ECS Board of School Trustees’ Meeting 9/23/25

001I don't want to break down. Nothing. You go. >> Oh, sure. Sorry. I'm like Mary Poppins. She's taking things out of my bag. >> Next thing come out of the bag. >> The kitchen sink. You know, >> all right. It's 5:00. Uh, I'd like to call the September 23rd, 2025 Elkcart Community Schools public work session to order. >> Miss Ross, you're already at the podium. It is yours. >> Yes. Thank you. All right. We got the slides getting pulled up now. All right. So, good evening. Uh welcome to our budget uh work session for the 2026 calendar year budget. um to provide you an overview. Um we're going to check out our objectives, our academic goals um in which the budget is funding, just overview of our road map and a little dive into our

002funds that we'll be speaking about tonight. Education operations, debt service, and rainy day. These are the DLGF reviewed funds. Okay. And then what's next? Um the budget timeline. I would first like to start off with some acknowledgements and thank uh the awesome business team here at uh Elcart Community Schools uh and namely uh the budget team as well, Erica Pervvis and Jennifer uh is to be fiscally responsible, right? While sustainably operating within our means and things we know we have to do is decrease our expenses and increase our cash balances to be sustainable. So um our budget is designed to fund primarily um our academic goals and we want to focus on programs and services that improve student outcomes. So I have um provided here some of the goals at each um level including secondary

003elementary exceptional learners and English language learners have provided some of their goals for the year. If you'd like to take a moment to take a look at those and you'll have these for reference. So moving on to our budget road map, we have to complete the state prescribed DLGF forms. Uh primarily budgeted revenues, what's your budgeted expenditures? and they're looking at a 18month period from July to December 2025 trying to see how we end the year, our cash balances, etc. And that will kind of play into our uh advertised budget for January through December 2026. Um in this process after um we complete the necessary forms, you'll see next uh we have to provide notice to taxpayers and advertise our budgets and tax levies. after which uh we hold a public hearing which has to

004be at least 10 days before adoption, adopt a budget and then upload all the materials into Gateway. One thing to make note of tonight is um our advertised budget. The DLGF will then review and modify um our budgets and all budgets essentially that are DGF reviewed and set final uh amounts and tax rates and then will deliver us a uh budget order. Okay, so that's very important. And this is an advertised proposed budget, not the final. So, moving along, just um a flowchart of the items that are required by DLGF. Um you'll see here um we had to complete a current year financial worksheet um which provides uh six months projections to be used and rolled into subsequent forms. Here, a debt worksheet. Form one is actually all of our uh anticipated expenditures. Form two,

005miscellaneous revenues. This rolls into 4B. And then the outputs are form three, notice to taxpayers. And um form four, which kind of gives a notice of our adopted budget, tax levy, and tax rate. All right. So with that, I'm just going to go ahead and dive into our education fund. Okay. The purpose of our education fund is to support instruction that includes teachers, pair of professionals, building administrators, also curricular materials, instructional supplies essentially. Um just a reminder that our education fund is by per pupil uh level uh on a per pupil per student basis. Um the funding is on a fiscal year. Even though our budget we're speaking of tonight is on a calendar, this funding is on a fiscal year. So 2025 uh July 2025 to June 2026. Um we have two count days

006um that um will be observed. That's one is coming up very shortly. October 1st count um and our February 1 count. All right. So this is going to play into our next slide. The enrollment is a key piece to our education our tuition support in the education fund. So, speaking of enrollment a little bit more, um here is our enrollment trend at ECS. You'll see um the the graph starts off at um 2019 to present. We just recently had a a informal count getting ready for the formal count day on October 1st. So, we started at about 12,000 students. You'll see here 12,100 and over these past six years we're down to about 10,100. So our tuition support is based on enrollment per pupil. So we can anticipate and we know our tuition support is

007decreasing sometimes by millions of dollars each year based on the declining enrollment. Okay, with that said, if just if you take a look at just from fall last year to this year, so October 2024 to September of 2025, we're down um over 400 and some odd students, which would equate to about a $3.5 million tuition support, loss in tuition support. So that is the reality. We are currently for the moment a declining enrollment district and I do understand we'll have uh demographers possibly coming this year. And speaking of the higher trends, it's not just the broader higher level trends. It's not just Elcar Community Schools. It's it's an Indiana issue um declining enrollment. So another way to look at that that data that you just saw in terms of uh percent declines uh here you

008have our enrollment trend declines in percent terms and these are just our fall counts if we go from fall to fall. Just another way to look at the data. With that said, as I'm giving this cheery presentation, um um our education fund, >> Bless you, has suffered as as we just saw from 2019 to 2025, we had about that 2,000 student loss that I pointed out. And if we average our tuition support um over those years at about 7,400, you can see the magnitude of the loss um over $14 million. So that's just a reality of many school districts that have declining enrollments that we are losing hemorrhaging almost funds to an extent. Okay, moving on to the next slide. Uh still speaking on education fund revenue. Just diving back into that. Um this education

009fund revenue is uh supported by state tuition support and that includes uh five components here. Our basic grant which includes the foundation and complexity. You'll see that in that um little chart below. The basic grant has two parts. Uh the academic performance grant, special education grant, CTE grant, and NESP grants make up the total tuition support. Um I did just want to call out that this year which is new um curricular materials are now part of uh the foundation amount. So where we've heard that and we've seen a a slight increase even on this slide and your uh foundation amount it's pretty much getting off getting offset by curricular materials. Um so just keep that in mind that is new this year. there is an increase in the foundation and the uh basic grant but

010it's offset by that piece but also it'll be offset for Elcart because our our declining enrollment we won't get to realize or appreciate that uh little increase that does hit uh the basic grants we will see some but it is mitigated okay So this is just to provide you the the uh tuition support worksheet and just a deeper dive for your reference and how that looks. So you can see um here on this slide you got 2425 compared to 2526 our tuition support worksheet. Um you see if I may just jump down to the bottom you can see our ADM which was it adjusted moves but at this time it was about 10,498 as you could see. Um, and if you can see on line nine, I'm sorry, line 8, we were looking at about

01191 million in state tuition support. This year, if we look at that 10,100 we saw for September, right? And usually fall enrollment decline. So factoring that in, those two numbers are average. So 10,100 9,900 for fall, that's where you see that 10,000 ADM in the second column. That's where that's coming from. Um so they look at the ADM on a annual basis not just necessarily that um semester. So high level our state tuition support is is coming down a bit as you can see on this slide. Um there are some other forms of revenues um that do sit in the education fund um other than general property tax. I have a little footnote there. It includes primarily interest income. Um it's a small amount from local income tax, supplemental distribution, summer school reimbursement. So that

012will add a little bit to our coffers for the education fund which will we anticipate to sit about 93 94 million here. Okay. With that said, um we've talked about the revenue. Um kind of moving towards the um expenses and before we do would like to look at enrollment here. Enrollment in in kind of in ratio with our teacher staffing. So you see the green line there is our teaching teacher staffing levels as compared to our student enrollment. So you want to see and I've looked at other districts. You want to see those lines very very close, very tight. I think this slide kind of represents and shows us where we're at, where we're at. Um, we've got to get uh right size a little better to maintain a balanced budget and a sound education

013fund. So, this is the work. This is the our work. Um, not that we can't accomplish it. This is the work. Okay. All right. So, we talked about revenue, some of our challenges. is um here are some our expenses out of the education fund primarily like we talked about teachers classroom paras we're looking at their salary salaries and wages benefits curricular and instructional supplies are all embedded just a little bit about how we uh develop the budget um it is based on and driven by actual expense history this year um we were able to capture our first month's first two payrolls and project out. So you'll see on the next slide what that looks like and the challenge ahead of us. So it is based on actuals um budgeted for what is currently in place.

014Here's our challenges as demonstrated in that previous slide. Um sometime you know we set our staffing allocations often before we know our enrollment for fall, right? So sometimes we we may not get it exactly right. Um or even if we staff based on who's enrolled, maybe some students leave. So, we've staffed and based on a certain enrollment and maybe they didn't show up or maybe they showed up and didn't stay. Uh things of that nature. That is a challenge. Um a declining enrollment district. You see, our fall enrollment is down uh drastically more than anticipated. That's a challenge because you have to staff your buildings in fall. This budget is 2026, starts next year. Um but it's already things are in place that are going to affect the 2026 budget. So that's a challenge if

015that makes sense. Um another challenge we are um spending high on salary and benefits. Again we we've got to kind of bridge that gap between when that enrollment drops are we flexible and how can we kind of bring staffing in in a better relation to student enrollment. We do have some staff reductions and have been working diligently at uh reductions across the district and cost-saving measures, but looking at our uh initial numbers for the start of the year, there's uh much more work to be done and we'll talk about that in a moment. All right, so here it is. Our education fund. These are our advertised expenses. Okay, so like we talked about wages and benefits are the primary um components of the education fund. The number you might remember about 94 million we anticipate

016well it probably jumped out at you that that says 97 million. What's you know okay so that's why I spent a little time kind of on looking at the disparity between our staffing and enrollment were high. So if we stay at this high level to student enrollment, we're already set to go over budget. So this is just a tool for us to use to make sure we make the right decisions and get things back in alignment. So again, this was based on payroll for this current school year 2526 projected out. So we actually have actual based on what's in place right now. U would like to compare today's advertised expenses with prior year's budget. So 2025, you can see where we were at on wages, where we're at today. Um so you see 25 versus

0172026. We have begun a deep dive into yes and we've made a number of changes and and cost reduction measures coming up on the next slide I'd like to share. But this, I'm sure it jumps out at you at wow, wages have gone up, benefits uh gone up, uh purchase services went down. Again, we were able to look at kind of what we spent also in the last 12 months, like a rolling average. So, we were able to bring professional services down based on the last 12 months. Um before I get back to wages and benefits, you might want to check out supplies. That line jumped up. That's where that curriculum um sits. the curricular materials now that we have um um funds from the state at about 150 per pupil give or take that

018jump that supplies line up. So we are we are in the process of doing a deep dive into the wages and benefits. We have cut FTEES but the number is not moving like we thought. the dial isn't moving um down as aggressively as we thought. There's a few factors that may play into that, including but not limited to uh some staff were moved into the bargaining unit which have higher costs. Um we know that our salary scale is very competitive. That plays into this number as well. And sometimes we're we may be hiring teachers at the top of the scale to try to fill vacancies. So that's going to push that number up. Even though our overall FTEEs went down, it's still we've got some costs in here that are embedded and still driving things

019up. Um we do have a robust um added pays. We do this does include substitutes. Um, and those are just a few things, but we are doing a deep dive into these numbers and we be glad to provide that to you to get down to the line items and so we can really target those and fix those moving forward. So, speaking of which, some of the cost reduction measures uh the team has been working on uh curriculum you see here. Um they've terminated some contracts, negotiating better pricing on curriculum, etc. Uh definitely there were cuts at the administration and building levels. Um we did do some reassessment of added pays and extended contracts and made some adjustments. Um overtime and comp time controls are in place. We have time clock software um that that is

020in place this year. Um we expect to see the benefits of that um this year and beyond. food services management contract. We now are with Chartwells uh special education um helped us out uh with significant recuperation of support costs and we are reviewing our contracts on a regular cycle to ensure value and looking at the total costs before we renew. So these are in place. >> Ross, yes, I'd like to ask a question. Um you'll be well it's not more of a question, more observation. you're currently working with um directors and administrators to um put some actual numbers to these costs. Um so can you kind of share with the board and our community when we can we anticipate um the reporting out of those um >> yes those savings? >> Thank you for bringing

021that up. I um we are in the process of putting numbers to the to these cost reduction measures um myself and some cabinet members um who spearheaded these. We hope to have the numbers by next week and to be able to present at the next board meeting if you so desire. Okay. Thank you. All right. So, moving out of the um education fund into operations. Uh just a quick overview of the operations fund. Um the expenses are non-instructional in nature. Here are some things that um come out of the operation fund under the purpose capital projects, transportation, bus replacement, technology, and non-instructional support departments like myself and the business department, the superintendent, custodial, we all are funded out of the operations fund. Uh the revenue sources for the operation fund um you're looking primarily at

022property taxes, excise um commercial excise and financial institution tax otherwise called fit. These are based on assessed valuation essentially of uh property values right u multiplied by tax rates and that drives the revenue for this fund. Um just to note that the tax caps that you've heard about that limit our revenue primaril it hits the operation fund falls squarely on the operations fund. So we'll talk a little bit more about that. Another source of revenue is um the education fund transfers. Um we were allowed to do this schools uh back in since 2019. Um, so as you've heard, if you've watched some of these meetings, we haven't made the transfers that we've planned, but we can make those transfers. And this is another source of uh revenue for the operations fund. >> Ross, for this

023year, um, how how much have you actually transferred from the education fund to the operations fund? >> We've transferred 1 million out of the slated nine. And so um the operations fund is um um struggling a bit as we've you know I pretty much report and then I'll report again this evening in my monthly update about the operations fund. So we've been trying to keep the community a breast of of that situation um at each board meeting each month. a little bit more on what influences the operation fund revenues. Okay, so we talked about the net assessed value of uh the property in the area times the tax rate equals our levy or our revenue. Um as of yet, so when schools are making their budgets, many schools have not received their net assessed value.

024It has not been released. So we have to do some um um I don't want to say guess work, but intelligent guessing on what number to include. Um uh other influences, property tax caps. Our cap loss has ranged from about 3.6 to 3.9 million a year in this fund. So if it weren't for those tax caps, we would have been able to appreciate that much more money in this fund. Another thing um important factor in this fund is pension debt neutrality. Um so basically there is debt um there is a levy that we have to pay down pension debt that which precedes many of us. Um um so that number is coming down. We've paid out uh most of that debt and a bright spot is um it the last payment will be in 2027.

025So kind of to step back it has been reducing how much we could appreciate in the operations fund. But once that falls off, we will be able to capture more revenue, more levy in the operations fund. So that pension debt neutralizes or pretty much reduces operations fund revenue. And it has, but that's coming to an end. So 20 to be more precise, uh, 2026, we're estimated to have the neutral a loss of 2 million in operations because of the pension debt. So, bright spot though, 2028. Um, so another big factor, I'm just going to move on down to SEA1, which you've all heard about, and we also had uh policy analytics come in and speak um several times. They're the experts um pretty much in the state right now and helping school districts uh navigate

026these new uh this new law. So, another thing we're looking out for and that's going to influence our operations fund is um the SEA1. So, here are some of those components. Essentially, homeowners um we're getting um a higher um deduction or we're getting or a rebate of about $300 potentially. There's But that being said, we're the public schools are going to lose revenue because homeowners are getting um additional property deduction. So, there are some other items here. Um, agricultural and longterm care properties. Um, that's going to cause public schools to lose revenue because of their increased deductions there. Those are going to be phased in. Business personal property exemptions. Um, businesses can claim now less property, so less taxation. Public schools are going to lose some revenue. And we also have some revenue sharing coming

027down the pike potentially um with charter schools. So sea1 is a wide umbrella. Um all of its impacts are uh not known. So these are some challenges and these will influence our revenue. So we are just providing our projections as best as we can. You may have also seen this. This is provided by policy analytics. Just for your reference um uh our net assess value is based on the composition of these different types of property in our county. And so they provided us to take a look um you can see 2025 versus 2026. You can see some minor shifts there and also then projected out to 2031 in which we think we'll see the full impact of SEA1 by then. So what I've heard from some expert that our property tax mix is is pretty

028good and helping us to an extent although we're not immune from the impacts of SEA1. We have a good mix of residential, industrial, commercial. Um, just also providing this another way to look at the SEA1 impact. Um, if you can see and zoom in kind of on that orange line, the difference between the green and the orange, you start seeing the impact. And each year, we're looking at over a million to$2 million per year. Um so comparing prea1 that green line versus postsea1 so high level right now numbers still coming in 1 to2 million per year lost in the operations fund due to this legislation. Okay. Um just moving on here to our operations fund just um so you can see our advertised what we're doing tonight advertising a budget versus what was actually appropriated.

029So in 2024 you can see what we advertised on probably a night like this a work session and then what the um appropriation or bud budget order came in at. and you'll see, hey, we're advertising high, right? And that is strategic um to capture as much of um either a levy or to target a tax rate. Um but right now, it seems like we're focused more on the levy to sustain our levy in the operations fund. So, uh don't fret it. We did advertise high in prior years. Look at 2025. We came in at 40. Advertised 51, came in at 41, but still pretty much in line. 2026, we don't have the budget order yet and has not been released. So that's kind of how that works. All right. So the numbers, um, as I

030just showed here, we are advertising 49, right? So that number in that first box under 2024 advertised budget feeds right into this next slide 49 million. Um and you can see the breakout here. Um wages, benefits, professional services. So and all this information will be um in a matter of uh this next week uploaded to uh gateway um and you will see these in a more granular detail. the breakout of these um line items these objects but this is a highle presentation to some extent. So here is our operations fund advertised expenses. Advertised expenses in comparison to last year. Overall we are advertising a a bit less. We see utilities cost. We looked at our rolling average. Utilities costs have come down. That was based on our past 12 months. Um and that's how we

031kind of derive some of these numbers looking at not only wages and benefits actual that are in place now but um the last 12 months of expenses for some of the other items. So included in the operations fund um is a capital projects plan. Um, so for 2026, our proposed budget is $18 million, not unlike last year. I think we were right about at that mark. Um, the state requires a three-year plan. Um, so we have posted that plan. It's on our website under the uh business department, the finance page that is posted already. Um, and you can uh check that out there. Also, we This is just a kind of breakout of other things the state requires in your capital projects plan, not unlike last year's numbers, and this is another component that they

032require. Um, you see this is general building improvements. You know, we just had that uh presentation by uh performance services. We know that it's going to take more than three million a year to kind of uh do general building improvements, but this is what the operation fund contributes to that. Other options would be if a school could bond to get revenue to, you know, do more um maintenance and repairs. Another part of the operations fund is transportation. So, it was in that high that 49. Um this was all embedded in there. our transportation budget. Just calling out here our fuel line budget. I believe that's pretty much in line with last year as well. And uh bus replacement. We're required to post this. This is on our website. Uh the schedule reflects 12 buses to

033be replaced. Um it is a plan um but budgeted this year for bus replacement. It won't replace those 12 buses, but we have a 2 point about 2.2 million in the budget for a bus replacement for this year for the 2026 school year. >> And this is what >> question. >> Yes. >> Um and it's about the bus the cost of buses. Can you just share um what is the cost of a bus now compared to what it was uh just a few years ago? I might have to >> I think Messi could probably answer to rely on my colleague here. Help me out. You got a good number for us. >> Please, please come to the microphone. Yes, please. Thank you. >> Jinx, >> President Scott, members of the board, Dr. a bus now

034is running about right off the line probably about a half a million. That's just a regular bus. If we needed a specialty type bus, say a wheelchair bus, it can run up to 750,000. Um, back couple years ago, buses were running two to 300,000. Thank you, Mr. O, our transportation director. Really appreciate it. The reason why I share that out is that we know the the cost of doing business now in this world is much more expensive than it was a few years ago. I know in this presentation we don't use the word tariff. We don't use supply chain issues or any of those things, but schools are not immune to those either. So, I just wanted to when I see 12 on there, I don't think we can even purchase anywhere close to 12

035buses with that. Just wanted to give some re some real world context to that. You might be lucky to get two or three. So, Mr. Smith, you have a a heavy job making sure our buses are are are safe and ready to roll on those streets. So, um, moving on, um, f to our debt funds. So, we've got debt funds remaining and rainy day funds remaining. So, um, looking at our debt funds, um, there's three funds in this category totaling about $20 million. We've got, um, debt service fund, uh, with a budget of about 15 million. What's included in here? Uh, common school loans, which support our classroom, technology, iPads, etc. The same for school technology advancement loans come from here and new in 2026 if you may recall we have uh uh issued some

036bonds the 2025 series AB and C and just recently the uh uh taxable GEO bond. So we will use the debt service uh revenue to pay this debt. Uh the other uh debt fund we have is that pension debt we talked about. Um you can see the balance it has a budget of about 3 million and our final payment is in 2027 and uh referendum debt um of 1.3 million that final payment is uh December 2033. These are our debt funds. Um just for a reference um before we move on to rainy day um here's a look at our historical tax rate um our historical tax rate. So you can see debt uh the debt funds we just talked about those those three and the uh tax rates associate associated with them for a total

037of in red debt rate only about 375. our total tax rate coming in at 0.92 or 92.5 cents. I will provide more context about this on the next slide. Um here is uh some tax rate comparisons and you know I talked about getting those budget orders uh which we haven't got for this uh next budget yet but here's from the prior 20 that was released January 2025. So on the first half in the non-grade area, these are Elcart County units and their certified rates. So you can see Elcart schools rate. Um we understand from tax professionals that we have a pretty good rate. Um and then we compare that to other districts. You see the other schools there. Again, right now, uh most experts say our tax rate is pretty good. So you have that

038comparison there. Um so now moving on to our rainy day fund. Um so we can have appropriation in this fund one of two ways. We can request additional appropriations or set aside some in the budget process um which we um are just going to request additional appropriation. I'm sorry just request uh 3.75 appropriation. Um, this allows us to respond quickly to any uh funds that may be running low or some emergency needs. This is we're advertising the same amount as we did in 2025. Currently, that fund sits at about 6.9 million right now, the the rainy day fund. And we're just saying, hey, can we spend three, you know, to 3.75 million of that fund. So, kind of to kind of recap uh what we've uh talked about and look at our budget summary. Um

039you can see what we advertised 2025 about this time last year for all of our funds, education operations, debt service, etc. What the order uh where the order came in at, which is typical and expected and this year what we're advertising. So, we do anticipate the order will come in lower. This is an advertised budget. And just for reference, um folks may say, well, what about your grants? So, these are not DLGF reviewed funds, so per se. So, I'm just including this for reference. Um this is what the district is anticipated or that has been allocated for 2526 to my understanding. absent any changes that may have come in in the last 24 hours, but um because I did see some a couple emails, but I didn't get to them, but um this is what

040we're looking at about 10 million in these u federal funds here. So, you can put the picture together with the DGF funds and our federal funds for a total kind of picture of our budget. That helps. And just to wrap up our budget timeline, we're here at the work session today, but moving forward um we will be advertising um our our budget on the website the DLGF gateway. Um next coming up will be the public hearing. Uh hopefully the budget adoption followed by um more uploads to the DGF and after that uh the budget order, the final budget order. So, there's work to be done after and even before we get the budget order. Yes, this is our advertisement, but we see where we we know we need to make cuts and we've got to

041we can still start that process right now. Um, and have a working budget that reflects our realities of our revenues. Um, so that concludes uh my presentation. Thank you. >> Any questions from the board? Um, I just want to make a couple comments. Um, um, Mrs. Ross, I I appreciate you and the teams going through this. I know it's with all the different pieces of the puzzle, it's very challenging to try and come up with a budget. Um, and also understanding the reality of our situation as a district, um, makes that even more challenging. So, I appreciate all that. I think, um, as as the team goes through this and as we digest it all, um, you know, We've been talking about cutting expenses now for over a year and those are not um it's

042not easy to do and and nobody wants to do that. Um but if we want to be a strong financially stable school system um we have to do that. Um and I think um the the approach that that Dr. Huff and you and the team are taking um and doing deep dives into areas I think is is very welcomed. I think it it has uncovered um a lot of things that um we may not have known um and unintended consequences from um past decisions. And so from that standpoint, those are all good things in my book um because it puts us in a better position um as we make decisions and as we're really looking at impacts um to what we can do that will um benefit our students and their outcomes. So I appreciate

043all that and um I look forward to working with the rest of the team and and diving into into these and and finding out where where we can get as many dollars into our classrooms as possible. um and at the same time being able to um boost our cash balances for the stability of our district. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> I got a quick question. I I'm trying to find a bright spot and I think uh our pension debt neutrality um the final payment on the pension debt as you mentioned is 2027 I believe. Uh so we'll no longer have that uh payment in 2028. Um what what can we expect? How will that impact the operations fun? Is it a dollar for dollar impact? Um I know in 2027 we're we're probably

044estimating under two million uh left. Would it be a dollar for dollar in 2028 or >> high level >> you would you know be able to subtract out that neutrality you would think oh maybe two million but with the impacts of sea 1 >> wiped right out. So, at least there's something there to offset SCA1, but I don't have the details yet on that. >> That was my my followup question. We'll we'll get together. >> Yes, I I look forward to that. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Thank you, >> Dr. Huff. Good evening, members of the board, President Scott, members of the board, community. Tonight, I have the huge pleasure of giving a state of district update where we'll talk about um some of our current realities

045that Miss Ross talked about here uh a second ago, but also talk about some of the ways that we can address those issues. We took a a deep dive. So, I'm very proud to share this information tonight and we're going to have not as much fun as Miss Ross had, but we are going to talk about our real realities here. So, um do we have a keyboard? Okay. I think before we get into the deep dive, we need to talk about we are very proud school district. Um we must remember that we are all here to make sure that we're making the best decisions for our children and not just for today but for the future. Um, Elkcart, um, has been recognized on multiple occasions around the state for being the leading large urban school

046district for iid growth. Um, this year, um, I was very proud to, uh, speak on the, uh, behalf our school district at the state board of ed um, last month. We have the top career center, I believe, in not only in the state of Indiana, but in the Midwest. And I also believe uh, we have a very strong graduation rate. This year will even grow even higher than that 94.5%. I'm thinking that it's going to cross past 95%. Um, the reason why I share this that students aren't just earning aren't just numbers on the page, they're actually making a huge difference not only here in Elcart, but once they leave us, we were able to generate almost $16 million of scholarship offers for our students. Um, last year and I expect those things to continue.

047These kids are walking across the Elcart stage ready for life. And I think the big takeaway here is that everyone in this room should be proud of the work that we're doing in Elcart Community Schools. I think sometimes we don't know the enormity, how large our footprint is in this area. So, I just wanted to share with the community tonight if you hadn't had a chance to think about Elcart Community Schools outside of your building, your classroom, um maybe what you see on the street. We are a district that has almost 3.1 um sorry three and a 14 um sorry I'm having a hard time saying that three and4 million square ft of facilities in our district over $1.1 billion in assets that require uh $20 million per year to have basic maintenance to cover.

048I think Miss Ross spoke about that. We're also a very large school district. We cover over 80 square miles, one of the largest in the in the state of Indiana. And inside of that large school district, as you can see, is that we have 30 different buildings. So, just take a moment to look at all the different types of of of buildings that we have from our early learning center all the way up to our adult education programs and all the other ancillary parts as well. We are a school district that is designed to successfully educate 17,000 students. That is not today's current reality. Our current reality is that we only have 10,100 students that are coming across our doors. How do we address that and make sure that we continue to provide the outstanding

049services, supports, educational experiences, not just for the kids who walk in our door today, but for the kids who walk across our um doors for years to come. We have to make sure that we do some things strategically. I also put some other things about our students. I think I want to remember what type of students that we have here. We have outstanding students in our school district. We lead the state in dual credit. I'm not going to read you every bullet, but I do there's things I'm very proud of. Um, we are isma state finalists. We considered one of the best places in the in the world for music and definitely in Indiana. Multiple D1 athletes, academic allstars. We have over 2300 of our students who are student athletes in grades 5 to 12.

050And I, if I remember, Wendy and I, sorry, Mrs. Wood and I work have been working on this presentation. 65% of our kids are connected to some type of after-school activity here. We just don't provide things in the classroom. We expect provide experiences outside the classroom as well. And also we have a lot of staff here as well, over 2,000 staff members. That will be reduced by 200 this year as we've transitioned a little bit um to Chartwell. So that was from last year's. But amongst those staff, we have the Indiana counselor of the year. We have ramp certified counselors at um Pieran. We have two schools that were identified as family friendly schools here in Elcart, the only district that I know of that had two. We have the rise award winner from the

051IdoE. We have the football coach of the year and amongst other amazing educators. So, I think we should also be very proud of the staff that we have here in Elcart as well. I won't go into each one of these things, but if you haven't seen our impact report, it's one of the best um documents out there in the land um that tells um what has happened in our school district over the 2425 school year. Um if you have a chance, go look at it on our website. If not, you can find them all over the school district. But I think one of the things that we need to do a better job of is articulating and Miss Ross did for a budget point of view, but we need to make sure that we're having

052constant conversations with our community regarding how well what makes up the school funding. And so what makes up school funding comes from these three uh sources: state funding, federal funding, and local funding. And I won't repeat everything that Mrs. Ross just said in her presentation, but there are some things that we can control and there's some things that we can't control. If you paid attention to any part of the news this summer, you know, federal funding was really challenging for um school districts to manage. Elcart was not immune in those. U Mrs. Ross said that she received emails and she believes all our grants are in. I will see it. I'll believe it when I see it inside of our account. I I >> Oh, did you make the noise? >> Yes, she did. So,

053what I'm saying is that it's very challenging and also need to be honest. They're some of those are going away forever starting next year. So our title two, our title three, our title four grants that provide professional development, some of the great opportunities, some of our staffing for our teachers will no longer exist after next year. So what does a district do? You have to do something now knowing that that's happening in the future. We also need to remember that our school funding that people are our mission and that our budget reflects that. Um, we have local funds that pay for buses that pay for maintenance for custodians and for utilities. Um, we have our debt service dollars that help us to maintain our buildings. What I think Mrs. Ross shared in our budget, but

054what I also want to make sure I'm sharing with our community and our staff, and if you're watching tonight, is almost every dollar is accounted for already in our budget. We provided, as Miss Ross showed you with her data, 94.2% 2% of our money goes to salary and benefits in the education fund. If something catastrophic happened, there is no money to move around. That is how tight things are with the Elcart Community Schools budget. A district wants to be around 82 to 84% of their money allocated towards staffing in their education um fund. We are 11 12% above that. That didn't happen last year. That didn't happen the year before. that happened over time. I think Mr. Mrs. Voner said unintended consequences. I believe that she is correct. Where there's some unintended consequences. So, we

055can't go back in the past and figure out what we did. We can only learn from them. And what can we do moving forward? Mr. Ross did a good job of talking about some local tax terms and um I I I shouldn't have followed her. I should have went first. Um, I won't go into all of these things, but I think there's things that we need to hammer home because it changed very significantly with Senator Rald Act one. Um, net assessed value, that is the value of all the things in Elkcart County and that's how we start to determine our tax rate. We add a um number to I think for us it's going to be 0.91. Is that correct, Mr. Ross? >> Overall tax rate? Yeah. 0.94. >> Thank Thank you. Um our tax

056rate is just the the percentage that's supplied to uh net assessed value. The levy is the total amount that we receive. These terms matter because when our NAV shrinks and remember it will shrink and it's not shrinking because we're doing anything wrong in the school district, that is what the law is designed for it to do. It is designed for homeowners and businesses to be able to re retain more of their funding, which makes it much more difficult for us to capture funding unless we raise our rates unless you go to the community and ask for a referendum, which we know are extremely difficult to do, unless you have proven results behind you. So, you must make sure that you are being great stewards of the monies that you have available for you today. And

057I just again I just wanted to go through a very simple for formula. Schools have very few ways to generate income. So our money is pretty much dependent on the kids who show up each and every day in our in our on our doorsteps. And it's a very simple formula how that's calculated. The number of students times the tuition um rate that the state provides. The operation fund is based off how us collecting our um our levies. And then we have our debt service. So those are our three buckets. We don't have referenda dollars like South Bends. That's probably why you noticed that they had a huge budget in Mrs. Ross' presentation. And other school districts have those as well. Our district has chosen not to to support those in the past. And so when

058we do go out to the community, I do think that they will appreciate the work that is being done now should we ever have to go out to to that uh go after that manner in a general election year. Mr. Ross talked a little bit about SEA1. I wanted to talk about well what does this really mean for Elcart Community Schools? This is not a again not a pressure that's only going to be a face for this year. It's for the next seven years. All day I sat looking at this presentation say oh maybe I can do this for seven months. No it's seven years and it changes and it evolves over that seven-year period. It was designed to give taxpayers relief but for families that sounds positive, right? great tax, less paying taxes, but

059for schools and other entities that that was not a great thing. It created a gap. Um I I think a gap is being very kind to be honest with you. Our operation funds, what pays for buses, our custodians, our administrators and utilities will grow at 0%. Moving after this year, typically it grows at a 4% rate. 0%. So the dollars that you have now are the dollars that you will have based off your student enrollment. Our debt service is also pressure, meaning tax rates will need to rise just to maintain buildings. Everyone in this room is aware that nothing costs the same that it did yesterday. We don't even know if things are going to cost the same when we leave here this evening. the amount of instability when it comes to financial markets is

060is really unpredictable and schools are are not immune to that. So my big takeaway when thinking at sea 1, it was not school friendly. Matter of fact, I believe schools lost when it came to this legislation and I think everyone in this room could and should agree when it comes to that. So a summary of that um and we've received presentations before from Barry Gardner um the one of the leaders at policy analytics that talks about uh the summary of the SE1. He sat here I think it was in July maybe July 24th and said that he couldn't find one thing positive about that for schools. It has been almost two months later and I still can't find one thing positive for schools. It causes significant challenges. Um, again, I shared before the 0% increase

061to operation fund, we typically receive 4%. And then having to go out to your community and explain to them that we are raising taxes. If I ask anyone in this room to say, "Hey, I'm going to raise your taxes." What does your initial gut tell you? Is it a good feeling or is it a bad feeling? Politicians can raise their hand, say that they're not doing it. it's the schools, but that is we will have to raise taxes just to receive the same amount of same amount of revenue in the future. We just can't get around that. So, the reason why I'm speaking in this slower cadence than I typically speak in, this is a moment for Elcart to really think about the tough decisions that lie in front of us. And they're not just

062in front of us, they are on our doorstep. They are here. There's no more road to kick it down. We have to make these decisions pretty pretty quickly, thoughtfully, but most importantly in thinking about what is in the best interest of our children and our students in the future of our school district. Matter of fact, for tomorrow, not just the future future, how we do business starting tomorrow. And lastly, I just want to give a quick history. Um, 2009, laws changed a little bit following the recession and Indiana became a referendum state. What people don't talk about is that is now part of your funding strategy. Districts that have rolled off referendum, they are already planning to rerun in 2026 their referendums because they can't operate without them. That I believe in those times good

063intentions we now must run referendum just to get what I consider basic things done with your bond issues and so forth. So sea1 changed that as well. Uh further funding strains with additional taxpayers funding with charter schools and voucher programs. We are almost universal vouchers in the state of Indiana. We have to be the best of the best to make sure that our kids understand our kids our families understand the values of our schools. That's that um impact report I think does a really good job of letting families know of all the things that we offer here in Elcart and will continue to offer those things. But we are in the era of competition and it is not because uh it is not because it's random. It is designed to be that way. I believe

064Elcart provides a tremendous value for for families. We also must continue to share results and outcomes and continue to share that story. And last um but certainly not least, Senator Ro act will reduce programs and services. If you're watching the news, you're seeing the cities respond to um SEA1. You're seeing um states respond to it. You're seeing businesses respond to it. Everyone is having to try to make sense of what this um crucial legislation is having an impact on their businesses. And for students at a time when obligations are growing and the need for programs is increasing, funding is not being restored to tied is not being tied to that. So I want to talk about some of our significant challenges here. We face three tough realities. Uh we have a declining enrollment. Again, as

065Miss Ross said, it's not only an Elcart issue. It is almost an issue across every school district in uh the state of Indiana. That's why you're seeing school districts look at alternative means to getting uh kids inside their district, whether it's virtual schools, whether it is um partnering with other um um entities to increase their enrollments. Everyone is in the enrollment race. Um for for students in 10 years we have gone from 17,000 students well we never as 14,000 students sorry to 10,100 students. If you can look at the graph up there we you can see that our our staffing has never um really been um locked step with our declining enrollment. So, and also we have an unbalanced staff to student ratio this year. I think the team um well this year starting last

066year they've tried to put metrics on the standard. This is what how many people students should be in the classroom. This is how many uh our case load things like that. Um looking at state guidelines, reaching out to other districts, what do you have? I believe our district is still falls very well in those measures. Um but it's still not enough. And then remember, we're set up to serve 17,000 students. Whether those classrooms are filled or not, you're paying electricity for them. You're paying to heat them. You're paying to cool them. You're paying for them to sit empty. There are buildings that we have in our district that serve less than 300 students and they have the capacity for eight. They're very small. It feels good to be in a very small school building, but

067that comes with some extreme costs to not district. I'm not just talking about financing. I'm talking about the way that you operate those school buildings. >> Dr. I have quick question on this graph. We can't see, but that's that's a I believe it's a 10-year snapshot 20145. >> Yes. >> Of employees and and enrollment to 2425. >> Yes, President Scott. >> Thank you. And classroom occupancy is very important. There are state laws that we must um follow with classroom occupancy. I think that came out in the last legislative session. Is that am I correct? >> Thank you. I like being correct, Doug. Helpful up here. Currently, um one of our things that our team did, we went and looked at every classroom in our elementary buildings. We have 214 classrooms that are used for instruction.

068And when I say instruction that they have a teacher and have kids in front of them um like a regular standardized classroom, there are some rooms that are being utilized for small group instruction and so forth, but they're not full classrooms. So out of the 371 elementary classrooms that we have currently 42% of them are unoccupied. When I say unoccupied, they don't have a a teacher that's teaching 25 kids in front of them. That is an alarming number. Yes, sir. >> So, not not knowing the average uh class classes in a building, what does that 214 equate to as far as total buildings? >> How many does it? >> Yeah, >> it depends on what size you want of the buildings. >> No. Yeah. Our average size, if we were to take 214 classrooms, is

069that four buildings, five buildings, six buildings that are essentially unoccupied, would be unoccupied. I know there it's 214 spread across our 30. >> You're trying to scare people, Mr. President Scott? I'm just trying to do quick math here. >> I think you've done the math. It It's equivalent to seven buildings. Um, seven buildings. Um, President Scott. Um, so that's if they if they had 25 kids in I think they use a 20 is what um if we did 25, it's six or five, but it's five minimum. Five. >> Yeah, that's why I said it varies depending on what number that we use. Um now now remember some classrooms also used for small group instruction in those rooms or so forth. So if you have like a person who is providing resource minutes they typically may

070have a room that where they're doing small group instruction. But yes for in this situation in this instance that's using your logic that is that is absolutely correct. Miss Rossi alluded to what the staff count looked for enrollment. I think it's important to to to not only just look at our school district but look at districts that are also in around us or near us or like size to see what type of decisions that they have made as well. Um she shared that very first image on the screen that talked about Elcart Community Schools and if you want to do a deep dive something happened in 2020 where staffing skyrocket it skyrocketed up 25%. Wasn't here in 2020. I'm not here to figure out what happened during that time. But I also know that one

071of the things that we happened in our enrollment dropped and so one of the things that's confusing about that time is why we added staff at that levels. But you can see they tried to do some course correction and then they course corrected down but it never got to the levels of where our staffing is. And the drop is even steeper. If you look at the student teacher ratio in 2016 I the number from what it was was 19 to1. in 2023 is now 14 to1. I think it's creeped up. I don't have today's number. I can provide that information to the board, but my guesstimate it would be 16 to1 if you include pair of professionals in in that number. Penn um our neighbor to the our neighbor to the west um made some

072different decisions during um that time. Um their enrollment increased and they did not add staffing. They didn't add staffing until it looks like the 2122 school year. And now, as you can see, they're perfectly merged next door. And their staffing ratio, I know, has stayed 19 to1 and stayed 19 to1 um over those that seven-year period. And then lastly, Concord um they can see they had a little bit of variance. Um their enrollment has increased um but their staffing to student ratio has um increased over that time. From 2016, I think the number that I see is is 18 to1 to now it is 19 to1. So you want to talk about buildings versus enrollment. We talked about again we have 30 buildings in our district. We have 27ish school structures when counting school of

073studies and alternative schools and so forth. So there's a lot of kids spread across a lot of different uh parts of our our district. They are designed to hold 17,000 students total. Again, that number 10,500, I use that because that was based off last year's um uh count in um February 1st. I know that our October count will not be that. Our October count will be roughly around 10,100. And so I wanted to say the difference between just this fall and our count now, u Mrs. Ross said it was 3.4 to 3.5 million. That's what it is at a minimum. That's not including complexity dollars and other dollars that go along with it. Um it is a that is a precipitative drop in students and um not just in students but the revenue that goes

074along with students because remember you are tied into salaries, you are tied into benefits, you're tied into all those things. We are a people organization. People are our greatest investment. But we also need to make sure that when we are um staffing our buildings that we are making sure that we're doing things at appropriate levels as well. Elcart um a few years ago did a feasibility study um and at that time and it was a really good piece of work done by the community um looking at it and I there's over 600 total pages there but one of the things that the demographer talked about was looking at the enrollment projections u as I've shared and as Mrs. Ross has shared we're at 10,100 students. I think it was actually 10,112 if I'm being precisely

075accurate. Look at where it said that we would be on the low end today just two years ago. Now this is prea1. This is pre universal vouchers. This is pre um no one's decided to have children anymore. Apparently all those things are happening all at once. Right on the lowest end this year it had us projected at 10,435 students. That was at the lowest. Now look and see where we actually are. Where does where do we land? We're in 28 29 land where we're at 10,100 on the high end. Even next year if you go look in 2627 looking at the demographers work we can't even we don't even land there. Their lowest projection was 10,165. Then you go into 2728, you can get to like a mid projection of 1061. So this is we're

076at a minimum of being 2 years ahead of the decline at maximum three which should be not just only alarming for this group in here but to our community. um they should asking wow this is something's h something is happening and how are we managing all those students because the structures have not changed and so I think it's very important to bring this back because there was a lot of people who gave their time talents and energy to do the feasibility study and the key committee but also this is this information was decided not decided it was shared a long time ago I do think it's important to remind people that sometimes the decisions that we are making aren't we're not making them today they they told you that you should have probably made them

077years ago. And so I just wanted to make sure that you had an opportunity to look at this and ask me any questions that you had about our enrollment projections. I don't necessarily need to bring in a demographer to tell you about the work that needs to be done. I think we all um understand what it lies in front of us. But I do want to talk about the financial reality. Um, this slide brings together even though it's where are my readers. They get on me because I have perfect vision and they don't. Um, in this slide in 2023 we had in 2023 we had $27 million in reserves. By 2025 it was already down to 14. Um, by 2026 it's just at 2 million. Um 2 million isn't even two months even I'm sorry

078it's not even a month of operating correct it's approximately three month three million a month to keep the district alive not alive is the wrong word to sustain the school district um it will be at 2 million if no changes are made as you can see our revenues by 2027 all re reserves are gone and the district is $15 million in the red By 2028 that grows to $30 million in the red. Again, this is assumption of no changes. Revenues grow slowly from 117 million to 130 million. Now, think about that. Your state revenue is going to grow slowly if not at all because you're having to decline enrollment. So, they may increase the tuition support. They we may increase our tax rate. It may, but it will only probably get you to what you

079are getting today. Your expenditures though on the other hand are skyrocketing and they've been skyrocketing for a while. Expenses grow faster from 118 million just a few years ago to 144 million. This creates an annual deficit of 12 to 17 million. Remember people are our biggest investment and they should be. They're the ones that make the magic happen. That's why every district that that sound has over 80% of their dollars going to um to teaching staff, pair professionals and so forth. That that 94% though is doesn't allow you any opportunity should something happen whether you need textbooks or professional development or some other services. It makes things extremely tight. And I'm not saying this as a criticism. Um that's just our reality. But when you mix in decline enrollment and flat revenues, the math doesn't

080work. Think of it as kind of like your family budget. If you have $4,000 is what you have to spend on your expenditures and it's $4,500 a month, but you have some money in savings, okay? You can you can hold on tight for a month. You can hold on tight for maybe another month. Eventually, your savings are going to run out and you're still going to be in the red. And we know that the cheapest something is going to be is when Mr. Ivory today. Is today. So some might just say, "Hey, just cut athletics, cut administration." That's true. We've already started some processes over here, but no single cut that we can make can come up with 12 to 17 million annually. There's just not. that will require a balanced a district-wide plan and

081our spending is just not sustainable. Um, reserves will run out in the next two years if nothing changes and this is just a a much more visual representation that our our path is not sustainable. So, I just want people to take a quick look at that. I I went back only to 2023. I want I could have went back to 2020 and looked at hey we were artificially being pumped up by Esser dollars during that time. Um again I was not here during that time but I can tell you um we probably could have had this conversation earlier because that gave in my opinions false sense on how well the district was doing. But as you see again this is all based off off if we don't make any changes. And again, this is the

082same information that um was presented in a different format through policy analytics back in July. I just put it in a much more, I believe, easier format to to look at. So, we're here and one of our next steps I believe the most important thing that we can do is learn from practices that do not work and really invest in investigate the decisions that you make and that you plan to make. Um, one of the things I've been talking with my team is to think about what happens on the other side of your decisions. It's it's easy to say, "Hey, we're going to do this," but what happens next? So, you have to not only look at your decisions, you have to re-evaluate them all the time and say, "Hey, we made this decision here,"

083whether we're talking about finances and did that work. It's like a continuous improvement cycle. You you don't just don't say, "Hey, we're going to look at this and do this 5 years ago and then never revisit that." So, I think that's an opportunity for us to be much more financially transparent with not only through this processes, but also making sure that we're educating our entire community about what the state of our finances. Also practicing fiscal responsibility. Um, I think it's important that we remain committed to being strong physical stewards uh of our funds. We know that we need to protect and advocate for every dollar that is coming inside of our school district. Um, I wish that the people who make decisions down at the state house, if you're watching here today, but we would

084love for you to reverse all these things. Yes, I I but I don't know if that's going to happen or not. So, I just must deal with our current reality. And our current reality is this is our budget and these are things that we must that we must do. The path forward just requires us are to be transparent, to be responsible, but also to be strategic. We can talk about increasing enrollment all day long. Increasing every school district, every superintendent, every uh person who sits in your seat is going to be asking, "What can we do to increase enrollment?" That's a logical question. It is not ever going to happen fast enough to close that 12 to$17 million gap. Even think about it. Even if you increased enrollment back to uh 10,500, you just would

085be back where we were last February. And last February, we were already deficit spending by roughly I think at that time it was $6 million. And so and that's with adding 500 students. And do you know how long it typically takes a district to add 500 students? A long time. So, I think it's important and I think it's an honor to um play a role in getting the district back to where it needs to be. Um I am not naive. This is not the type of presentation that I want to give. I've been up for a week thinking about this presentation, but I do think that it says a lot about the courage of our board, the courage of our administration, courage of our teachers, anyone who wants to walk aside an Elcart community uh

086uh school student to say we have to do something different. We have to make some really really tough decisions. But you can always make tough decisions and choose how you make them. You can choose and make them with dignity. You can choose and be consistent. You can also choose to make sure that they're transparent and that people have a say as much as they can in those decisions. So my takeaway is that I I don't like the way that things are going when it comes to financial matters, but I do think that I believe that we have the capabilities in a team to get things corrected over the next year or two. But the work started not today. It started a while ago when we recognized that there's an issue. Oh, let me go back.

087Jake, I don't like this little button. I need to So, again, I just want to just kind of just let everyone know what my ne the next steps are. My next steps is to then in a couple weeks bring a resolution to the board where the board will allow me the opportunity to investigate looking at some works for rightsiz in our school district. And what that will look like, that resolution will come to you. It will explain the scope of work and all that. And then after that, the board will make a vote to either authorize or not authorize that. Um, everyone has a skin in the game when it comes to this, myself, the board, the community. Um, and so I think it's important that we make sure that everyone knows that these are

088the facts and that we bring it to our community, which you are elected officials for, and you authorize me to do the work that needs to be done. In many ways, the community sees um kind of how we're going to do that works and like we did last year with the middle school transition. This is very it's much more complex and a much it'll be a much more faster time, but I think that to see how we do work and make sure that we are constantly updating people is very important. Um so everything that you've seen tonight should connect back to the classroom. Our responsibility is just to make sure that um we're a financial foundation of Elcart Community Schools is is strong enough to carry on not just the programs that we had today,

089but we we owe it to them to think about the programs that we don't have today that kids will need tomorrow. And we have to be future focused on what what our students will need to be successful in the world that is rapidly changing. Um I think these challenges are real, but I don't think they're insurmountable. Um, this is a great community. It's a resilient community from what I understand. It's a very giving community. I think people will come alongside us to do this work, but we have to have the courage to start the work. Um, and so my takeaway is um this is not just about protecting our opportunities for the students today. It is really to an opportunity to imagine what that world will look like for them tomorrow. And so, um, today

090I wanted just to bring to the to the school board and to our community, um, just the realities of where we are from a financial perspective, but also how those things are intertwined, um, when it comes towards how it drills down to the classroom, into our operations, and how it drills down into how we provide services for families. So, at this time, I just wanted to tell you thank you for the to the board and to the community for an opportunity to present to you um tonight a very brief snapshot on the state of the district. And I'm more than happy to answer any questions that you may have. >> Thank you, Dr. Hoff. Uh board, do we have any questions at this time? >> Thank you. [Music] All right. Um, at this time I

091will uh adjourn our uh public work session for uh tonight and uh reconvene at 7 o'clock for our regularly scheduled board meeting. Thank you everyone. is going to be kindergarten teachers. Do you think should be after extracurricular or do you think? >> What do you think? >> Hey, can't lose either way. teacher extracurricular. Thanks. I'd like to thank everybody for coming out to the September 23rd, 2025 Elcart Community Schools uh regular board meeting. At this time, I'd like to call the meeting to order. And if you please rise for our pledge of allegiance. I pledge. >> Thank you. You may be seated. The Elcart Promise. Every student is known by name, challenged and supported by highly effective staff and in partnership with the community will graduate career college ready and life ready. Our invitation to

092speak protocol um everyone should have received um one of these little flyers. Uh please fill out uh this portion of it, tear it off and bring it to Dora. Uh when your name is called, please step up uh to the microphone, state your name and your affiliation uh with the district. You will then have three minutes to speak on any agenda or non-aggenda item. Um because of the Family and Privacy Rights Act, any uh personnel or personal student issues should not uh be discussed uh during uh this time. we have uh a policy and protocol for those types of things. So, at this time, I will uh open it up to uh public comment. Okay. Thank you, Vion uh Deir for doing that because I would not have have pronounced it that way. Thank you.

093Excellent pronunciation. Dr. Huff, President Scott, board members, and ladies and gentlemen, good evening. My name is Fion Deiria, and I am one of your freshman English teachers. Um, this evening, I wanted to first say we're doing great at the freshman division. Your teachers are working very hard. Your students are working very hard. We are striving for that excellence. Um and we feel I personally also feel very supported by our admin team, our counseling team um even all the way through to our custodial team. So I think all systems are going and I just wanted to give you that update on the freshman division. But I actually wanted to give praise to Dr. Huff and his administration team. Um in particular Dr. Roush. Um last year Dr. Rash called all the English teachers together for a

094meeting to discuss what our needs are for the coming year and this year we were able to be given. IXL is a program that does a fantastic job with the students first of all by doing a diagnostic with each student to be able to ascertain what is that students level in English and proficiency and where there may be skills lacking or advanced and then within that program it then gives them recommendations so that the student can work on individual recommendations to either moderate up or if it's a student who is gifted that they can pursue further interest. So the program is great from an English point of view and in addition we also have it for our math teachers and I'm told for our social studies and science teachers through till December. So I just

095wanted to say a big thank you. It is a tool that really allows us to differentiate in the classroom which is very difficult since we have students that come with so many different needs and levels. This is one tool that if a teacher had to do it individually, it would be so time confused consuming, excuse me, and almost impossible. So I know with federal funding going with state funding going, this must have been a very difficult decision to be able to spend that funding. I think it was very courageous. I think our students are going to benefit from this. And once again, I just want to thank you for making that decision. It really is a tool where money has been spent well and hopefully we'll see the results with our students. Thank you. >>

096Thank you, Mr. Dir. And uh thank you uh Dr. Roush for that. >> All right, that is all of uh public comment. Uh next we have uh the alumni excellence. Uh Dr. rough. I should have probably said that in a much deeper deeper tone, but uh I >> I I can't I we we all don't have voices like this. Next. Uh >> I see what you did there, President Scott. >> Good evening, President Scott, members of the board community. Tonight I have the distinct honor of helping to recognize a member of the Indiana Sports Writer and Sports Casters Hall of Fame. Sports Michigan's co-founder Chuck Freeb know knows the complete Michigan sports scene as well as anyone mainly because he'd been a part of it all of his life. Born in South Bend, he is

097a 1982 graduate of Elcart Central High School. And in 1986, he received his BA in American studies from the University of Notradam, Notre Dame, whatever you want to call. These days, he's well known for his love of area high school sports. His passion shows for 17 years at WNDU, where Chuck pioneered expanding high school television coverage with Friday night flights. his flights during football season and round ball roundup for basketball. For 20 seasons, Chuck served as sport director at WHME um TV46 where he called playbyplay on the high school football and basketball game of the week, various college sports events, and co-hosted Morning Jump Start on Pulse FM. In 20 2017, Chuck was named Indiana Sports Cer of the Year by the Indiana Sports Writer and Sports Cer Association. He was inducted into the ISA

098ISSA Hall of Fame in 2019 and is a member of the Indiana Football Hall of Fame in 2022. He's in a lot of Hall of Fames. Chuck also takes the challenge of giving back to the community through public service. He is a frequent guest speaker and an MC around town for various charities including Hannah's House, Child Christ, and Reigns of Life. He also MC's uh an event for us, I think. Is that correct? >> I know that is correct. He Yes, he does. He does an outstanding job. His proudest community achievement comes from serving for 30 years as a board member for the women's care center. His work has helped raise tens of millions of dollars for local charities. He has served as a coach and an umpire at the Czech wagoner little league and

099the in inner city catholic league. Chuck and his wife Diane have been married for 34 wonderful wonderful years and are parents of six children. Peter, Christopher, Mary, Jeanie, Rosie, and TJ. Well, you could definitely I could tell they love each other. U they live in South Bend with their mini doodle winning. If I can just have us please let's give a huge round of applause for our alumni excellence, Chuck Freebie. [Applause] Dr. Huff asked me to say a few words and I'll make it very brief because nobody came here to see me other than my wife. I just want to express my appreciation to the board, to the community of Alcart for this award and for educating me for 11 years through Mary Beck School. They changed the logo a little bit, but we were

100always the Barrens through North Side and through Elcart Central. Uh the Elcart Community Schools helped to shape me into the person that I am today. And my wife's only regret is that there wasn't a towel folding class. But I really appreciate this. It always means a lot when I get to come back and do a game, whether it's at Rice Field or at North Side Gym. Those are special special places. This is a great community and I'm always honored to call this my hometown. Thank you. [Applause] That was a much quicker than I anticipated. Uh >> I used to have a lot of time. >> Oh, we had we had a video, too. Do we? Okay. >> Jumbo set here for Elcart. They're going to try to run to the left. >> Dao up the

101middle. Touchdown. Alcart. >> Conor Da's seventh touchdown of the season. And Elcart takes the lead 6-3. >> I'm Chuck Freebie, Elcart Central, class of 1982. I'm the co-founder of a company called Sports Michigan, which has taken over the high school game of the week franchise from my previous employer, WHME. I grew up grew up in the community of Belcart. Lived right across the street from those railroad tracks by Rice Field. When I was 14, we moved over to the east side of town, but I was still only 8 minutes away. So, the Elcart schools just gave me the tremendous opportunity to really pursue something that I really wanted to try, which was broadcasting. We had a radio and TV studio over in the old Elcart Central High School. man by the name of Nico Valentine

102ran that and with WTRC's cooperation. We did a program called This is Blazer Country and we would talk about things going on at the school. I'd have the opportunity to interview a variety of coaches and it just gave me the chance to to pursue that and hone my craft and and learn from some great teachers, learn how to write well, learn how to read well. It was a tremendous melting pot of people. That's one of the things I've always appreciated about the Alcart schools is you get the richest of the rich, you get the poorest of the poor, and they all come together in a common cause. And that's really one of the great things about athletics in Elcart is you bring all these people together for a common cause and it shows up especially

103at this place on a Friday night. This place has so many great memories for me because we had an athletic director by the name of Max Bell that heard me doing PA at a JV game and said, "Why not let this kid have a chance with the varsity games and do the public address system?" And so my junior and senior years, I got to do the PA for the Alcart Central football games. And Coach Kurt was so cooperative, Mr. Bell, Bob Slaughter, who was the activities director, and Al Bias, who was the principal. Uh, they all supported me in in doing that. And quite frankly, there aren't a lot of students that get that kind of opportunity. So, I was really blessed to have the chance to get behind a mic at a young age.

104And now, it has led me to this wonderful career that I've had the chance to have here in my home area. And that's special to me, too. The fact that I've been able to come back here so many times and call Elcart football and basketball games, that's very special to me. Having grown up here, I got the chance to to come here to the Elcart schools and they prepared me well for going over to Notre Dame where I spent four years learning my craft and and fortunately I've been able to spend a lot of time in this community. We got married in 1991 and we've had six children who've grown up in South Bend and they're fully grown. We've just had our first grandchild on August 16th and we're thrilled to to have little Charlie

105Joseph Ernst as our grandson now. So outside of what I do for Sports Michigan, I just I like to help people. So I have involved myself in various charities. I've worked for a charity called the Women's Care Center. I've been blessed to help them raise tens of millions of dollars over the course of the years, but also involved with reigns of life and I've umpired little league games, been involved with the Chet Wagner little league. I have so many fond memories of of playing Little League here in Elcart over at the FOP Little League Park. Hello, Coach Buck. Um, have the opportunity to speak about one of my dear friends, um, Charlie Freeb, better known as Chuck Freeb these days, but uh, Charlie and I go way back. Um, we met at the age of

106nine and we had the opportunity when FOP was starting Little League before they had all of the diamonds at the at the current location. We got to play at Hawthorne Elementary School, part of the Elcart Community School System. Fast forward a little bit, age 13. Um, Charlie has is still playing sports with us, but he has moved into the booth at age 13. He's at the press box at FOP and he's announcing all of our games. He's up there and and not only is he announcing the game and doing it very well at age 13, but he's also got statistics. Nobody has statistic at age 13, but with Charlie Freeb, we had statistics. And then as we moved on into high school, he was the voice of the Blazers on Friday nights. He would announce

107our names as we as we played football games. And continuing on through um our adult lives, um Charlie and I's paths have crossed many times. Um we he has been the speaker for the Bringingle Award for many many years. That's one call I know that every year I could make and he's like, "Buck, I already got it on the calendar. I'll be there." And that's the passion that he brought every day to high school. That's the passion he brings every time he announces a game at Elcart. Um, regardless of who we're playing or where we're playing, I always feel like that he's unbiased, but he has a special spot for Elcart Athletics when he calls a game for us. Miller on the handoff up the middle. First down, and that'll do it. The Elcart Lions

108have come to Freed Field and knocked off Penn. For the first time since 1985, a football team from the city of Alcart has beaten Pen at Freed Field. And look at the jubilation for the kids from the city with a heart. I think the fact that we're still striving to give that experience to so many young people here and give them the opportunities that they might not otherwise have and that this community is still such a great melting pot especially in our public schools for people of variety of cultures, a variety of backgrounds to come together to share experiences and to learn together. So th that's a marvelous thing that we have the opportunity to do here and I'm very blessed to have grown up in a community like Elkart [Applause] >> Josh Kellogg put

109that video together and he should be either lauded or flogged. He did a very good job. >> Thank you, Chuck. Next, uh we have our moment of pride this evening. >> Good evening, President Scott, members of the board, Dr. Huff, and community. My name is Da Cobb. I'm a senior. I am the president of student government. I'm involved in SSAC um academic quiz bowl and academic spell bowl and I'm also the president of bring change to mind and move to stand and I play travel volleyball too. So today I'm just kind of sharing moment of pride from our school. So first I want to talk about our pep assembly which was super exciting not just for me but for a lot of students this year. Um all of the 10th through 12th grade students attended

110our meeting um just to kind of get homecoming week started up last Friday. Um, I did get to include a few pictures from that. It was awesome. Um, a lot of school spirit. I was really happy to see that. We even got to have some of the freshman bust over. We had a lot more freshman show up than I expected to. So, that was super exciting. Um, being outside on the field allowed us to involve all of our students. We got to highlight our fall sports, our cheerleading team, our band, all that. And then, yeah, just a lot of school spirit was shown that for that. And yeah, getting homecoming geared up was super fun. So, that was our pep assembly. And then homecoming week, we also got to kick off um actually yesterday with

111our dodgeball tournament. We had a first place team, a second place team, and then our third place team was super close to our second. It was really fun. We got the bracket going. Teams were really nice to each other, good sportsmanship, so that made me happy, too. Um we have class Olympics coming up tomorrow and then our community event this weekend as well. Um obviously the game Friday, everybody knows about that. But yes, super excited for homecoming week this year. I feel like we've already been much more ahead than past years and it's been great so far. So yeah, just kind of sharing about that. There's the dodgeball teams and our flyer for our community event this year. We also have another thing I'm super passionate about um going on this month for suicide prevention

112month. We have students set up a table every Monday morning. They hand out mental health resources, bracelets, pens, have an interactive coloring board to kind of cope with stress, de-stress in the mornings before classes, and just kind of talk to students, get students involved before class starts up. So, that's kind of how we're um promoting suicide prevention month in our building. And then we also have a bunch of clubs kicking off with the kind of winding down of the very beginning stress of school. We've had chess start, Dungeons and Dragons, bring change to mind, and then the robotics call out meeting is tomorrow. So, yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of clubs I didn't mention, but exciting to get all students involved. Even the students that aren't in athletics can get involved in other academic

113clubs. So, that's been really cool to see, too. Um, we also wanted to highlight our drum major, Owen Marks. He's been doing this for two years. He also plays the string, bass, and tuba. He told me that he started in orchestra, went to jazz band and concert band, and then told me that he balanced all of this with the small amount of time he had using it wisely, good time management skills, and just keeping up with his classes as well as keeping up with his friends, all the high school things. He's in multiple AP classes, multiple dual credit classes. He plans to major in music education next year, and his favorite part of high school band is the relationships he gets to make. So, I thought that was really sweet, too. band did have a

114competition, the BOA in Toledo. And then October 4th, we host the Khan Invitational. Athletics highlight. Um, we had girls golf sectionals. That was also on Friday. They placed fourth. And Natalie Smith goes to regionals for getting first place. So, that's exciting. And then boys tennis had their senior night. Girls flag football had their senior night. You can see those pictures on there, too. I also had the amazing opportunity to talk to one of our foreign exchange students. We have a few, but it was really nice to talk to Marta about her goals for being here, what drew her to Elkcart. She just told me that she wanted to live like the American movies she sees, get to go to football games. I thought that was kind of funny at first, but then I was like,

115well, coming from another country, like that's not the norm for them, and that's just the norm for us. So, that was really cool to hear from her. She said the area is beautiful. She loves the garden. She was like, it's huge here. And I was like, "Elcar's not that big." And she was like, "Well, where I'm from, like it's just a tiny island." And I was like, "Yeah, I guess that makes sense." So yeah, it was just really cool talking to her about the difference from her home country coming here. And her main goal was just to make friends, have fun, get the American experience. So yeah, it was really cool talking to her about that. Upcoming events, we have senior sunrise on October 10th. Homecoming obviously this week. Friday's the game and then Saturday

116we have our homecoming dance. Um the district chess tournament is December 13th and then the senior student government class is doing the breast cancer awareness fundraiser on October 3rd at the football game. So that's coming up too. That's all I have for you guys tonight. So thank you all for your time. >> Thank you. Great job. [Applause] >> Very well done. Uh, next we have uh Miss Carmichael, we have the Cleveland Report. [Applause] >> President Scott, members of the board, Dr. Huff from the community, I'm Kelly Carmichael, the proud principal of Cleveland Elementary School. Before I start kind of going through these slides, I just want to thank the staff that's both here and at home. Without them, none of this is possible. They are dedicated, patient, and allin for Cleveland families. and I'm so

117proud to have them as part of our team. So, thank you all very much for being here and thank you for everyone at home who's watching. Last school year, we had set three goals for um academic success. Improving our iLearn scores in both reading and math as well as I read. Um after the school year, we had increased reading ELA and I learn by five 4% and math by 3%. So, not quite the goal we were going for, but still making a lot of progress. One area that I think is really important to highlight um in that bottom table is our special education population. For the past three years, we have had a steady increase of students enrolling at Cleveland coming to us with an IEP. And within each both ELA and math, we have

118seen the same growth in their academic success as well. So that is something that we are very proud of. And that group doesn't always get the recognition. So that takes a lot of hard work for those kids to get there and for those teachers to show that support. In I read, we went from 64% to 88%. Way exceeding our goal. [Applause] In our pursuit of excellence last school year, one of the biggest differences was having a literacy coach added to our staff. Um, Cleveland is not a title one school, so we often don't get some of those outside supports. That's not a complaint. That's just an explanation. But having a coach added to our staff was a gamecher for supporting students, for supporting teachers, and just providing that extra support for what teachers needed to

119be successful. In addition to the amazing literacy coach that was added to our staff, our teaching staff is constantly seeking growth, always asking questions, wanting to get better. Um, no one was afraid to welcome the coach into their classrooms. there was no animosity or any problems really building those relationships. In addition, we utilized tier fun tier one foundations which is a phonics program that really helped support that consistent collaboration through the PLC process having strong interventions in place and one of the things that I also think contributed to the special ed growth is a dedication to just tier one for all students. In previous years, um, we have had small group time, pull out groups, and and last year, we really focused on ensuring that every kid, no matter what they needed or where they

120were, were part of that tier one instruction. So, they were getting on grade level um, act lessons. And so, I think that really helped make a difference to show that that strong growth. Um, things that we already have in action for this school year. In addition to continuing our literacy coaching, we have also added math coaching with Alex Holtz. He was hired on as the district math coach. He is meeting with our third, fourth, and fifth grade teams weekly and just helping to build that math strength through coaching as well as the reading and that has been a huge success already. Uh tier one instruction and pacing, we are using the district pacing guides and really breaking that down into instructional practices to strengthen that tier one. For interventions, we're using the UFly, which is

121a I don't it's just it's a Florida based intervention that's very scripted phonics program. So, kids take a placement test and they're placed into specific categories to help fill gaps that they might have. So, while they're working on tier one grade level opportunities in intervention time, they get what they need time. Continuing the collaboration, pride um is a big part of Cleveland. So, making sure those expectations are taught and expected every day at school and then following multi-tered systems of support. Just getting kids what they need and making sure that we're monitoring their progress. Um, in addition, something that helps improve academics and strength is giving kids a reason to show up at school. If kids aren't at school, they can't be learning. So, we are working to reduce our chronic absenteeism. You can see

122the decrease shown here. We do have things in place like celebrations and monthly awards, but really I think the biggest thing is making them feel like they're part of the family. Kids have to want to come to school. So I says give them a reason to show up because having smiling faces, people teachers wanting to be at school brings kids to school. Having them have opportunities to share with friends, to experience school, and just to engage. School's the best place on earth. And so having kids get to feel that joy too, I think is really important. So I think a lot of those things have contributed to our um decrease in chronic absenteeism. One of the things I'm most proud of at Cleveland is what we call the Cleveland way. This is just how we

123do things at Cleveland. The picture on the right is a picture of the wall of distinction. Each classroom has a photo, a selfie if you will, of their class in a frame, and they put up distinction categories for those things. So classes who receive 75 Cleveland cash get a little yellow medallion. Classes who make the 95% attendance each month get a little blue medallion. And classes who have less than 5% of behavior referrals get a little green medallion. So just ways of having whole class, we're a team. We're a family. It's not individuals. It's the whole class. So that is the wall of distinction. We also start off the school year with building relationships. Um, I really put a focus on the first days, not giving pretests, not torturing kids with some of those like

124don't need to have textbooks out the first day. We are spending those first five to seven days of school having fun, talking to kids, learning about them, just enjoying their presence and having them be, I keep saying it, but a part of the Cleveland family. Teachers are all required to make positive phone calls before um Labor Day to introduce themselves to parents, to get to know them, and just to say hello. It's always nice to hear a voice. We just finished special persons day on Friday, which is I call it maybe it should be called PR day. It is a great day to just let families come into school and meet their teachers on a I don't know back to school night is just kind of this push to get into schools. But when you

125can be in the classrooms, see the teachers in action, see the kids in action, it's just a really great day to have families be a part of our community. Oh gosh, I could keep going. Sorry, this list is long. Cleveland families is something we do each quarter. All of the students are divided into a family. So, every staff member has students grades K through five um of all different age groups. Anyone that was in my family in kindergarten and is still a Cleveland Indian is in my family in fifth grade. Just trying to build community within our building, in their neighborhoods. I see you in the hallway. You're in my family. Um my family has a little sign. We kind of shoot each other in the hallway if we see the kids. Just giving kids

126another adult to connect to is a really big thing at Cleveland. We also do quarterly awards assemblies. Um, our music teacher runs the Cleveland news each day. It is run by students. So, she uses a green screen and connects all the things. I don't even know all the things. If you need to some entertainment, watch the Cleveland news. And then lastly on the Cleveland way, each day on the news, the students say the student creed and the teachers say the teacher creed. Here they are. The students, if you come to an awards assembly, you can hear all the kids will say this in Houston at the beginning of the the assembly and they say it each morning in class. They say it each morning in class, just giving them value that they're important. We're happy

127they're here. We care about them. We want them to focus on what they're doing. And then the teachers, I'll say the teacher creed as well. Just reinforcing that the things that we're doing at Cleveland are important and that we believe in our kids. These are big things to have kids hear us tell them how much we care about them and how valuable they are in our schools. >> Classic. Yes. >> My favorite thing about Cleveland is is how we all work together. >> I like art and music. I love most about Cleveland is everyone here is very kind. >> My favorite thing about Cleveland is learning new things. >> My favorite thing about Cleveland are the friendly people that I have met this year. >> Hi. My favorite thing about Cleveland is the administration and

128staff. [Music] >> Spending time with my friends. There's so many nice teachers here and there are a lot of nice people here. >> What I love most about Cleveland is the music program. >> What I most love about Cleveland is doing the sports. >> What we love most about Cleveland is our friends. [Music] >> Five star. My favorite favorite thing about Cleveland is our class with M. >> My favorite thing about Cleveland are our pride families, >> five star, >> learning, >> finding performance arts day, >> all the great things we get to learn. >> The teachers. >> My favorite thing about living with special is learning new things. >> How much the teachers care. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Thank you very much, [Applause] >> M. Car. Miss Carmichael, I will say um one of the

129emerging themes that come out of this for me is this this family. Um and that's huge. You know, I think that you know, we all know that there is u a value that I I know I appreciate and that is like everyone wants to feel valued, appreciated, and recognized. And I think that you guys at Cleveland has have done that very very well. U the young lady at the end says how much the teacher care. I I think, you know, when you can in um embed that level of value that the students feel like the teachers care, I think you're really starting to cook cook with some butter at that point. So, uh you keep up the great work. I really appreciate the uh and have really enjoyed this presentation. >> Thank you very much.

130>> It's a great team. I like I said, it's it takes a village and and we are truly a family. >> Keep it up. >> Thank you. I also want to tell you thank you this presentation at 7:30 at night and the amount of energy that you brought in here. It doesn't matter if it's 7:30 at night, 7:30 in the morning, 1:30 in the afternoon. This is who you get as your leader and I just want to tell you how it's such a blessing to have you lead Cleveland uh elementary. So, I just want to say thank you to you and your staff and you know what you build invest in relationships and the results will follow. And I just want to tell you thank you. After all the we talk about a lot of

131heavy stuff here in education. We sometimes forget that you can systematize joy too. You are very intentional about making sure that there are joyous moments built into the days of uh your kids' lives. You didn't include any of your art fair that oh my goodness. I walked around just mesmerized about how much your community. Did you know we do this? And I had kids who I never even met. Take me to all these special places and show me their art. I say this because I think sometimes we forget about what our purpose is. And our purpose is to make sure that kids, as you said, have a reason to come to school. If my building leader was like you back, Mr. Snell, God bless his soul, he was not like you. If we have people

132leading like you do, we should never have a kid. They should be running the school. So, I just want to tell you, thank you for your enthusiasm. Thank you for your courage and thank you to your team for creating environments for our kids. It's >> absolutely >> Could you have your team and staff that are here stand up, please? [Applause] >> Thank you. Great job. >> I'm noticing a theme with the presentations that they're that they're all trying to outdo each other. So, no, I think it's I think it's help and thank you for the colleagues from the other schools who have come to support. I see Woodland back there. I see Pinewood back there. So, thank you as well. So, it's it it takes a village really to to get this work done. So,

133hats off to all of you. Turn back over to you, President Scott. >> Thank you, Dr. Huff. Uh, next on the agenda we have uh, Exona Velcart, Miss Woods. >> Thank you, President Scott, members of the board, Dr. Huff, community members. I'm grateful for the opportunity to share and highlight the areas of academics, arts, and athletics. In the area of academics at the Elcart Area Career Center, first year surgical students, surgical services students are learning about DNA by assembling models with marshmallows, toothpicks, and licorice, while secondyear students are practicing the proper use of protective gear. Both groups are gaining assessional skills for success in the surgical field. At Bristol Elementary, kindergarten students in Missing H Mrs. Pingworth's class have been studying the five senses in reading and recently enjoying a smelling and tasting activity to

134put their learning to action. In arts, Elcart High School student Danielle Watson is serving as a 202526 Westside Middle School choir intern. From crafting lessons plans and leading vocal warm-ups to helping students master music and perform on stage, she's already earning high praise from both students and her site supervisor. At the freshman division, Mrs. Miss Brunorf's human services students use their artistic talents to create a class timeline of major milestones in the human services career pathway. Each student researched a key event and designed visual representa representation showing how the field has evolved to meet the changing human needs. In athletics, on September 9th, members of the Lions Student Athletic Council attended a statewide leadership conference in Plymouth, taking part in activities designed to build teamwork, communication, and leadership skills. At the same event, Elkcart was

135recognized as one of the only 22 schools in Indiana to receive the 2024 25 sportsmanship award. Congratulations to the 2025 David B. Emmens award winner winners, Coach Janice Fuller from Pinewood Elementary, Coach Alyssa Kovatch from Westside Middle School, and Coach Todd King from Elcart High School. recognized for their dedication to supporting student athletes and fostering leadership. We also want to celebrate coach Jackie Rost, honored at the Elcart High School volleyball alumni night for her three decades of coaching career and a milestone of 750th victory and outstanding example of excellence in Elcart. >> There's an impersonator in that photo. >> I was not able to identify him. >> I tried so hard that night. That was funny. >> Some of our future happenings, join us on September 26th for homecoming and October 4th will be our

136150th Conselmer Invitational. And as always, please be sure to follow our district and school social media pages as we share each day the excellence of Elcart Schools. >> Thank you, Wendy. Got to let your hair down on Friday nights. back. >> They'll use that evidence against me some way, some shape, some >> I was looking for you. I couldn't find you. I looked right by you. >> That is I'm going to start wearing that during the day >> because I don't want to be found. But no, I appreciate it. >> Uh, next on the agenda, we have the consent items. Uh, do I have a motion? >> Motion. >> Do I have a second? I have a motion and a second. Do I have any discussion or comments from the board? We have one donation

137from Brian Hiler Estate and that is a $500 donation to our construction trades class for miscellaneous tools and supplies. So $500 on behalf of our construction trades department. So thank you. >> Thank you, Kelly. Is that it? >> Okay. >> I mean, unless you want to Annie up something >> next week, maybe. >> All right, we'll talk. >> All right, I have a motion and I have a second. All in favor? I >> I >> opposed. Motion carries. >> Um, next on the agenda, we have old business. Uh, Mr. Thorne, contracts. >> Thank you. Good evening, President Scott, Dr. Huff, board, members, community. Uh, this evening, the administration presents the following contracts for final consideration. Standardized food service systems, Inc., DBA Smart Systems. NWBA, a division of H Hotton Mifflin High Court Publishing Company. Startup

138Moxy of Elkart County, Marty Dyer and Liippard Components. >> You good evening board president Scott, members of the board, Dr. Huff. The administration presents the following contracts for final consideration. Stacy Van, school psychologist. >> You. >> The administration presents the following contract for final consideration. Maisy Education. >> Thank you, Dr. Roush. Do I have a um motion to accept uh these contracts as presented? >> Motion. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Do I have any discussion or comments from the board regarding uh this list of contracts? >> It's very exciting to vote on all of these, especially after the hard work you did. I I do want to just say that if you've ever been to the career center for the open house and you've had an opportunity to meet Marty Dyer,

139he is an outstanding human being who like loves this uh the opportunity to serve here. He's I've known him for years and I just think it's very exciting that we get to continue that contract with him. We are very very lucky to have Marty serving our students in that role >> as are all the other roles important. But I'm just going to speak on that one. >> I would agree. Marty's a great guy. >> I would also agree with that. Yeah. >> Don't tell him, though. No. >> Well, don't let him know it's recorded. Is that what you're saying? No. >> Yes. >> All right. Do you have any other comments? >> All in favor? >> I oppose. Motion passes. Still under old business, Mr. Thorne, we have board policy 0166.1, the consent agenda. >>

140Thank you. Uh this evening, the administration presents proposed board policy uh 0166.1 uh for final consideration. >> Thank you. Uh do I have a motion to accept this uh board policy? >> I have a motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I have a motion and I have a second. Uh any questions or discussion from the board? Seeing or hearing none, all in favor? >> Opposed? Motion passes. >> Uh, next resolution. >> Thank you. Uh, this evening, the administration recommends board approval of a proposed resolution authorizing certain payments to former Elkart Community Schools food service employees as well as revisions to the paid leave benefits for food service employees who remain in the employment of the school corporation. >> Thank you, Mr. Thorne. Do I have a motion to accept the resolution as

141presented? >> I have a motion. Do I have a second? I have a motion and I have a second. Uh any questions or comments uh from the board regarding this resolution? >> Seeing or hearing none. All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Next on the agenda, we have new business. Mr. Thorne, board policy 3142C, cancellation of a teaching contract. >> Thank you. Uh tonight the administration presented for preliminary uh consideration proposed revisions to that board policy 3142C. Be happy to answer any questions you might have related to the policy. You have any questions or discussion from the board regarding this policy. It's up for initial consideration. Um if you don't have any tonight, we have a few members that are not here tonight, so they will be in touch should they have any.

142Uh next we have uh contracts under new business. >> Thank you. The administration presents the following contracts for preliminary consideration by the board. AMS Global on behalf of the Century Center Board of Managers and Connectable Inc. bring these to you for preliminary consideration tonight. You >> the administration presents the following contract for initial consideration. CEO Public Relations, Inc. >> You >> um Miss Ross. >> Uh the administration presents uh the following contract for initial admin uh initial consideration. Melman Inc., please. >> Thank you. And last, Mr. Gessie. The administration presents the contract with energy cap for initial consideration. Mr. Gians, do we have any uh questions from the board regarding these uh contracts that are uh have been presented for initial consideration? The only um comment that I would would um want to know um

143um is with the energy cap renewal um is at some point in time maybe at the next meeting um could we get an update on our savings that or maybe you have that number already of what what that's how that's helped us. >> Absolutely. I don't have a history of the of the program. However, I can tell you that in 2024, the program resulted in a cost avoidance of two $2.67 million and our overall payout was $3.7 million. So, without the program, our utility cost would have been in excess of $6.4 million. So, that was a 41.5% cost avoidance over the base year, which was in 2008 2009, which is what we used to calculate. So, we've been in this program that long, but I'd be happy to provide additional information in the future. I

144just don't have the remaining years my at my fingertips. It's somewhat understandable. I think it was is pretty impressive what you did have. So, >> you gave me a little time in between the session, so I went to >> Very good. >> Anticipated. I see. Yeah. >> Thank you for doing that. All right. No further questions. And again, uh, any board members that are not here, uh, since it's under initial consideration, we'll be reaching out, um, with any, uh, uh, questions prior to the next meeting. Uh, next on the agenda, we have the financial report. Miss Ross, >> thank you. Uh, good evening, President Scott, board members, Dr. Huff, and the community. I'm here to present our monthly financial update as we've closed the August books. So, here we are in September. Um so the

145funds that we are um reporting on tonight are education fund operations and rainy day. So here's a snapshot of our education fund for the month uh ended uh August. Um let's see. So the first thing I'd like to call out um our total expenses we have about 32% in this fund remaining. um we are about 66% through the year of the eight months divided by 12. So um it appears we're on track via this metric. Um however, you know, there's some caveats coming when it comes to the education fund. Um you can see our um net expense is uh negative out of this fund overall this year. Um so we're watching that closely. And in terms of transfers to operations, it has yet to make um uh many of its transfers uh slated to the

146operations fund. I do want to stay here for a moment. Um just to point out that uh our total uh salary and benefits are um trending at 90 about 97% of this fund and a 10% or more decrease would move us in the right direction. Um, just another thing to point out, our average um, expenditures in our education fund for wages are about 5.7 million a month. So, we're a little higher coming back to school. There could be contracts rolling off. Um, things of that nature. We're watching that. Uh, benefits are usually about 1.7. Um, so we're watching that. So even though it seems like um you know we're on track in terms of percent of budget remaining, we did get some reprieve over the summer months in terms of less expenses that kind of

147brought us back into you know what looks like a balance here. Um uh but we also have to kind of be cautious too in terms of um we are getting our um updated ADM numbers or I should say enrollment numbers um for fall. The official count is in October. However, with that count, we um are estimated to have a a significant loss of students. And so, how that affects the education fund, the state kind of backs out the difference that what they were funding us at about uh 10,500 students. If we drop to the 10,100, what it, you know, that's where it looks like now, they will back that out and true that up in November and December. So, it made the snapshot may look decent, but we've got, you know, some headwinds coming. Um,

148yes, I'm just So, here's a snapshot of our education fund cash flow. Uh, prudent level for a cash balance. We would like to be at 10 or 12%. Um, so that black dotted line would put us a little over 10 million. You can see we're not um we're not close to that level yet, but that will be ideal. Um just so you have it's just like your um checking account, your checkbook that you have money to cover your expenses. So we would like more um cash balance to have um money to cover more than a month or so of expenses. Um so that's our goals for our cash flow for our education fund. Um our next slide uh we're moving on to the uh operations fund and looking at our trajectory here the remaining balance

149is uh 40%. So that overall appears to be on target. But however uh this fund is um like I mentioned at our last uh board meeting not being able and this meeting not being able to get the transfers from education that it needs to be sustained. So um with that said, this fund is going in the negative um in terms of monthly expense and overall and you know with some prompt action even before I uh arrived here at ECS you all had underway a geo bond a taxable bond um on the way the resolution and that things of that nature. So we are slated to receive those funds uh in October to uh shore up this fund that is anticipated to net about 6.4 million um that we could help support the operations fund during

150this uh transition. And here is just a pie chart representation of what um kind of uh takes up the uh comprises of the um operations funds components there. And here's our operations fund cash flow which is not atypical because you may see like in June we get our um tax revenue. So, it does eb and flow and we would like to have a prudent cash balance um as indicated there um around that 10 um sorry 10% which will be around that 5 million mark and so sometimes we hit it then we fall back down but watching all the funds very closely. Uh next fund is our rainy day and it has had a couple of uh items of activity this year. Just these two items started at about 7.9 this year. Right now we're at

1516.7 million. Okay. And then just consolidating the funds. You've just uh seen those three funds. Uh we have there in the black dotted line where we'd like to be in terms of a cash balance. And you can kind of see the eb and flow of that of the consolidated funds cash flow. And finally, um when it comes to these consolidated funds, just a reminder of our cash flow projections. This was provided to us by our partner uh policy analytics. Um we are deficit spending and um slated to end this year with a cash balance um consolidated cash balance of about 10 million but you kind of looking back at the slides about 7 million was from rainy day roughly. Right? So rainy day is making up um the lion share of our our cash balance

152as we look toward the end of this year. So, we have talked earlier if you uh got didn't get a chance uh we had our budget work session earlier this evening and you can check out some of the strategies and actually I may have them here that we're employing to turn the corner and and get um some of these expenditures uh in line with our revenue. So, here are some here which I shared earlier this evening. some of the uh savings initiatives again that have been underway before I had the pleasure to arrive at ECS. And so we hope to see some of these um expenditure numbers trending down soon. And that concludes the financial update. >> Thank you. Uh any questions or comments from the board? >> All right, we can move on to

153insurance update. >> Thank you. Okay, as for our insurance update, I'd like to present that our loss ratio um to date is 84.1%. Um this ratio is a measures the percentage of premiums earned that are paid out in claims and other related expenses. Um so the lower this loss ratio rate, the better. Um and so on this next slide here um is a snapshot of where we were uh last year compared to this year. So on that first uh chart there in August of last year, our loss ratio was 111. So that means we were spending more than what we were bringing in. Um we've partnered with um uh Gallagher this year um and they've helped and introduced us to another uh more partners to help butress this plan and make it better. And we're

154meeting with them in the coming weeks to offer um the new the new health insurance plans or what it'll look like in terms of open enrollment coming up soon. So they've been a very robust partner and you can see in the numbers that our loss ratio is is looking quite well. Um, and the fund is looking healthy. So, that concludes the uh insurance update. >> Thank you. Do we have uh any questions or comments from the board regarding the insurance update? >> Thank you, Miss Ross. >> Dr. Huff, thank you, President Scott. Um, members of the board community, um, I just wanted to take a moment to to to really appreciate a a student. We also we talk about student advocacy, but I also think it's important that we talk about student agency. We had

155a student here by the name of Willow Townsen, I think, um who was recognized with her own day in Elkcart as she um was the first um I think it was last week maybe that she was recognized by Mayor Rod Robinson for um having the first u handicap accessible signal at a intersection I think of Beardsley and Main Street. Um this wasn't just work that she started outside at home. She she started at her home with conversation with her family then with her teacher and then made a presentations to to the mayors back in May till now something is actually to not just help her to help all uh individuals at that intersection. I think we forget the power of children. She had an idea and would not be stopped and she said that oh

156he will listen to me even if I'm 12 years old. She seems like an amazing individual. So, if you're watching tonight or or listening tonight to this presentation, just take a moment to uh say thank you to her. I'm pretty sure many people in the future will be saying the same thing. Outstanding young lady. Um also tonight, I want to Na Cobb, wonderful. I get a chance to uh meet with her at the student advisory uh group once a month. Watching kids, she's not a kid, sorry. Watching young adults grow over time is a huge privilege. her speaking up about these things. They make it look so easy. What do we find as adults? One of the most petrifying things to do is to talk right there. And so, thank you to all her teachers

157for helping her to develop those skills. The kids really do just each week. I just am in awe of all the great things that our kids do around our district. Um, also, she's not here tonight, but Regina Robinson help hosted the resource fair um with tons of people in this room and over 60 community partners. uh on the south side of town um last week. Um it was it was outstanding um to see everyone come together um to support uh Elkcart Community Schools and to make connections and and also people were happy to do it. What I keep for I don't keep forgetting and I keep reminding which is a different phrasing. Um this is a very gracious and giving community. So if you had a chance to go there it it was I forgot

158I was at work until they reminded me I was at work. I I I get bullied where I go Mr. Anderson and and some other individuals bullying me while I was down there. But um no, it was it was wonderful. But our partners, I love making those connections with our families. And so and then this week, homecoming, please come out and join festivities this week. Um it's going to be a great great week. College Go week is happening in all of our schools uh this week. And so um if you have a certain jersey on, um I'll be looking out for you because I'm alone up here. So please, but big victory for IU this week. My son had a great time uh down there. Um, but this is great. The school spirit that's happening

159and so again, also shout out again to Mrs. Carmichael and her crew back at Cleveland. Um, it's college go week every they're at your school, too. So, just want to say say thank you. Lots of good things happen in Elcart. Glad to report. I'm going to turn it back over to you, President Scott. >> Oh, thank you. And I just want to remind you, uh, Ohio State is a choice. >> So, you do choose to be on an island up here in Indiana. So, you >> Yeah. Just >> I'm I'm sorry. I chose to win a national championship. >> Oh. Well, if it means anything to I really like their band. >> We do. Best best band in the land. >> Really do. >> Best band in the land. >> Great band. You do have

160a great >> You see how easy bullying occurs? Ladies and gentlemen, do not do these things and be supportive of one another. Make sure that we are doing Sprigio. Get her. Lindsay Brandon. But no. Um, no. I don't want to be my I'm a I wore an IU shirt all day on Saturday um to support myself. So, it was a good time. >> That's Thank you. >> It'll be hard. >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Huff. >> You're welcome. >> Um, do we have anything from the board, >> Kelly? >> It's evolving. Kelly's Corner is evolving. So, today was difficult because I had a couple of choices I want to make, but I had the opportunity to read Friday at a couple of uh elementary schools, Eastwood, and then also I headed across town over

161to Woodland. And if you ever see like my grandson Sebastian, he's like part of the HPS, but our early learn center. He's just a trooper. He goes, you know, anywhere. But it is our kindergarten teachers. Okay, so we talked about our secretaries and being the first ones. But I have to tell you, these are some of the most amazing human beings I have ever seen. Uh they are walking into kids that some have never been in preschool before. Some have never been around other kids before. They're trying to learn how to socialize. I went in, there's like a ding ding class class. Yes. Yes. I'm like, "What is happening?" They go to these dots, they sit down, they were they like I just go into the school as Gigi and so I sat down in

162this one dot and they were like, "No, Gigi, that's not where you sit. You sit over here." And then we read the book and they they they're just so immersed in it and you talk to them and they are just so happy. but you have so many different dynam dynamics going around and you start to see like the culture of our little kindergarteners and how they help each other in the classroom and their students. So, if you've not had a chance to go into our kindergarten classrooms and read or volunteer or do anything, please do. It is, you know, I can't wait to hop over to your school like I did the one year with reading and it's it is amazing. And so Kelly's Corner represents this week our kindergarten teachers who are the foundation

163of our babies and the star of the love of El Park Community Schools. So kudos to you and thank you Woodland. Fantastic running of your building and your kindergarten teachers were outstanding as Brandon sat here as Eastwood. So I look forward to visiting many more schools to read. So yeah, and off of Kelly's Corner and back on to this Friday night 5050. Five tickets for $5. 10 tickets for $10. Look for me. I'm a quick flash. Flashing lights. Suckers going everywhere. You find me and let's raise money for our athletic department. Okay. >> Thank you, Kelly. >> Yeah. And also, last thing, sorry. The con summer event happens with volunteers. If you can find our music department and you have a few minutes to volunteer, please get a hold of them and step up. It

164is one of the most remarkable experiences that you will ever have. We run the most phenomenal invitational. So if you have a chance to volunteer, please put yourself out there because our music students are representing us so well. So like I challenge you if you have a few minutes to represent and volunteer, please do. That is it. Oh my lord. It was less than three minutes. I mean, I'm going to say one more thing. >> I didn't want to thank you. I just figured >> No, we're good. >> We're good. >> Yeah. >> Thank you, Kelly. >> You're welcome. >> Uh, anyone else from the board? >> Um, I just like to to say a lot of lot of lot of people here uh were here for our um budget work session. So, this is

165really more of a comment uh for the uh hundreds or thousands of people that are watching online uh right now. Um, you saw the financial report. I think it's it's it's it's very clear what what that stated. Um, but I I encourage those who did not attend or were not online during our our our budget work session to hear from Miss Ross and Dr. Huff to please do that. Take some time, review it. Um, you know, there there's a there's a reality that's uh staring us all of us. uh right in the face and uh you know but there is strategies that are in play uh to get passes to get our expenditures in line uh to match our revenue. Uh this Russ team has been working on this uh for a very uh long

166time. This is something that uh you know just didn't uh creep up. Uh it's been something that's been in the works for for for many many years. Uh but it is here now. Uh, I encourage everybody to look and and and review that and and see what was presented tonight and see the strategies. I also encourage you to, you know, ask questions, get involved, you know, be part of the solution because this administration, the business office, the board, the staff, we're all working together uh to resolve this and and and get back to where, you know, we can make the greatest impact in the classroom with the kids. So, please uh take a time, take some time to do that. And then if you have any questions, suggestions, please, you know, contact uh uh the

167board, uh you know, your building administrator. Um but uh there's a lot of great information that was uh uh given out uh during our budget work session tonight. So I encourage everybody to uh please go and and and and listen if you didn't. >> We'll make sure it's sent out as well. >> Okay. Yeah. And we're going to we're going to send it out as well. So nothing else the meeting is adjourned. Thank you everybody.