and what we can do with each fund um at your leisure. And that concludes the finance update. >> Uh any questions from the board or discussion? >> Okay, we'll move right into the insurance report, Miss Ross. >> Okay, thank you. Um for your uh insurance plan update, um we have a loss ratio of 70.9% which is comparable to last year at 68.9. So this means our plan expenses were less than our plan premiums and we have a favorable loss ratio. So

153our plan is currently doing well. And that concludes our insurance plan update. >> Comments, questions from the board regarding the insurance uh plan updates. >> Thank you. Next we have the consolidation update. Dr. Hoff evening, excuse me. Good evening, President Scott, members of the board, community. Tonight we are here to give our February 24th um consolidation update. Um before we begin, I just want to let uh people know that uh this work is obviously not taken lightly. There are thousands of decisions that are made during this process and our goal is to try to get each and every one of those things right. Um, and so that takes feedback from obviously from our community, from our staff, from our board, from our stakeholders because I think that it's important the way we get this right

154this time. So, um, tonight our purpose here is just to share some of our preliminary logistics of where we are in with some of these, um, decisions that we know that the board will need to authorize or finalize when that time comes. Nothing that we share today is set in stone. We have heard some information tonight and I think um probably throughout this process that makes us really need to pivot and pause to make sure that we are maintaining what we said we were going to do, the integrity of our cohorts. And so tonight you'll hear some conversations from our director of exceptional learners. You hear some information from our incoming superintendent. Um and you'll also hear some from our other cabinet, our leadership c our c from our cabinet to just say share where

155we are please. So use this opportunity to ask some questions about hey how do we get here and how we get to that point. Um they have worked very diligently to make sure that we have um definitely met the need and the charge of what we um set out to do through the consolidation process. I think we need to remind um not remind it's always good to go back to where you started. We this was a phase uh three-phase process. We are in phase three. Phase three is really how do we take care and how do we move people from A to B but also do it in with a with skill and with care. We in the first phase we talked about why and the need for consolidation. The district was is in severe

156financial trouble. You can't underell that. That's not a this year issue. That's not a last year issue. That is issues that have just structurally have developed over time. And I think that over the course of this year, we've been very intentional about making sure that people unders I can't say understood, but had enough information to come to that conclusion that we need to make some serious changes to our district footprint and also how we um not how we deliver services, but what that looks like in our for our future. The district that district needs to remember that our ultimate goal is always to take care of our students, our teachers and our members in our community. And during this process that is at the core of what we are trying to do. Phase two was

157the policy part was making sure that we came up to the board with recommendations and coming up to uh with you with how are we going to decide probably some of the most significant decisions that we've made in I think this history of Elcart. Closing five schools is not lost on me. Certainly it wasn't lost on my hair. I have more gray hairs now than I ever thought was possible. Um, but I don't take those decisions lightly. Many of us have lost many sleep uh sleepless nights hoping and praying that we're making the right decisions for people. Um, a wise person once said, "God will put the words in your mouth when you don't have the words to say." And I certainly haven't gone through that this time when we talk about this work. But

158also I think that we all know that when we are going through this process that is important to not only communicate our decisions but also when we see things that may end in a way that is not in the district's um on that path that you pivot. This is a again I can't reinforce this enough. We've made tons of decisions in four months for a process that typically takes districts years to go through. I do not want to underell that. That means people are really working to make sure that we are doing not things just quickly, but trying to do things as right as possible. I had some very spirited conversations with our district leadership team this week about how do we make sure that we end up landing on doing what's right not what's

159doing what's sounds logical and know sometimes those things end up in different ball courts and you'll hear some of that um conversation this evening so you hear a lot about what we're doing in phase three I think the first person up who's going to speak this evening is we're going to talk about our non-traditional schools program and I'm going and turn it over to Dr. Roush. >> Thank you, Dr. Huff. So, our non-traditional programs, the district administration would like to recommend that all K to2 non-traditional school programs be housed in the same building. This continuum of services will maintain our current programs of Elcart Academy, Pride Middle School Academy, and Pride Academy while providing a more cohesive structure. A centralized location will enhance students access to resources and we will continue working closely with staff

160to ensure students receive the same level of services and support they have experienced this school year. The district administration is also looking at starting a virtual school next year due to losing at least 300 students last year to various virtual schools. We want to keep the funding uh from these students who choose to go elsewhere and enroll into virtual schools here in Elcart Community Schools. Next up is Lindsay Brander. Good evening. The young adult program serves students with disabilities who have completed high school and provide services through their 22nd birthday. The program will remain in its current location at the freshman division, which was specifically designed to support transition-aged students. The space includes an apartment setting and a kitchen that provide authentic opportunities to practice independent living and job skills. There will be no changes

161to service delivery. Students will continue to receive the same individualized transition supports and community- based instruction focused on postsecary readiness readiness and independence for our intense interventions special education programs. We've received feedback from families and staff regarding our intense interventions classrooms as a part of the consolidation process. We recognize the importance of careful planning any transition to support student success. As we move forward, we are reviewing multiple factors including student needs, program requirements, staffing, transportation, environmental considerations, and the importance of maintaining established student cohorts wherever possible. Preser um preserving peer groups and trusted adult relationships is an important part of supporting continuity and stability for our students. Our priority is to make student centered, datainformed decisions and ensure highquality programming and continuity of services. Mrs. Reese will now provide an update on our early learning

162programs. Just a simple reminder, all PACE, Title One, and Head Start classrooms will be relocated to Roosevelt Steam Academy. With Hawthorne being impacted, we believe our preschool programs are most effective when housed together in one location, as demonstrated by our current current model. Roosevelt Steam Academy has designated space specifically for preschool programs to ensure a smooth transition. We will continue to provide the same high level of services and support. And this relocation will also create additional opportunities for our youngest learners to be immersed in an elementary setting, helping to strengthen their transition into kindergarten and beyond. And I believe Dr. Roush is next. Our high ability programs at the elementary schools will remain in Roosevelt Steam Academy and the high ability program at Westside Middle School will remain in the in the uh in at

163Westside Middle School as well. So the cohorts will remain in intact. there will be um no changes in service delivery for adult education. The district administration recommends that adult education relocate from Hawthorne to the freshman division due to the secure space originally designed for the program and its central location and again no changes to uh service delivery as well. And Maggie Lozano will be up next. Good evening, President Scott, members of the board, Dr. Huff, and community. I'd like to take a moment to walk through the upcoming staffing timeline, uh the steps that were taken to ensure a smooth transition, a thoughtful pro process, and to share what to expect over the next few months. On February 10th, we shared the staffing selection criteria, the process, and the timeline. And we began the implementation on

164February 20th. notifications were provided to uh staff currently serving under an emergency permit, transition to teaching license, or temporary contract. This early communication uh reflects the commitment to providing staff with as much notice as possible to plan. Now, looking ahead, March 4th, we will share a list of available positions for the upcoming school year along with the preference form that staff that are going to be impacted by the consolidation will receive. This will give individuals the opportunity to indicate where they would like to be considered for reassignment. That form will be due March 13th. We will then review those preferences alongside district needs with a clear priority of maintaining classroom stability and keeping class sizes consistent. By March 27th, reassignment notifications for the 2627 school year will be shared with impacted certified and classified staff.

165Some of these changes will occur through natural attrition uh help minimize overall impact on staff. Following that, the traditional internal transfer window will open from May 1st to May 15th with notifications of any transfers and decisions by May 29th. Lastly, any remaining available positions as of June 1st will then be posted and made available to external candidates. Overall, the focus throughout this process is to be as thoughtful and supportive while also providing as much clarity and opportunity for staff as possible. Okay. Registration for the 2627 school year will open on March 9th. I believe at the last board meeting I reported March 2nd. It will be March 9th for both new and returning students. Families of returning students will receive an email with a link to complete registration, while families of new students, including incoming

166incoming kindergarteners, can access registration through the district website. The transfer application window will be open from April 13th through May 8th. In addition, our kindergarten kickoff will take place on April 16th from 6 to 7:00 p.m. at Receiving Elementary Schools to welcome and support incoming kindergarten families. Families who need assistance with registration are encouraged to contact their children's school. Just want to remind our families that timely registration is essential to ensure accurate student information which directly impacts staffing, classroom assignments, resource allocation, and transportation planning for the upcoming school year. Dr. Huff, >> and as always, you can this information will be posted on our consolidation website. Um that was just a very very very brief overview of some of the things that we uh plan to continue to work on. My goal is to bring

167final recommendations to the school board before spring break. Um I want to go back and actually talk a little bit further in depth about Miss Brandon. Can I call you up here? Um to talk more about our intense programming and what we really are need to be working on with the I feel like we kind of glazed over that. Sure. >> So I want to just share what our um plans are. Um, so we have received a lot of feedback from uh families. Some of them you've heard tonight from our teachers, from staff that um work with our students with significant disabilities. For those in the community um who are not familiar with um uh students with significant disabilities, they require a different level of curriculum and care. Um oftentimes this requires specialized training and

168support of staff. Um so it's very important that the staff administration administration people in the building are familiar with how to work with our students with these disabilities. Um inclusion is incredibly important. It's important to Alcart community schools. Um and one of the factors that we do need to consider as we move forward is u maintaining the cohorts which means that students um um like I believe it was Miss Bleman Campbell uh came up and mentioned that her daughter um spent time or had been on the cheerleading squad and had spent time in um with her peers at her school that we are considering those factors when looking at moving programming um if we have to. So, I think that moving forward that is um incredibly important to get that feedback again from staff and

169families to really look at the cohort of students to determine how these impact um how these changes in programming could negatively impact our students. >> Miss Brander, you you you speak so eloquently when you're talking about those things. I'm just going to maybe put it in a little planer terms. Our goals if if you attend a school that has an intense program, most likely that's where you're going to go. And if you're a receiving school, that's where that most likely will be. But again, we'll get some feedback and and work with our teachers on that aspect. I think tonight and definitely during the conversations, I've spoken with multiple parents, spoken with multiple staff members over the last week when they saw that slide. and um making sure that kids not only have a not only

170have a great academic career but we don't sometimes their social is just as important. The friendships, the relationships, the people who care for them are just as important whatever instructional experience that you're going to provide. If you move to a different setting, yeah, efficiency that may work for you, but that doesn't necessarily work for the kid. and our flowchart should always be what works for the student and the kid. And so I thought it was important that we make sure that we address that and we address that fully this evening. And so um as we close this out, I want to make sure have an opportunity for the board to ask any questions before, um we end this part of our presentation. >> I just want to say thank you that you guys are having

171these authentic conversations and like was you were able to like put it out there so well so that people can understand. And also, thank you for being able to share what your plan of action is. I mean, this is a representation of you. You've been the face of the consolidation and your team is doing a wonderful job articulating on behalf of you and the plan. And thank you for listening to our family and parents as we navigate through this and make the decision. But I'm proud of our team and I'm proud of them being able to communicate what your plan of action is. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Mills. I really appreciate it. Um it it's a lot to condense five schools into make really high quality programming across the entire district. There's

172not one person who will not be impacted by the consolidation. I think we all know that. But what I want to say is that we take these decisions very seriously and we and we try to do things as artfully as we can. And I I keep hearing the word transparency brought up over and over. I think the district has done a really admirable job of making sure that we listen to people to make sure that we present information and that if we hear something to adapt. I'm not we're never going to promise to be perfect during this process. But I do think that we can be adaptable. And also remember this phase three. It it is about people and taking care of people. And I never want to forget names on a page. Th those

173are people. Moving from this building to we're moving people. And how do you move people? You move them with care and intentionality. So I just want to make sure that um not make sure I know we're doing those things and that is at the heart of the work that we do. So consolidation work is hard and we want to make sure that we get it right, but we also want to make sure that we are definitely listening to the viewpoints of everyone and trust me we we do. So Miss Mullins, I I I appreciate your feedback. Those are very kind words. >> Yeah. I mean, I I'm I could not be applauding your team more. Their eb and flow and having to ren just happens consistently. And you know, again, like they're articulating what the

174plan of action is on behalf of you and they're doing a phenomenal job and I'm very proud of them. It's been a a lot for them too. >> Hasben they have those 15 meetings um that we have every single day to talk about the aspects of the consolidation. they I felt very blessed to work with these administrators on that as on on that the every decision you make you know it's going to be hard it's going to impact either how someone is working how someone is learning where they're going to actually attend work and who is going to be leading the buildings there's no aspect of these decisions that doesn't touch somebody who's in those in those schools and so again don't take that lightly I mean, we've we've had countless conversations and and they

175have. So, I just want to say I've been proud of them. Um, some of them I think Kristen Cedarberg wants to run the next uh meeting. She has been where is she? No, she doesn't. But she does a great job putting this information together for us and she's wonderful with um thinking on the fly of how can we best represent this to make sure that it's easy for people to understand because you know what consolidation is not it's easy to understand but it doesn't make it less painful. It doesn't there are thousand ideas out there and it typically you leads to one path. Some things we have to do because it's the best decision because we have to do it and the other ones, hey, they're legal obligations. We have to make it because the

176law tells us to. We try to give you all those information. At the end of the day, I think we're getting it right. Am I going to promise everything is going to be perfect? No. But I do think that we will listen till we get it right the best we can. So, um, again, hats off to everyone who is giving feedback on this throughout this process. Mr. Scott, look, you have a question. I' I'd just like to add on to to what Kelly has said and and what you've said. You know, we we went into this um process many many many months ago and um I wish at the time, you know, there was a software that we could buy on consolidation or there was a a query we could put into AI or chat

177GPT and would spit out exactly what, you know, how this works and how we would need to do things. But there's not. And I I appreciate you and your your staff and your teams ability to, you know, we've heard the word pivot to to make a decision and and then to get other information, get feedback from parents, get other information, specifically like tonight, the intense intervention, special education, and the importance of cohorts and and and keeping children with their friends who who have who've allowed them to grow. and and it's evidenced by not only their growth in their class with their friends but by their parents and and the gentleman who spoke tonight you could see you know how important that was and the achievements his his son has made so this is brought forward

178you guys pause that let's let's think about this and I think you make the appropriate you know adjustments and decisions for unforeseen issues that again no software tells us what we need to So, I I I applaud you on the ability to do that. And as the board, I think we ask you, you know, make it make sense. We've got to approve it. Please present it to us in a way that we understand it. Answer our questions and and so we can approve, you know, these recommendations. And you've done that. and you've and you've gone back and you've changed some things and you followed up appropriately with okay we were thinking in this manner for these reasons further discussion further interaction with stakeholders further interaction with parents we're going to tweak it a little bit

179and this is why and you've and you've come to us each and every time with the reason and the why so I thank you again for the the the ability of your team to pivot your ability of your team to stay engaged with stakeholders and parents in the community and also coming your ability to come to us and explain your thought process. So again, great job and and it's tough tough decisions, but we will we will get through this. >> No, we certainly will. I don't like hearing my own voice. Um we we certainly will. I think anyone who comes up and gives a public comment in in to make sure that we're advocating to do the best for children and staff, they're a friend of mine. Maybe not formally like we're hanging out, but

180they are certainly invested in the school system and that I truly appreciate. My inbox last Wednesday, I heard from quite a few parents and several staff members. I know our team has met with staff members throughout the last week to come up with some of these not say recommendation but some of like hey this is what we're leading to right we work with some very brilliant people in our school district if there's a problem staff members will find it and they will hopefully we have a voice to tell you like hey this is have you thought about this I think arrogance says oh we already thought about this I think humility and integrity says you know what we actually have to do a better job of thinking about that and I hope in this process

181we've shown I don't like the word transparency because that's just what we should be doing. You're owed transparency. You're a taxpayer. You're an employee just like we're owed dignity when we're talking about these decisions. No one is out here trying to make someone's life intentionally harder. I I think some I think Miss Melan said the face of consolidation. I would rather be the face of fantasy football, not consolidation. But I do think I take that responsibility very seriously. So as we go through and we do this work and we talk about it, Mr. Scott, you and I have been on the phone at 12:30 at night talking about this work. >> Yes. >> And get right back up at 4:00 in the morning to possibly make a decision if we're going to have school or

182not. They're humans on this side, too. And no one wants to misstep on this work. And we're going to do it. and we're going to do it well because I think we've shown that we we rise to the level that's needed to provide high quality information to our community and to the board so you can make sound decisions. So, um again, that's I'm kind of like I'm preaching a little bit. I'm very proud of what we're putting up so far, but we're not done yet. We still got a lot of work to do. Um our we giving an update at the next board meeting with hopefully final recommendations on before the board meeting for spring break. >> Thank you. I I'll just say real quick, I don't want to, you know, keep this going, but

183I do think it's important enough. Um, you know, as I sit here and I hear um you, Dr. Huff, and I hear the members of the cabinets, I couldn't be more proud of how this work has been approached. It's all about balance. And I think um the the ability to hear from our community members to try to strike that balance to adapt and adjust when possible or when necessary uh has been very um it's it's been it's been good to to see and been been good to be a part of. So I I appreciate you, Kelly. Uh you know, the comments you shared and you too uh Doug, I'm sorry, Doug, you didn't say anything yet. >> But Mr. Scott. Um, I'm just saying I I'm very proud of the work you guys are doing

184and and um I appreciate it. >> I'm going to share something too. I think sometimes when we go through challenges, we get lost in our own perspectives and and where we are hurting or where we are struggling, but there's nobody that's connected to this process that's not going to suffer in some kind of way. And I think we shouldn't be comparing pain for pain or struggle for struggle. It's not better or worse. is just different and it's just coming to understand that it's difficult for everybody. Everybody's emotional capacity is being stretched through this process. It's not fun to fire people or to see we had a couple of um I don't know what those meetings were called where people were advocating to us to keep their job or whatever. That is heart-wrenching to sit through

185with a straight face trying to hold back your emotions. So I just think it's important that we understand that everybody in this process is suffering. The question is how can we come together and make the best decisions for everybody instead of pointing the finger instead of saying I'm hurting worse. We're all hurting. We're all stretched and this is difficult for everybody no matter where you sit. And I think you know we just need to remember that it's difficult for everybody. And how can we support each other better? >> Thank you Miss Davis. Appreciate it. Thank you, Dr. Huff, for the consolidation update. And I will give you a moment to uh make your walk over and gather yourself. >> Thank you, President Scott. >> My turn again. >> The floor is yours. Final thoughts? >>

186Definitely have a couple final thoughts. One, as a kid, if you're a kid and you're watching this board meeting, that's very interesting. Two, work on your handwriting as well as a kid because sometimes you can't read your handwriting when you get a little bit older. I wrote this a couple hours ago and I struggling reading. Maybe I just need readers. Um, in this >> here there's three different >> No, your your price is your price is too high, my friend. I don't I don't want those readers. Um but again I I think um it was well said by the board just the the ability through this process is that it's very fluid right and so we we pivot. So I just want people to understand that if you take the time to actually engage in

187dialogue you have tons of listening ears around you. So I just want to tell everyone I appreciate that. Um I also want to talk about this has been probably I mean been it'll be two years this Friday. It felt like over the last two weeks we've been dealing with 10 years worth of stuff in our school district. You talk about gray hairs and I talk about gray hairs. Um the last couple weeks have been just very it's been a lot of things that have happened in our school district. Um one of the things that I don't think you should ever get grace from is when things have to deal with safety. Point blank. Um you probably if you if you're connected to the school community last night you saw a letter that well letter not

188letter a message that came out and talked about that I'll be authorizing a uh investigation of our HR and our transportation department to make sure that we are fully going through all the process of making sure that we are strengthening our hiring procedures and that we are also making sure that we are doing all that we can to make sure that our kids come to and from school in a safe manner and then I will come back again right before spring break and give the board a formalized report. 20 the things that we did in 2021 might not for me to go back and play Monday morning cornback but I know that they will never happen again because I'm responsible for them now. You take the responsibilities that hit your doorstep and you look them

189in the face and you say hey that will never happen while I am here. I think it's important to make sure that the board and the community knows that we take things super seriously and when you actually do something that is not to your standard or to any type of standard that you own it and you step into it and you tell them how are you going to rectify those issues. So, I look forward to coming back to you uh board on I don't know what date it is, but whatever that date is before spring break to give you a comprehensive uh report of the things I know that we do well and the things that I know that we need to fix and immediately and with recommendations. And so if you are listening tonight,

190please know that we take that as the number one priority. Um, student safety, staff safety, and making sure that we are bringing in individuals who are who we are proud to put in front of our children. That's what really keeps me up at night. besides fantasy football. I am deeply disappointed that we missed the mark back then, but we won't miss that again. So anyway, I just want to tell you board, I look forward to bringing that if you authorize me to do that investigation of those two departments. >> Yes, thank Do I have the I >> you absolutely have the authorization any any uh >> it will be >> from the board regarding that >> it's important that we do that. I think it and not only I think no there's always room for

191improvement. It doesn't matter what department you're in. Doesn't matter what you do in your in your home jobs, whatever. There's always room for improvement and there's always ways to grow and to learn. And I think this gives us an opportunity to do that. And you know, I would suggest we've done a lot of things behind the scenes um with building s rebuilding systems and processes um protocols, procedures across the entire district. And this is another one and this is a really big one. um this department is is critical um because it impacts students and we have a few others that are critical that impact students. So I support this and I think as a as a district we should constantly be looking at all of our departments and seeing you know what are we doing

192well? What can we do better and and let's keep growing and and to so we can be excellent so we can set the standard. So I absolutely approve this. >> Well appreciate it. So, um, do we need a motion to Is that what you were asking for? >> No, I you don't need a motion. It's an internal I I I just want to make sure we're fully supported and making sure we go through those those overviews. Um, it's a lot of work to go back in time to look at every every file, every person, every but that's what will be done and I look forward to coming to bring that um that report to the school board. Well, >> thank you. Okay. Um, we'll end up u any closing uh statements from the board. >>

193Yeah, I just want to say one more time how excited we are about our musicians and what they're about to do this weekend. And I'm so excited for the development of that program. It's growing. Our music department is growing beautifully. Again, I want to congratulate our bowling team. If you've never been to Country Club Bowling Lane, the banner that they have there is beyond amazing. And I even saw, yes, I do bowl. I saw people on Sunday from our team actually bowling. They just never stop. So, congratulations to our bowling team. And I just want to applaud our parents and our community members that came and spoke. And Linda, if you're still here, I want to tell you how much I've missed hearing from you at the board meetings. I certainly have. And your charisma

194definitely keeps everybody engaged. So, thank you all and have a wonderful week and rest well because cabinet members, you are killing it and we are proud of you. >> And just real quick, I want to circle back and really touch on and echo what Dr. Huff, Miss Brander, my fellow board members have said. We are trying our hardest to get this right. Um, for those who don't know, I have a daughter with special needs as well. So to hear all of the special needs parents come out and voice their concern, say, "Hey, we need this. We want this. We get it. I want you guys to understand, I want to be crystal clear, undeniably clear. We hear you. We understand. And you have somebody up here fighting for the same things you guys are. We

195are privy to some information that you guys don't have. And that's not a brag. That's not, you know, we're better than anybody out there. We see things that the I would say normal, but a community member may not see. They may not get the information we do right now. Um, we are taking that information and we're seeing what's coming up in the near future and I just I want you guys please just give us a chance. Know that we know some things that you guys may not know right now. know we're doing our best with it and we absolutely have our kids best intentions their and their future in mind when we're doing all this especially the special needs. You're not going to find somebody who fights harder than a guy fighting for his own

196daughter. >> There's been times Dr. Huff I'm sure is tired of hearing from me because hey we need this or what are we doing with this program or how is this going to impact these kids? We've got somebody doing it. Just please give us some time, give us some faith and judge us in a year and when we see how everything pans out. And if we still is still so bad, come back to us because we're still listening. >> We're still going to keep fighting for you guys. But please just give us the grace and let us try to fix this. >> Thanks, Mike. Good job. >> Thanks, guys. Good job. Thank you, Mike. Mike, anyone else >> I want to share. I I think it's so encouraging how many people showed up today. Um

197to advocate for what's important to you, for fight for your students, to fight for your position. Those perspectives and opinions are very important that we need that so we can make the best decision. So, I applaud you for your level of engagement and your courage to come out and stand. What we're asking is that you continue that level of engagement through this process and even after this process when things settle down. It's that level of cooperation and partnership that's going to keep the district strong, make the district strong, and keep us moving in the right direction. So, I hope to continue to see these meetings packed out and to continue to hear your voices, whether it's whatever side, all of the voices are important, but we need you to keep coming and stay engaged. I'm

198so sorry to do this because those were very serious moments, but I want to share with you that you still have a wonderful opportunity to donate to dollars for scholars. If you don't know anything about it, call us and let us know, but continue to support our students through scholarship. So there you go. >> All right, with that said, meeting is adjourned. Thank you.