ECS Board of School Trustees’ Meeting 8/26/25

001All right. Thank you for uh everyone for coming out to our August 26th, 2025 uh public work session. At this time, I will uh call the public work session to order. Who's we're going to first going to start off our public works session. We're going to start it off with our uh blue ribbon plan proposal to our school district. So, Mr. Gian Nessie and his team can come up and start that off. It' be great. Performance services tonight is going to go through their facility assessment that they've been working on in our school district for the previous six months. So, we look forward to hearing from you. And Mr. Gians, I'm going to have you take it away. >> Good evening, President Scott, members of the board. Dr. Huff, members of the community, I'm pleased

002to be able to uh introduce uh performance services and the group that has been working on the facility assessment for several months now. I can tell you that with our review, it is an outstanding assessment. I hope you find as much value in it as we do. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to to Tony Kikondol and he can introduce the remainder of his staff. Thank you, Mr. Giansi. And yes, you have another Tony. I'm I apologize for that, but uh it's a pleasure to be here tonight. Pleasure to be here tonight. Um so to the members of the board um definitely want to kind of share with you all about five months ago Elkcart Community Schools engaged with our company performance services to conduct a district-wide physical conditions assessment of all

003your of all your buildings. Um we're here tonight to really share a summary of what those of what that effort was. Um, and I just brought this up just for a visual because that resulted in about a thousand pages uh of of of a report going through all your facilities, two different binders. >> Chris, can I'm going to inspect you. Actually, we don't need to. >> We're just going to provide a summary of this tonight. >> Thank you. >> Uh, point point being, there's a lot of great information uh that your operational team is going to be able to utilize. And really what this is going to provide ECS is a very clear and a very proactive plan to help you uh manage your facilities from an operational and maintenance perspective. So uh my name

004is Tony Kaiikondall. I'm the business development manager with performance services. Over the next like 30 minutes we're going to cover the following items. We'll share a little bit about who is performance services and why were we qualified uh to conduct this assessment for your district. We'll we'll introduce the assessment team who worked on this over the last several months. We'll really review the purpose of the assessment and how your district plans to use this information going forward. We'll share our key findings throughout the throughout the district and really most importantly kind of share with you what we've prepared which is a a strategic plan to help to help the district look at the next 10 the next 20 years of how you operate and maintain all of your facilities and then we'll just end with

005discussing some next steps um and being a work session Dr. Dr. Huff, I don't think this is okay. I have no problem. If there are questions along the way, feel free to interject, but once again, we're going to try to keep it at 30 minutes to make sure there is some time at the end. Uh, so you all as a board have an opportunity to to ask our team questions. So, first things first, just a little background on performance services. We were founded 27 years ago and we're founded right here in Indiana. And during that time, we've completed thousands of assessments. We've completed a little more than 800 projects for school corporations with a total project value of a little over $3.7 billion. U I just share that with you from a standpoint of this

006isn't our our first time doing this. Um this is kind of who we are as a company kind of at our core is kind of serving K through 12 public schools. And really during the 19 years that I've been with the company, we were just in Indiana. We are now in 19 states. So we are growing. We continue to grow. I was employee 35. Now we're approaching almost 350. Uh with that being said, most of our business is still here in Indiana. Most of our our employees still reside here and most of our projects are still here. We're the largest branch in the company. Um performance services is comprised of professional architects, engineers, designers, consultants, project managers, all under the same roof offering really a full array of services for school districts. And then lastly,

007I do I do want to share too, we have a past experience of working with Elkcart Community Schools. So, we've been able to work with me, Mr. Gianessa here for I've been told that's a little more than 10 years now, uh, with our with our engineers. Uh, and most recently, we were able to actually complete some work for you all over at Mary Dailyaly, at Westside Middle School, and the high school most recently. Very important. I definitely want to make sure I kind of introduce the team members that are here today. Uh for time purposes, I'll just kind of I'll kind of point to them. Um maybe starting in the back here is Chris Gity. If you don't mind raising your hand, Chris, he is our principal architect, kind of our lead architect on this

008assessment. Right in front of him is Dale Basil. He's our national engineering supervisor. And next to Dale is Kevin Bomb, who was our project development engineer. uh these individuals plus a few others were absolutely key in kind of preparing and reviewing all this information for the district. But as you can kind of see on the screen here, it really took a it took a large team. You have a lot of facilities. You have a large footprint. Um so we kind of did the divide and conquer approach and Chris is going to walk you through how we evaluated all those buildings and really kind of prepared this analysis. I do want to say special thanks to Mr. G and Nessie, his operations and maintenance team, they spent tons of hours. So, it wasn't just us. There

009was definitely investment on the school side as well. Um, but I think that's you're going to find out as you look through this information. It really paid off. So, so thank you. Appreciate that. All right. So, the purpose of the assessment kind of getting to why why are we are here? Um, the question is why was this assessment needed? This the district has completed assessments in the past. Some of those assessments may not have had all the information that were need that was needed. They may not have been as comprehensive as this particular assessment. So, we've pulled together and the purpose of this was to really just determine the current facility conditions as we stand here today as we're as we're sharing this information tonight to really evaluate and understand the current and the future

010needs in regards to infrastructure at all your facilities. And most importantly, develop an actionable facility strategic plan. So the district has a vision and is pointed in the right direction. Priorities will change year to year, but in general, you have a a strategic plan to help kind of maintain and update your facilities. And we definitely want to do this in support of the blue ribbon campaign as well. So definitely want to commend the members of the board for p for pursuing that. That is not an easy an easy accomplishment. anything we can do to help support you, we're happy to do that uh in that pursuit. All right, last but not least, um Chris, I'm I'm going to turn this over to Chris Gity, kind of our lead architect. He'll walk you through the key

011findings as well as the building by building assessment, which I see some of you looking at in front of you as well, and he'll explain what that information is. The floor is yours, Chris. >> Thanks, Tony. >> All right. Good evening, everybody. could be a little taller. Uh so looking across your district, we wanted to to put together some key findings, some some themes that came across everywhere. In general, uh your buildings are in really good shape. Your staff is doing an amazing job maintaining what they have. There's nothing that we saw that was necessarily an issue uh that should be addressed through your your maintenance staff. Most of what we saw was age. Uh and that really starts with your interior finishes. some of it's worn, dated, but really at the end of its

012life expectancy. We're using manufacturer standard life expectancy as well as you kind of walk through and you can see where people have walked over the last 10, 20, 30 years. So, a lot of your finishes, your staff's doing an amazing job trying to maintain what they currently have. There just hasn't been in many of your facilities a large investments. Uh accessibility issues and security. We do know that you have done a security project uh the last couple years that has done it was a great uh investment into your facilities. Uh so nothing we saw there was necessarily negative. Those were great investments to your buildings. Uh there is still accessibility issues. So ADA accessibility issues. Uh mostly in your restrooms. Um so handicap students uh some of the facilities aren't up to standard on that.

013Uh fire suppression systems as well as playground accessibility. So again, you're doing great investment. um when you are able to uh there's just still some some work that needs to happen or we recommend still happens. Uh site and building envelopes, that's really everything outside your building. That's your parking lots. Uh driving through your district, there's there's some that uh are in need of some replacement or repair. Sidewalks, uh roofs, I know Tony does a really amazing job maintaining your roofs and has a roof replacement plan. We recommend you just continue working through that plan. Uh as well as windows. So, there's some um original windows from your 1960s uh throughout your district that single pane. They're not energy um they're not very good energy use as well as acoustics. And then your mechanical, electrical, plumbing,

014infrastructure. Uh this is everything behind the walls that that as an architect I don't really have to worry about, but our two engineers over there uh spend a lot of time working on. Uh again, your staff is doing an amazing job maintaining what they have. It's just past its life expectancy. So, an investment should be made, at least we recommend being made to replace some of that stuff that that just is too old to to continue working. Uh, when you do replace it, it helps your building comfort, indoor learning environment, and there is energy savings opportunities as well associated with that really because it's new equipment. But in general across the district, that's what we've seen as is some key findings. All right. So, one of the things and everyone sees the the 11 by7

015in front of you. We do want to be able to compare buildings to really show different areas and some of the ones that are in greater need. One thing to to put together a big list of everything, but it's really important to start to strategize how to address it. So, we've developed this scoring matrix. uh we use ashray standards for as far as energy consumption as well as age of equipments manufacturers standard life expecties ADA accessibility and code issues. So all of that's come together to create the standard. There's about 75 different items that we look at and you have in your binder Eastwood as an example as well. So you can kind of see all the components that go into it. When we take all of those numbers, we roll them up. We weigh

016them all to create a score. Unfortunately, you probably can't expect every building to be 100% because 100% in our world means it's a brand new building. Uh so scoring a 100 is is really difficult. The way we start to think about it is somewhere in the like new condition, you probably don't have anything that you need to touch. So that's anywhere between the 80 and 100. When you get down into the 70s, um it's above average. There may be one or two things to start considering. Um but in general those buildings are still in really good shape. Uh in this the 50s and 60s that's when you want to start looking at hey we probably need to do some investment to this building. There's things that again life expectancy of of materials equipment in there.

017We probably need to start looking at some investments in that area of the 50 to 60 range. anything below 50, there's there's some major issues that we we probably should start considering um earlier rather than later on those. And we're going to start going building or I guess area by area. So, we're going to start with the high school and the high school support facilities. Uh you see there, uh the high school scores about 62, freshman center is a little lower at 55, and then you can see the rest of the the buildings as they um go out there. So you can tell most of these buildings are are in need of of some major investments. Uh you have done investments to those field facilities and they they turned out great. Uh unfortunately they're just

018big buildings. So you know you do a third of the carpet in a building or you you renovate some of the spaces in in the high school. Well the rest of the building hasn't been touched. So that's where you see some of those scores. Um we did take in account the work that you've done and again we the stuff we've seen has been a great we do commend your team on that. So, uh, just looking at across the board though there are still some some issues of concern. >> Sure. Good question. Um, a number of these are are kind of self-explanatory, but uh, obviously safety and security is is paramount within the district. So, just out of curiosity, what do you look for when you enter enter a building >> uh, and and when you

019start rating uh, for safety and security? >> Yes, definitely. Uh, very good question. Safety and security. Um, we've got uh and I'm just going to read them off to you, but I'll kind of pull some of the ones that are most important. Uh, traffic patterns and parking. Uh, we want to make sure that there's a separation of of cars and buses. Uh, secure entry vestibules. I know your last project did every building with secure entry vestibules except the freshman center. So, that why that one scores a little less. U, but making sure that secure vestibules. Uh, cameras, room identification, general signage around the building. uh if we noticed any code issues. So, Rice Field um scores a little lower with the uh accessibility because there's no way to get to the upper floors with accessibility.

020Uh fire suppression systems, while they may not be required, we did want to identify the buildings that don't have them or does does not have full suppression systems, uh emergency lighting, and then just some general other lights and security. So, uh even a low score does not mean it's unsafe. It's just looking at it holistically. If you're building a brand new building, what all would you want in to it? >> Does that answer your question? >> Yes. Okay. Thank you. >> Yep. Thank you. >> Uh but again, you can see here on the high school ones, um most again, the safety and securities are are in the 70s, which is or in the upper 70s with the exception of the freshman center uh and some of the career center ones. Those those are scoring pretty

021good. Those are saying, "Hey, you've you've made the right investments to it. There may be a few items here that aren't um necessarily up to a brand new building. Um but those are are in decent shape. We always like to look at geographically. Um high schools are really all clumps clumped together, so we can't necessarily make any big differences there, but looking at where those are um and then their scores associated with that. Looking at your middle schools, they have not received as much of an investment recently. So their numbers are a little bit lower. A lot of those are in interior finishes just based on the age of your your buildings uh as well as the site work. Uh specifically north side, they have a lot of asphalt needs, a lot of parking lot

022needs at that facility. But that's those are some of the key ones that are are bringing some of those scores down. Again, we're not expecting 100% on all of those, but those are some of the ones that have um jumped out as as some major concerns. >> A question. >> Sure. Does this take into into consideration the work that we've been doing at the at the three middle schools in the last few months or it takes that um it we walked it before. We're able to incorporate some of that. I'm not going to be promised that we we cut all of it. Uh but we know you did the restroom so those should be incorporated into it. Um a lot of finishes are incorporated into it. So we did try to pull in all of

023the work that has been happening the last couple months. Again, those are we applaud those projects. They've turned out really nice. Um, but they're also some sometimes peacemeal. So, yes, you were able to invest in these restrooms. Maybe there's not all of them that got done >> as well. Thank you. >> Yep. >> Uh, then again, we looked at them geographically um as far as how they compare with scores. And then the one that has probably the most breath obviously because it's your most number of buildings is your elementary schools. Uh and you see a wide range of that a lot of that is is age of your facility age of your building and when was the last time you had um as a school spend some significant dollars in those. So the ones that

024have received some some works Monger and uh daily those numbers rise to the rise higher because they've obviously had a lot of work done to those. um some that have not had as much work um will start to to fall to the to the bottom where they there are investments that are needed. And then the next one um this one we we saw some value and also looking at it geographically. Uh so where where are the ones that are higher scoring and where are the ones that have some some needs? Yes sir. with the um scoring. I know that it it seems like this is an equal distribution in the scoring, but is there something that you believe maybe weighted more like our interior finishes weighted more than um safety and security or infrastructure and

025systems? How would you um if we wanted to attack some uh area? Where would you tell us? >> Good question. So, uh we do weight building infrastructure systems pretty high uh because that's one that's it's not easy to maintain. It's something that you do need to put some investments in. Um, one of the issues with this and not really a good way to fix it is you can tackle one issue really well and that becomes a five or becomes a four. The numbers still may skew low because it's only one of the whole piece. Um, this is just trying to really the goal of this is to to compare, but building infrastructure is is weighted a little higher than anything else of these facilities. >> Okay. Is there I know that they're they're weighted y

026but um you know if we were trying to achieve a 70% above average in each building >> and and we're looking at for the the site portion of it >> you know is in the what the two binders you had is there a way to look at that data dig a little deeper and say >> if we did this we would no longer be at a 52% but we can get be at a 60. Um in our binder we do identify sorry the locations of concern. So um I think it's Woodlands the back uh parking lot the hard surface play area has a lot of issues. So we we've identified that and that's part of the reason why that one scores so low is is some of those areas that that jump up to the

027top. Um same thing again I'm going to pick on woodlands just because that was the last one I walked through. You've got some single pane windows in the original part of the building. The that window score gets low because of that. So if you replace, you know, 15 windows, 16 windows, that number can jump up really quickly. >> Yep. Thank you. >> All right. We I know we talked a lot about some some of the issues that you have. We do want to celebrate the work that you've done uh because that it does really transform your facilities. So, we we did put some pictures up there from the during a walkthrough and we do want to celebrate the work that was done because I think that is is something very commendable to the district. Uh,

028and I'm hoping your students also see value in it as well. Uh, but we do want to share some of the examples that we've seen uh that are causing some of those issues. Uh, I use the Woodland example of the hard surface play in the upper right. You do have a lot of restrooms that are unfortunately not still not ADA accessible. Um, you've got some exterior envelope issues that that should be addressed. Um, some chalkboards in in some of your facilities as well. Again, your maintenance staff is doing a good job maintaining it. It's just an investment has not been able to be made to these buildings in a while. Um, on this one, you're talking at the Roosevelt. >> Oh, mine says Roosevelt. I think you handed me this on Friday. You probably some

029edits since then. Um talk to me about what are you seeing in that typical classroom at that um picture on the bottom left. >> Yeah, so uh some of it is is dated finishes. I think we went wanted to kind of get a a feel of what your typical classroom looks like. This one's probably not scoring too low. It's probably that mid-tier um you know maybe the mid70s. Uh it's got roll carpet, so similar to in here. Um if some kid has a stain on it, so they had lunch, snack, something spills, you can't get it out. Uh, we move we recommend carpet tiles. Those can pop in and out. Uh, I don't believe that one has LED lighting in. >> It does not. >> Does not. So, LED lighting um is also in there.

030Uh, just kind of a dated feel that we would recommend some upgrades to it, but that one would probably score lower than, you know, some of your HJC equipment that is um is older. >> Yep. All right. All right, I'm going to turn it over to Dale to talk about HVAC equipment. >> Thanks, Chris. Now we get into the really glamorous stuff, >> things that you never see when you uh walk into a building. But uh you've got equipment that is original from 1970 and and later or earlier um over at the freshman academy, but your staff has done a great job in maintaining this equipment and getting many years past its normal life. like the air handling units, they're normally you get 25 years out of that per ashray, which is the American standards

031or American Society of Heating and Air Conditioning uh engineers and they kind of benchmark ages of uh of equipment. And so, you know, that's 25 years and that's a a 55 year old air handling unit there in the top and the one in the bottom is 39 years old. So you've gotten your your money worth uh out of those. Um >> explain to our community what those um pieces of machinery do for our schools. >> So air handling units bring in uh ventilation air and distribute hot and cold air to the classrooms or gymnasiums or or whatever space. But you know they're very important in maintaining a optimal learning environment for the students uh with the proper outside air and uh and temperatures. So you know students we've found do much better learning when they've

032got that optimal learning environment. Uh the control side over there that's pneumatics. Most controls today are digital uh with the electric actuation. So there if you get an air leak, you know, you can overheat a room very quickly and you have no feedback as far as what the temperature is in the space. So you can't troubleshoot it from a computer. You have to rely on somebody to call you and tell you that they have a problem. So we also looked at uh the energy usage in your facilities. Um, right now the high school career center and freshman center, they're a little higher than we would like, but a lot of that has to do with the age of the equipment and not your staff. I mean, Todd, your energy manager, has done a great job

033in trying to, you know, get all the energy dollars out of these buildings. And so, you know, North Side and Westside are great examples, uh, Breeze, he's he's done a great job on those, but he just doesn't have the equipment in the high school and the freshman center to to get to those same dollar amounts. Um, same way in the elementary schools, um, you know, if you look at the red ones, Woodland still has a lot of electric heat. Electricity is very expensive to heat a building with, you know, um, so your buildings that do better have your higher efficiency boilers and are gas heated. Um, and you know, you've spent quite a bit of money in Mary Daylor and Monger on, you know, recent projects which have, you know, greatly improved the energy efficiency

034in those buildings. But uh the other ones have a ways to go still, but it mostly is equipment not operation. So >> can you go deeper into what's happening at Roosevelt and at Mary Future as well? >> Sure. Uh Roosevelt has a pyramid bas basically on the uh media center that's built out of it's called cow wall but it's basically glass and so it has a less insulation up there than most of your other spaces and so it gets very hot in there and it also you know loses a lot of heat in the in the winter time so it's expensive to to heat and cool that space. So that's probably the the big one there. Um Mary feaser's got just older boilers and older airling units and so a lot of it's constant speed

035constant volume units where today you know you would go in you would have variable speed higher efficiency motors high efficiency uh boilers so you just don't have those investments in those buildings yet. >> Thank you very much. >> So Hawthorne will be 100 years old in but it scores uh quite favorably on your chart here. Can you explain that? >> Hawthorne for this last year really wasn't fully occupied. So that has a big um big factor in its energy efficiency just because there weren't students there and bringing in the outside air. So a lot of the systems have been shut down. So it's it's kind of um not fully utilized like your other buildings are. So energy wise, Todd's just turned off a lot of things that aren't needed. So um once again, trying to

036save all those energy dollars possible because those numbers are all based on square footage, not necessarily number of students or anything like that. So that's just the way we benchmark them. And I'll turn it back over to Tony. All right. So, we're we're round in third here, but I I wanted you to hear from from our architects and from our engineers who had all the they spent the time in in the buildings uh with your staff and those key findings. And really, the second part of our assessment here is really trying to assign some some level of a cost estimate or a budget of well, where do we go? How do we address some of these issues? And if and when do we address some of those issues? So um I'll just start with this

037with this particular slide here. Uh as many of you guys know um you just like owning a car or just like owning a home there's going to be some level of investment to kind of you know provide the proper upkeep and maintenance of that asset. The district is no bu is no different than that. Your buildings are no different than that other than the fact that you have more than 30 of them and they're valued at more than a billion dollars. There's a there's a lot of value there. So when you look at the APA, American American Fiscal Plan Association, a general rule of thumb is about 2% of that building value. I'm not here to say that that's the right number or the wrong number, but there is a level of investment and that's

038kind of what our facility strategic plan is here to kind of help tackle. >> Question. >> Yes, sir. >> $1 billion. Is that just buildings alone? Does that include land, property? Um, I don't know that. I actually don't know that answer. Um, that was provided to by policy analytics. So, um, >> Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Go right here. I'm just going to chime in. >> Help me. Help me. >> So, the one the $1.1 billion is the replacement value of all of our physical buildings. It does not include the land. Okay. And if you include the land, what's the value of? >> I can't give you a a firm answer. It depends on where. So for instance, our farm, that land has a different value than the land that sits here. So we have 151

039acres on this campus. So the value of this is going to be different because this is actually considered manufacturing. So if we were to look at the value of this land, it's going to be very different than agricultural. So, I can't give you an exact answer. Most of our schools sit within a residential area. The city of Elcart has a very unique zoning uh setup where there is not a zone for education. So, none of our buildings sit on an ezoned area. They all sit in residential or manufacturing or even agriculture. So every time we do a new project, we have to go before the board of zoning appeals and the plan commission and request a variance, special exceptions to actually build on this land because it's not considered educational. So the short answer is

040it varies by the type of land we're sitting on. >> Absolutely. Um since you've been here with this seeing this 2% that we should be reinvesting in our schools, um you've been here for a while. Have we followed this to make sure that our buildings have um been up to I don't want to say code, but make sure that they are ready for use for our kids and make sure they're lasting over time. >> Generally speaking, no, we have not. >> Can you elaborate? So um we have a somewhere between five and $6 million a year that's set aside in capital projects for various projects in the buildings which typically are carpet paint uh sometimes security measures but rarely does that come close to covering any big projects such as the boilers, the chillers, the

041air handlers, the roofing projects. So we do all the small projects. Many of those are based upon principal requests uh such as hey we need new carpet in this area of the building. Can we do that? And then we've done from time to time up to three bonds a year. Now this this current proc or current time period we're in is very unique in my time here. We actually have eight different bonds that are that are in process. That total of 47.5 million worth of construction. There's some other dollars allocated in a couple of those bonds. One is for bus replacement, one is for curriculum. But in general, uh, eight bonds, uh, four of them are general obligation bonds, which in the past we did not have the capacity to have general obligation bonds. Those

042allow us to to borrow money without tying it to a specific building where the lease rental bonds do exactly that. They tie us to a specific building. So health and strength, for instance, is a bond that now is weighted, so to speak, against the high school, but general obligation bonds are just against the district. So like I said, we have more now than we've ever had since I've been here in terms of the bonds. We've done up to 20 million a year before, but it's usually been in in a bond in a lease rental bond where we've done a major number of projects. For instance, uh Diesel Tech and ETI, the high school phases one and phase 2, the career center and the freshman division, formerly central were all done in a time period of

043roughly 3 to four years. And those were all very a variety of bonds and ETI was also uh private donations. >> The reason why I asked that when I look at the middle school scores, they're very close in their overall scores. I think 47, 52, and 50. So that would just tell me that there should have been some investment there probably a little bit sooner. Um absolutely. So I'm glad that we actually are trying to tackle some of that this year, but I know that that's only a small dent into getting them up to where they need to be. But um I just want to tell you thanks for giving that a little bit of back of insight on that number which is eyeopening but I know that we haven't really been doing that. Correct.

044>> We have not. Okay. Not not certainly not on a regular basis. >> Thank you sir. You have a massive Excel spreadsheet that shows how you go through building by building the future stuff and the money that you would like to spend. Have you shared that with the these gentlemen? >> Yes, absolutely. So, we had the 2014 study that was done by Fidelis and I was able to provide that to them to use and then we had the 2022 23 site logic study which I also was able to provide. So, they were able to take that information, see especially where there were the shortcomings in that, and this is the most comprehensive um facility, long range facility plan that I've seen since I've been here. And they they were able to use that to create

045what's what you will only see a small snippet of, but it's available uh beyond tonight. Of course, >> I do, but I use >> very comprehensive. It's very you know a lot of information on it. So my question would be it's like okay well with the experts here. So, okay, well, if we go back and look at what we were doing, we had x amount of dollars to spend. Okay, the areas that we spent them in, you know, how did we maybe miss the mark of of where we should have been? And maybe we didn't. I don't know. But what I was saying is like, you know, I always, you know, Excel spreadsheet to be the holy grail. All right? and that you know how they're going to spend money to touch these buildings and

046keep them semi current as best we could with the money we had available. Okay. And so I think that might share that the gentleman and see you know see what you can do with it. >> Well I I could provide some additional information if you'd like. So since 2018 we've completed over $122 million in construction. of that not quite half has been what we would refer to as maintenance as preventative measure. The other half was placed into new construction around this campus predominantly. So the decisions were made back in 2016 with the strategic plan and the merger to place our dollars in multiple locations. And so we did that by creating this campus in the way that we've created it and by also uh attending to some of the measures. So $60 million is a

047great investment in preventative maintenance, but over seven years it's obviously not $20 million a year. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you very appreciate that. >> Okay, I will jump to this next slide here, which uh not intended for everyone to necessarily read everything off the screen here. I get that. I know how powerpoints are supposed to work but um I I did want to provide this spreadsheet. This is essentially like the culmination of the entire study. So this provides a summary by building uh and it also provides kind of the outlook as we look you know over the next 10 to 20 years. So the information that we have provided to the district, it is also it's a nice Excel sheet, but it's also it's the live copy. You can edit this. Every one of

048these buildings has a separate tab has all of the the background information behind it. This is just rolled up. So in a snapshot, if you wanted to bring every one of these buildings that we kind of talked about tonight up to 21st century learning standards, which is impossible because no school district can do that. But that's why when you see in that column right there, and I'm going to point out the the $358 million number, that's every building that's doing every every recommended improvement all at one time. And that's not what we're recommending. That's why there's a 20year plan in place. The other number I will point out on the bottom, the far bottom right is 513 million. And you go, well, how'd it go from 350 to 513? We are uh when we look

049out every single year there's always escalation. There's some type of inflationary rate. So we have included 5%. We don't know what that's going to be in the future. But general rule of thumb with construction somewhere between five and 6%. I just want to make sure when you see these big numbers, right, the time value of money, uh things will be more expensive five years down the road, 10 years down the road. Um, >> so that's that's reflective of a 5% increase every 5 years. >> Uh, annually >> annually. >> Okay. >> And as we I mean, we've all been through uh interesting time periods over the last, you know, 5 to seven years with with COVID and everything else. There's different rates every single year, so it's hard to predict. Um, but that's a good

050kind of rule of thumb construction wise that we've utilized. Years one through four on this particular rollup are kind of are broken out just to provide more clarity in the short term of um I'll say Mr. Scott, Mr. Weaver, the questions you guys were asking about like well where where do we go? Where does our compass point us and what's that spreadsheet look like? Where are those priorities? We've tried to break those out in some of the shorter term, but we also know as you go from year to year priorities will change, right? What what's the next curveball that we're unaware of? So this is meant to be a living document. Um whatever the wishes of the board are at some point to move forward and make improvements, this will be updated and it will

051kind of be it'll be managed going forward uh each and every year for the district. So one of the other things too, so looking at more of the short term, we were also asked to create types of project packages that could be designed, developed, and considered. This is not for right for right now, but for the summer of 2026. So essentially kind of taking that, you know, kind of that first step with the plan of what can we do? And we had about seven or eight different packages that we've we have shared uh with with your team here. These these three kind of rose to the top. And the reasons that these rose to the top when you look at the actual infrastructure, these particular buildings have some of the have the oldest equipment and

052infrastructure in the district. Um, and you heard a little bit from Dale about you guys are doing a great job of keeping them running, but we also we also know they're a piece of equipment. Sometimes you just have to have a got to replace them and have a restart. Um, it's not just infrastructure in these two. So, these project packages at the high school, career center, freshman center, um, these will also include some of those finishes as well. So, it's it's an we know too when we do projects, it's not only important to make sure that the building is reliable, infrastructure, and energy efficient, but it needs to look it needs to look nice. It needs to have the right technology. It needs to have the right look and feel uh for your staff and

053for your students. So this is a highle summary of some of those projects. And this is the last slide. Um so when we look at kind of what those next steps might be uh for the school board and really for your admin administrative team, it's just really validating what those 2026 project priorities may be. Um, as we're standing here today, this is kind of that time to plan for next year. Uh, everything seems to take a little bit longer. Lead time on some of the materials and products are are quite long. Um, so based upon the wishes of the board, our next step would be once we have those project priorities, our team would then actually take this and design it. We have to put everything into design drawings. We have to take it out,

054competitively price it. We then have to come back to you all with the final scope firm price to actually move forward on on a project. And the third piece for us and just as important is managing kind of that long-term strategic plan. Because while we may have a few things like in the in the near future that are like these are top priorities, we have to make progress now. There are some things that we don't know just yet that need to go into that strategic plan. Uh and then that would be up to both Elcart Community Schools school board and our team to kind of collaborate on that every single year and make sure that those are realigned with the vision of the school board. So with that that is our presentation. It's a high

055level summary of a lot of information. I want to thank you for your time for your attention. I know it's a lot of a lot of information to take at one time. Um we're happy to support you all in this initiative and I'll I'll pause here. So, any questions that myself or the team can answer for you tonight? >> I just want to say thank you very much for doing this. I think it's very helpful. I think, you know, for me it it's like when you don't deal with projects that are this large, when you see numbers like this, it's it's kind of like an oh my, you know, how are we going to how are we going to structure this in in our um with our with our debt rate and all that kind

056of stuff. So, that kind of leads me down the road, but um this gives us a good um kind of a a template to work from. um that is is appreciated to have the amount of detail that you guys have gone through to help us make the best decisions for our district. So, thank you. >> You're welcome. And um one, I also want to thank you. I had the privilege of sitting with you and your team last week, so I had a lot of inside information on this. So, I believe this is very well done. I would put this presentation up against any one when it comes towards um how you look at a school district. You've seen every inch of our school district. Um so, I just want to tell you thank you. Um,

057you mentioned before that this is a living document, right? So, if I came back to you and said, "Hey, we we have some shifting priorities." You would update that as well. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. >> Um, and not and so just a little further on that. So, you have the hard copies. They're certainly all electronic copies, too. So, you have the live version that can be edited, but we would love to kind of do that in collaboration with you. And so as priorities shift or as priorities are needed, absolutely we'll update the document. >> I just think this is a great macro view of our school district. Some things that clearly a lot of us didn't know that was happening in some of these spaces, but there also lots to celebrate. The Tony's team has

058done a wonderful job over the years of making sure that these things um these units have stayed up to code. Um but just seeing what would happen tomorrow if one of those units went down. Um how would that would disrupt disrupt classroom learning and things like that? It just it kind of keeps me up at night um after seeing it uh here. So um can you give an examp um unit that's 54 years old? I know it's in the >> So, you kind of helped me out on this a little bit here, but one of the and I'll just answer your question directly here, Dr. Huff, but um one of those uh project packages that we had summarized at the high school, it really is over two a two-year phase um to really address all

059of those air handlers that are that 55 or 54 years old. Um each of those is about a $6.5 million project phase. So, if you wanted it all done at over the two phases, you know, it's not exact right now. It's just budgeted, but then you're looking at about 12 to$13 million. >> Thank you. You're very welcome. >> Yeah, I I too would like to say thank to you and your team. Uh this is very thorough information. It definitely gives us, you know, some, you know, some things to work with as as Ann says, we make decisions um to better our district. So, um, you know, I think that the biggest thing for me is looking at these these threshold numbers, understanding where the thresholds are with regards to, you know, average, good, critical, that

060sort of thing. Uh, where we can really invest the biggest chunks of money to really get back above the threshold. So, I I appreciate that. >> Welcome. Worked at tons of school districts. Um, I'm just looking at our our average scores. You know, they're to me they're very concerning, right? 57% 56% on um at district scores average 62 I think that's artificially propped up we have a brand new building at the ETI and Monger and daily when I see 47% on there that that's a significant investment for North Side Middle School um have you worked with other school districts that have similar scores like us that are as large as us and how did you help them to lead to improve those score I think to Mr. Scottsport. How do we get to I don't

061expect the full answer here, but what type of work does you work alongside with them to to improve in those areas because I think our kids deserve the best places to learn and to to make sure these things last for a long time. >> Sure. And I would say your district is not unique in this uh as far as in the scoring. Um this is this is maybe fortunately why we have the opportunity to to kind of come in and provide some of the expertise on what is needed. Uh we've worked with several different districts, large and small. And I I would say to to your point about seeing those numbers, these are the same kinds of numbers, the same levels of investments per building that we see throughout the state. And it's just you

062have a lot of those buildings kind of all at once. So >> I was trying to get to like with the the when you say 30 buildings, I I think many of us don't realize we have that many buildings that are that are in our school community. I mean, we're a very large school district. It's just a lot to fix all at once if we That's why I wanted a 20-year plan to that blue ribbon plan when I got here. And so, thank you for doing that. But it's just a lot of buildings. >> And this is that road map to help you kind of, you know, kind of internalize and figure out what what's what the right path is forward. Uh, and an important part of that is for you and for your community.

063There's different ways to fund projects and different ways different strategies to do that, too. So all of this can kind of be tailored based upon what's in the best interest of the district and your community and we'll be there to help support you, you know, every every step of the way. But but you're not unique. I don't want you to walk away from this going, "Oh my gosh, these facilities are not able to take great care of our kids." They are, but you're at that point where it's time to start taking those We were trying say our team was saying then that's a lot of work, right? It's like taking a bite out of the elephant each time and kind of working through that uh strategic plan and taking great care of the assets that

064you have in place. >> All right. Thank you all for your time. Really appreciate it. >> Dr. Rous. >> You're good. Dr. Roush, floor is yours. >> All right. President Scott, school board of trustees, Dr. Huff. All right. I am here to present the 2022 23 23 24 and 2425 three-year uh data for Elcart Community Schools. I'd like to of course start off with our Elcart Community School I read three data. As many of you know, Dr. Dr. Huff traveled down to Indianapolis with Denise Sim, literacy cadre coach at Eastwood and presented in front of Dr. Katie Jenner, the state superintendent and the state school board where he presented the increase for Eastwood Elementary increasing 23 percentage points and Woodland increasing 21.5 percentage points. And as you can see here, uh, we can proudly state

065that all of our elementary schools increased their I read scores this past year. So, I would just like to say congratulations to all the students, teachers, administrators, and staff that worked very hard uh, to make this happen. And you probably see here um with Woodland uh the 21.5% ours is 22. But I just um wanted to state that our uh data team that I I want to say thank you for putting together all of the data in my uh presentation today. Uh they do round to the nearest whole number. So if you notice that that is the reason why. So, but again, hats off to uh everyone that worked very diligently to increase these uh I read scores and just hats off to teachers if you're here and if you're listening, thank you. And students,

066thank you. Um and staff and administrators. >> Dr. Rash, >> yeah, >> it's okay to round. Technically, we had higher I read scores than what is reported by the state. Uh we would be at 84.2 too. If they counted the students who actually passed with us in second grade last year who have moved on to other school districts, they actually don't. They wait until third grade to calculate those scores. So, I'm going to celebrate. We had 84.2% of our kids technically passed under um um Elcart Community Schools. Watch those other schools um unfortunately benefited from our students from second grade passing. And this is just not an issue for Elcart. This is for all large urban school districts. they faced these same dilemmas um with with those scores but very proud. So I just want

067to say it's okay to round up. We we we surpassed that anyway. So thank you Dr. >> Thank you. Okay, moving on to iLearn. So uh this past year Alcart Community Schools uh uh entered into the pilot for the iLearn checkpoints. There were three checkpoints that led up to the spring summitive and um the data that I'll be presenting is just really very high level. Um just know though that administrators and teachers they definitely do more of a deep dive into our subgroups but this is um just keeping it high level but um as you can see here are I learn for um English language arts for grades uh 3 through 8. As you can see um they all increased except for grade seven. Now we go into the individual elementary schools for grade three.

068As you can see for grade three, uh, nine increased, three decreased, and one remained the same. Some highlights were Beardsley, Eastwood, Woodland. They made some significant increases. For ELA grade four, uh, eight increased and five decreased, but highlights would be Beck, Bristol, Fiser, Monger, and Woodland. They all had significant increases. Grade five I learn ELA 10 increased two decreased and one remained the same. Some highlights would be daily eastwood woodland they made significant improvements above the state average actually when it comes towards I learn for grade five. So I I I just want to say shout out to them as well. Um 10% increase over two years is is huge. I'm also looking at um daily to go from 9%. That's a lot for Ireland. So I know you >> Yeah. and then Eastwood to

069go 20% is is un unheard of. So, hats off to to to their schools. Hats off to all of them. >> I learn uh grades six, seven increased, four decreased, and two remain the same. And some highlights again, Beardsley and Bristol made some significant improvements in their scores. As you can see on here, um, Alcart alternative because you'll see this on, uh, some of the other slides, just to to clarify that, um, this is listed because it's considered an educating school and the results of the students, they do go back to the home school for accountability. So, we just need to make sure that, uh, we uh, you know, work closely with our pride program to ensure that we get our students um, over the go line. But, I just wanted to explain the alternative,

070Lcart alternative on these slides. Yep. May go back to that. That's right. Um co-presenting we'll be thank >> I also want to com commend Beardsley to go from 6% to 17%. I know that may not appear to be a lot but they also doubled their I read scores over a two year a two-year period as well to go from 38% to 80% is is clear intentionality. So and I know that they had a first year principal as well first year leadership team and lots of teachers who put in lots of hard work last year at that school. So if any of them are watching, I wanted to say personally thank you to all of you. But this is that's great data that I just didn't want to glaze over. So hats off to that school

071as well. >> You okay, moving on to I learn elementary math. So here is our overall grades three through eight for math. And uh actually all of our grades have uh increased in iLearn math in grades 3 through 8. >> That also needs to be talked about a little bit around the state. They were seeing different results when it came to math. Correct. >> Yes, they were lower. >> Yeah, actually slid back a little bit. So, um I know that there's still lots and lots of work to do, but I feel like um many of our teachers and uh staff did not have a common math curriculum, so we've adopted some things as well. So, um hopefully those things also will help to continue our um growth in those areas. But again, I just wanted

072to say um hats off to them for doing that without really a guaranteed viable curriculum. So, um hats off to all the teachers and and to the leadership team. >> Yes. And I will uh talk about this later, but uh math is going to be a focus for the Indiana Department of Education um here in the next few years like it was with literacy. And so, um, you know, I think that, uh, you know, increasing our scores, um, and and doing more of a focus and as Dr. Huff stated at the middle school, um, adopting a a math, uh, textbook is definitely going to help. Okay, moving on to all the individual schools for the elementary. In iLearn math, grade three, nine increased and four decreased. Some highlights are Bristol, Dailyaly, Monger, Roosevelt, and Woodland

073made significant increases. In grade four, we had eight schools increase and five decrease. Highlights would be again Beardsley, Beck, Bristol, Eastwood, Beaser, Roosevelt, and Woodland. So, great job grade four. you showed quite a bit of increase. In grade five, we had eight schools increase, four decrease, and one remain the same. Eastwood and Oslo showed significant increases. And then in grade six, we had seven schools increase, five decrease, and one remain the same. And Oslo is the uh standout elementary for grade six. like to stop right there. Um, River Bris Yeah, Bristol as well. River ranks in the top 12% in the state of Indiana when it comes towards their um, Ivy tour for a public school in a a large district like ours. So, their sixth grade teachers really knock it out. That 63% is

074is huge as proficiency. Hats off to them um, as well. Um, when we're going through state data, I think they they rank in the top there's a thousand schools that take this assessment, right? They're in the top 125. So, I just want to say that very proud of those teachers there that work hard. But overall, very very proud of the school district. >> Hey, moving on now to middle school. I learn data for uh ELA. We had um in grade seven uh and our uh North Side, Pier, Moran, and Westside, they all uh decreased in their island uh ELA scores. But in grade eight they all increased their scores. And then in math they north side uh grade seven they increased uh pieran they increased by 8% and westside decreased uh 4% in seventh grade

075math. And then in grade eight, north side grade 8 increased by 7%. Pier Moran increased by 5% and west side remain the same. And again um administrators and teachers they after going through um and even uh us in central office going through the checkpoints this was all new for everybody but now we have an understanding of how those checkpoints are given and now we can really look and do more of a deep dive at the data. Um last year Dr. Huff started data meetings that we will continue to do with administrators and that data then transfers to the teachers that they look at this in their PLC's and the data helps to inform instruction and interventions in the Indiana academic standards in math and English. Uh we do still have uh obviously some room to

076improve but um again I think with the new middle school math and the K to8 ELA adoption we hope to see some increase in our iLearn scores. Okay, moving on to PSAT and SAT at Alcart High School. So the PSAT is taken each fall in October with the 11th graders and grade 11 PSAT scores from 23 to 24 to this past year improved by four points uh from 842 to 846. In reading and writing it went up 12 points while math dropped eight points. The PSAT is a good way to get some data so that as they go into the SAT which is done the first week in March and that score um range is between 400 and600 points. Um the SAT uh score went up last year by seven points from 858 to 865

077and the state average was 939. uh in math it remained consistent at 4:15 and reading and writing is um or increased it by nine points. So last year uh there was a big push um to you know emphasize SAT in the in the importance and um this year we replaced the K12 district instructional coach with a district math coach and again as I said earlier the DOE is really emphasizing math this year. So, um I I believe having um a middle school math curriculum curriculum. Um and then we're um I believe now in our sixth year with our elementary math um curriculum. Uh so we'll be looking to potentially adopt um math at elementary and then at the high school level uh for next year. Um I think all of that will definitely help. So,

078and then last but not least is AP data. As you can see here, uh the AP uh trend is definitely increasing with um test takers, AP exams, and then how students scored uh three or higher. As you can see, obviously the um exams, those are going to be students that take more than one exam, but uh we're increasing the uh number of uh students in AP. So, um hats off to Elkcart High School over the years for increasing AP. And I just want to note too that um the high school offers 14 different AP courses. And I should have put that up there. I apologize, but we offer 2D art, 3D art, biology, calculus AB, calculus BC, computer science, English language and composition, English literature and composition, environmental science, music theory, physics one, pre-calculus, statistics,

079and world history. So, um again just uh a lot of good things uh happening in our district as far as um increasing test scores, room for improvement. Yes. But um I think now uh you know we all know that data is very important. teachers, administrators were all looking at it and doing more of a deep dive into uh subgroups and really focusing in on on um reteing and and what needs to do what needs to be done. So, but again, hats off to uh the teachers and administrators for all their work um increasing our test scores. >> I just want to ask a followup. One, thank you for all the information you presented tonight. And Mr. Anderson, the former principal, don't try to hide. You can come up and help answer this, too. Can we

080to get a better picture of what's happening at the high school? Is there a way that we can get the information that shows a number of kids who scored three, fours, and fives? So that way we can get a better breakdown. Sure. So can you provide information to the board? That'd be very helpful. >> I will do that. Thank you. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Question for Dr. Rush. Um, I was just wondering when I was going through looking at the scores, um, with elementary, there seemed to be some in in some grade levels some really big jumps at some schools and other schools had some big drops or or you know more drops. It was kind of it was just interesting the dynamic. Yes. So, have have you guys had a chance to

081kind of do a deep dive into figuring out why some grades or some schools had such big jumps or decreases compared to others because it doesn't seem to be very consistent. >> Yeah, I noticed that too. Um >> I >> sure that was that was my question as well. I saw like I think you referenced Cleveland had a 20% >> and I saw some decreases of 22%. >> Yeah, it's like Yeah, like that's an example like Fezer had a 24% increase in grade four um you know grade three we had some 12% increases but then we had some 14 16% decreases in other schools. So I was just wondering kind of what what's the dynamic? What's kind of going on there? Do we even do we know yet? Have we done that deep dive to

082figure out what's happening in each of our schools? >> Great question and uh the answer is not at this time. But this is something now that we have this data that we can now take into these data meetings and really look at that and see, you know, why is that happening? So >> there's a couple assumptions though that we can make to kind of the board. Um >> across the district, we have schools that are title school and non-title school. So access to resources are very different at some of those schools. I don't know how much of that plays, but they but I know that does play a factor. We also this year were very intentional about making sure that every school um taught the same length of time. Mrs. Reese makes sure that the

083math blocks are consistent across the schools and the intervention times are consistent. I can't say for sure if that was the same last year. Um and also I think um to be honest, some schools have um at the elementary school had more um teachers with a little bit more experience in those areas as well. Um, so we need to make sure our professional development meets the needs of our educators as well. So having Mrs. Cedarberg back there to make sure that she's rolling out the math proficiencies this year with our teachers and making sure that all those things are are done and done well. I think you'll see much more consistency and a lot less variance in that um um when you're talking about um how students progress along. Um I think with reading you

084saw the I you saw the jumps very consistently. Math we did not. Um, also I think how things are scheduled too with schools starting at 7:00 in the morning. There were some schools where kids were missing um a lot of um their ELA block because of attendance. Um teacher teachers start teaching at 7 7:15 and it's really hard to reach kids if they're not there on time. So parents, if you're watching our exciting work session, we really would like for you to make sure our kids there on time because we expect our kids to get full instructional periods. it's really hard to say, hey, we're going to delay our our teaching until we know the most of our kids get here. So, I think our teachers alo also have um been very flexible as well.

085Um but this year, we want to make sure we have common curriculum, common assessments as well. I think a cadence will also be helpful at the elementary level for as far as the pre-screening to making sure that we are identifying students pretty early on what their deficits are and then getting them help pretty early. So last year those were all systems that we were developing. Now this year we can put them in um the full um effect. So I look forward to seeing coming back next year at this time to give you a uh a much more consistent um growth amongst all of our schools. But I think those are all factors that I that I can just whip off the top of my head. >> Very good. She brings >> very good but we

086will definitely do a a definite uh deep dive into each grade level and and and find out as well. >> Question and this may be something that Mr. Anderson may need to answer because it concerns the AP. Um we have we've had a a a pretty significant gain of of kids being successful. So, are there specific things that our AP teachers are doing differently? Is is there is there specific courses that um have higher success rates that kids are taking? Kind of can you kind of give some more context to some of this? >> Absolutely. Thank you for the question. School board, President Scott, Dr. Huff, thank you for the opportunity. Big shout out first year for AP pre-calculus 100%. Right? Three passing score of three or higher. Obviously appreciate the three, four, five breakdown

087that we will give to you um you know later on. I think it's it's uh several fold into them. In my answer here, we make it really important when we have new teachers teaching AP classes, we provide them the training. We we have they go to the summer institutes. We we work with Not Notre Dame um and to really get the training that that's included um AP Tippen is what it's called. It's based out of Notre Dame. Um we are also, how do I say this? We are recommending and strongly encouraging more of our students who can that they are enrolled in these in these classes. They're not getting out of the classes. We're putting all the supports in that we need. And we have some really good teachers who are doing really good work

088with these students. We have a veteran staff now. Most of our teachers have been teaching the AP uh curriculum for quite a while and they are doing, like I said, really, really good work. Um, but I think it's really more about we're getting more kids. I mean, I'm the jump 57 and a half% of the kids now passing. >> Huge jump. And I think it's we're getting the right kids with the right teachers with the right support. And I just couldn't be more proud. I really think that's the answer. >> Thank you. No, >> thank you. >> No, thank thank you, Dr. Ash. Um, any questions from the board? >> Thank you. I appreciate the help. >> I was just going to say for last year for being over being over elementary and high school

089and secondary. You did a lot last year shoulder and l just want to say thank you. the systems that you help put in place to to rapidly move the needle um could could not have happened without you and the people that you work with. So, I sometimes think that you'd like to be behind the scenes, but I hopefully tonight we can share thank you for your leadership um to be state recognized for the work that we're doing elementary school. You played a critical role in that last year working with teachers all those late nights. It does have a payoff and our kids win in our in our district can change that narrative and change that story. and I think we're definitely on our way. So, I just want to say thank you personally. Um, you

090were were a great right hand to me last year. >> Thank you. And I just appreciate again that we are moving the needle in the right direction and that cannot be done without students, teachers, administrators, and staff. It's definitely a team effort. So, I just can't say thank you enough and thank you for your support. >> Yeah. And to to add on to that, not only did you do all of that last year, but she was able to go through all of our curriculum contracts you did and save us a tremendous amount of money and put us right into a very wonderful situation as we had to come in new curriculum. So celebrating you again. >> That was a lot. And I probably will never do that again. >> Probably I know I will never

091do that again. So that was a little way. >> Yes. >> But that was amazing. >> But I could put that on my resume though, too. Yeah, but we're keeping you. So why why wait? I'm sorry. Whoa. Negotiate. >> Back it up there, lady. Uhuh. That you can go ahead and try that, but we're keeping you right. >> Well, I mean, it was definitely a golden hour type of opportunity that she um that what she just said there, Dr. Rash, but again again, don't um don't sell yourself short. wonderful job getting um our school district um headed in the direction where quite honestly it needs to be and we're only going to continue to soar from here. So >> yes and and again thank you teachers for being patient as as all of this is

092rolling in. It was it's just a lot that came in and it's been a little bumpy and but that's okay. We'll get there and and it'll be it'll all be good. So So thank you for your patience. >> Thank you. >> All right. We'll adjourn the public works session and reconvene at 7 o'clock for our board meeting. Thank you. Okay. >> I want to thank everybody for coming out tonight to our August 26, 2025 Elcart Community Schools uh school board meeting. At this time, I'd like to call the meeting to order. Would you please rise for the pledge of allegiance? >> Mr. Ivory, the Elcart Promise. >> Yes, sir. Every student is known by name, challenged and supported by highly effective staff and in partnership with community will graduate career college ready and life ready.

093>> Thank you Mr. Ivory. You're >> welcome. Our invitation to speak protocol each everybody should have received uh one of these on your seat when you came in. There is a little form here. You can detach fill it out. Please give it to Dora. Um any agenda or non-aggenda item uh may be discussed. Uh during this time, uh when your name is called, please step up to the microphone, announce your name in relationship to the uh the district. Uh you'll then have three minutes uh to uh voice your uh public comment. Um as usual, um any uh personnel or person student personal student issues, uh this is not the uh forum uh for that. um those issues should be taken to the building principal um in order to uh not violate the uh family rights

094and privacy act. With that said, Dora, thank you, >> Chris Bartley. Chris, your name shouldn't start with a B. >> This is awkward because I was like, >> I I can mix it up. And here, I'll do it here. Let me do it here. >> Chris Bartley. >> Hi. Um, >> thank you. Um, I am, as you know, um, oh, sorry. Officially, there >> Chris Thomas Bartley, uh, teacher here in the district. Um, I am usually here to celebrate, uh, today is a little different. Um I am glad uh looking at the packet some of the things that are coming back to uh the school which uh we did not have uh especially the LL that has been in the past a really great resource uh as a teacher of students with disabilities using that

095helping them with credit recovery getting that contract back is is really >> important. It's a a useful tool. Um I am here to talk about staffing at the high school in the special education department. Um we have again it's a positive negative situation. We have had lots of new enrollments. That's a positive. The negative is we are short staffed. We are short staffed with certified staff. We are short staffed with classified. There are significantly fewer classified parapositions to help with the mild disabilities um population than we need. And when I say significantly less, off the top of my head, I believe I have one parah who works with the mild disability students at the 1012 building with a a case load. um pushing 300 at the 1012 building. That means that teachers are um escorting

096students to classes uh those students who need that extra help to get to class. Um I cannot push in to classes like I would like um because there's not enough of me, there's not enough of my colleagues to get to where we need. Uh if we had more classified staff that would certainly be helpful. I have colleagues in the general education population who after many years they count on me. They come to me. They ask me questions. They're like, "I have a class of 30. I have 12 IEPs. I've got eight ILPs. That's um students uh with language needs. Can I get some support in here?" I'm like, "I love you. I I'm I'm already in three other places at that time. Um I have never transferred from one building to the other. So I

097am not sure. But my understanding is is that uh for a classified staff if they wanted to transfer from say the elementary to the secondary somehow they change classifications and they lose their tenure. Uh I'd like someone to please I apologize. I'd like someone to please maybe look into if that is in fact a policy and if it is that should be something that could be changed because I have talked to some of my friends who are elementary paras who be like well I'd like to come to the high school but I don't want to lose my seniority. I don't want to lose my pay. So uh I appreciate your attention to this matter. >> Thank you. I typically don't ever comment after public comment, but I I just want to tell you thank you

098for bring there's a lot of things that are down here. One of the things I do want to put out there, there's been no holds on any type of Mrs. Briner. We put any holds on any type of pair of professionals that they can't be hired at the high school. Um so I just want to let you know there's not been any any type of say don't hire these individuals. So um I will definitely look into those um concerns regarding losing tenure. I will put it out there. There are some practices that have just been going on for like 20 to 30 years or now we're at the headway where we're sometimes something that we did a long time ago are now starting to really bite us in the face now. And I'm pretty sure

099you know that too. So when this summer when the federal government withheld $1.2 million from our school district, we had state money that was held back. Um we had things after school started. We had grants that were here and grants that were going away. We had u additional costs that were added to the school district because they weren't supporting these position. This is probably the most challenging budgeting year ever. Our district historically has never tied staffing to enrollment. We enrolled 3,000 kids in a little over three and a half weeks in the summer. We had to make some really tough choices. Like I'm and I hear like added pay is going to be one of these things that we're going to talk about today. Technically, you shouldn't really do addit pay until after it's been

100signed and started. I know we've been having conversations with ETA the long about hey where we are with these processes just to try to keep everyone with communication. So, I just want to make sure that I am being super transparent about just how difficult this year has been with establishing the budget and oh, SEA1 has been on top of that as well. So, that's why we've been trying to make sure that we've had budget presentations. You probably saw the staff letter that went out to staff this week that had the financial piece of it this week. We are overspending and it's been years of issues that we're trying to figure out in one and I don't know. So I'm saying I'm just telling you I typically never say I don't think I ever have actually.

101But the paid thing, um, it's going to be probably something that we need to all talk about. And some of the things that you just said are pretty good ideas. And I appreciate when people come up with solutions and actually come to places to get the accurate information. We have people spreading things on social media just to fan the flames. And these are our own employees. Come straight to the source. Speak to me. Speak to a director. Speak to a building principal. speak to a um sorry you could speak to the board but I I I'm seeing lots of misinformation or disinformation out on the internet >> and I'm very disappointed on that and I can't I can't and I can't say anything else and I typically this is probably the most animated you'll ever

102see me I'm pretty a cool and calm and collected individual and we have kids tonight that we're going to celebrate so I just want to make sure that when we talk about these things that we are talking about just like you did you did you were very solution focus and I appreciate that. >> Well, uh, thank you for responding and I know you don't usually respond back in the public comments because it can get way out of control. And I just wanted to clarify >> if that is not a policy in terms of losing seniority or anything then >> then >> is it a policy? >> If it's a policy, I think we definitely need to be changed. I appreciate your response. No problem. for me. >> Yes, he does. >> I do. >> Slightly

103off script, but Mr. >> Slightly off script, but I Chris, I appreciate you bringing this this issue forward. I've been dealing with the compensation plan for our support staff now for over 20 years. I didn't have as much gray hair when I started this job. Uh I have never heard that policy mentioned during my entire time with the district. So I'm surprised to hear people suggesting that that policy exists out there. Uh and so certainly if there are people who are in belief that that policy exists that we would prohibit somebody from transferring from the elementary to the secondary or from within various different classifications within the pair professional group. That's the first I have heard of that. Now again as Dr. have made note of. There are historic practices out there or perceptions of

104things that exist that we just need to make sure that we can communicate the facts related to those particular issues to address that that type of a question. So, I appreciate you bringing it up almost more from the standpoint of being able to say I've never heard of that before in 20 years of dealing with the policies in the district. So thank you Mr. Thank you. I will speak to the people I spoke to get some more details and I will thank and I will follow with you as well too because I I want to make sure if we're saying things about our school district that they're accurate and none of the things that I'm ever going to be based in anything that's not rooted in truth and not rooted in our current situation. And

105I've had we've I am bracing for this year to have lots of tough conversation and one of the things I got big shoulders and I work out make sure that they're bigger. But I want to make sure that we are when we're talking about things that it's coming from a place of not my perception but this is the real truth that is out there and who determines the truth that's up to those individual but it won't be because I'm holding back information. If you saw that your Monday update, I heard when this they talked about communication since then. Every Monday you receive an update that has links from every single department that has information that's in there if they have something to share. This week there was sea impact for Elcart Community Schools and there

106was also um I think our budget presentation was in there as well. I plan to speak to every school this year to let them know really this is where historically and this is how the district is going to address those issues. But it's going to take everyone's help to to to get there. Not just from my purview, not from Mrs. Ross, from Doug Thor, Dr. She's great at math. It's just going to make sure that it's you got it, Dr. Rush. But uh I just want to make sure that we are this year is going to be a great year and I can't wait to hear the presentation from our children tonight because my focus is always making sure that the kids get everything that they need and we're going to make sure that that

107happens through adults. >> Thank you Dr. We love you. It's great that that you went first. This was this was the first. So it's good you went first. >> I think Mr. Scott is regretting his decision. No, never >> because it's always positive to start with great honest discussion that lands in a great answer. >> Well, next we have Julie Tyowski. >> Good evening, President Scott, members of the board, and Dr. Huff. I'm Julie Tarowski. 20 years teaching here, live in the district. son just graduated with his associates. Um, I'll forever sing the praises of Lisa and Gail and everybody who's involved with our dual credit programs. Daughter is currently a sophomore here and my husband just left the district after 20 years to seek opportunities he was never afforded here. Today, staff found out

108subtly in an ambiguous memo then confirmed with a staff member um contacted payroll that we will not be getting our added duty pay on our checks this Friday. For some it may be $26, $50. Others it's up to $500, $600. Uh many are in the same boat, but use me as an example. I put in well over a hundred hours this summer coming to school to work on extra things. Part of the um added duties include planning events, meeting with communications, admin, students, ordering and um dispersing supplies, and the list goes on. And you just mentioned that, oh, people weren't supposed to do anything with their added pay until they were told to do so. Is that really what we're saying? Does that make you feel better? Do you want teachers to not start the

109year with supplies? Because that's our job as lead teacher is to order supplies. Are we not supposed to start the year with supplies? Are we not supposed to plan events? >> I'm sorry. I I want to make sure I'm answering your question. You asked three of them and I want to make sure I answer every single one of them. I want teachers to have >> Can you pause my time? >> Yeah, your time is we talk all the time. So you Yes, please call your time. I want teachers to have everything that they need to. Again, I can't assume. I don't know everything that you've done this summer. I' haven't been in those conversations. I will never stop anyone from doing the things to do to be successful. If you've been doing this for a

110while, I've never paused any added pay. But I think some historically we have just gone over year by year just assuming you're going to do this. You did this last year, right? I'm assuming >> for like Yeah. many years. >> And so the next year you're you're just doing it just because you know what that needs to you're doing what it takes to get a building started. Right. >> Right. What I'm telling Mrs. Ros and she's in here. Miss Ross is back there. In a typically in a school district though, added pay does have an end date to it. Like let's say it ends June 15th when the school year ends. You typically wouldn't pick those things back up until you had a conversation with someone saying, "Hey, am I been have I been approved

111with X, Y, and Z?" I don't know if that occurred across our all our added pays this year. So, I'm not telling you to do those things. I think in that same memo if Mrs. Is it from Miss Lozano? >> I don't know. I didn't write >> I don't know whose name was on it. >> I think it said something about it was going to be retro back because now we finally have the names tied to the added pay positions. >> Mhm. >> Cuz some people were assigned but now they no longer work in the school district anymore. So I want to just make sure people get paid and get paid accurately. So when you're saying things like I make people feel good or makes me feel good, nothing up here makes feel good other

112than seeing kids succeed and seeing adults have what they need in order. None of this is your response and I'm not going to respond back in an emotional way. I am a proud to be the leader here. So no, that does not make me feel good that you said you put in 100 hours of work this summer. I did not authorize 100 hours work. That's not my place. But I know that you're doing it to make sure that things get done. So, I just want to make sure that is. And Doug, is that how added pay technically is supposed to work? >> Added pay has always been on our first pay. >> Wait, wait. Wait. I are you responding back to him or do you want your time to start? >> I think she's just

113talking. She's talking. >> She's going to get all her time. I just think for me, and this is I want everyone. I'm cleaning up some practices that just have should have never been in place. And if I need to have individual one-on-one conversations, you know, you can have conversations with me. Everyone in this room know they can have conversation with me. Whatever I'm hearing and I'm going to just point to me like this is how we've always done it. What how we've always done it has landed us in a $12 million deficit this year before we even start the school year and it's because we haven't had tighter reigns on those type of things. These are not things that I want to be aired out in our community. I wish we had these conversations behind

114the scenes. All the teachers have access to these but >> if I had more than four days notice I could have >> I I understand that. I I understand that. I didn't I don't know who That's why I asked who sent that to you. It wasn't me who sent that to >> I didn't even read the name at the bottom. It I don't know. It came with the contract. Whoever sends those out or wrote them >> and I'll still follow up with you afterwards. But no, none of this stuff makes me feel good. Trust me, I would much rather be sitting out there, but I I have signed up for all the responsibilities of being the superintendent and and sometimes and it's the unpopular things. >> And so, um I I just want to make

115and this is across your back there. I don't want to put you on the spot. I'm not going to have you come. Um, but with added pay, it really should wait until their name is on the dotted line. Correct. >> Yes. Historically, so you can actually budget it from a finance perspective. >> Historically, >> can we here two months? >> Yes, it was Maggie on the the memo. >> I took a lot of her time. I want to make sure she get all her time. I just feel like now we're making excuses for why we're not getting paid this Friday yet. Things would not have gotten done had we not put in the work. And we had 4 days notice and it was a very ambiguous memo, but again, I know you don't control all

116of that. It came from Yes, Maggie's name is on it. >> Um, so >> can you share and you'll get make sure you get your time. Can you share what like the what what I want what does that mean? Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you. But like what's ambiguous about in your perspective? What's ambiguous? >> So past practice, we've always gotten our contract and our added pays have been on the bottom half. We sign the top for our base salary and on the bottom half we sign for our added pays and I do a lot. So there's a lot there. There might be one or two mistakes and we fix that. Um but that's always been at the bottom of the contract and it's always on our first pay. Nobody had any any added pay at

117the bottom of their contract. And so I just figured, okay, it's like we're still going to get it and I know our principal turned in who was doing what in May, June and then confirmed again this summer. Um I just found out yesterday that somebody reached out to principles again recently to confirm that none of that was communicated. I don't know how people can expect that we're not going to do what needs to be done before the school year starts. Um, so, um, so we get this yesterday, today, depends on when we received it, and it said, um, as always, if corrections needed, please indicate it on a separate sheet of paper. Um, once all the information is received, revised contract. Where am I missing? Okay. Important information for teachers with added pay assignments. This

118has never been on this memo in the 20 years that I've gotten one. You have been assigned an added pay position. Please be advised those assignments are still being finalized and may not yet appear on your enclosed contract. So that's ambiguous. I reached out to payroll and they said you should have got a memo and I said well it said maybe and uh they did confirm that it will not be on our paycheck Friday. >> They said is there a date when they said it's going to be on your paycheck? >> Adjustments to compensation of these assignments will be included in the September 5th payroll. And if you're already s serving in an added payroll, your pay will be adjusted retroactively. So, a holiday weekend, um, a pay two weeks from now doesn't doesn't help

119doesn't help what we're missing Friday with 4 days notice, but >> so I appreciate that. >> Okay, thank you. So, this is not a small small mistake. This bill is not paid, groceries not bought, that's trust broken. We can't accept excuses when livelihoods are on the line. If employees are expected to be on time, meet deadlines, then those who are in charge of pay must be held to the same standard. No more errors, no more delays, no more surprises. There's currently 181 job openings listed on our corporation website. We like to offer bonuses and new perks to try to recruit more staff to join ECS. Would we have less people leaving and fewer holes to fill if we simply treated our current employees with decency, communicated clearly, and took care of each other? Not to

120mention, we have lost multiple quality candidates due to the lack of urgency in securing those spots even though recommendations are made to hire. Last board meeting, many policies were revised and/or passed. This completely separate topic, although there is one tie-in. We're constantly told that policies are in place for reporting incidents, policies meant to protect employees and ensure fairness. But here's the real question. Who holds HR accountable when they fail to act on those reports? HR often positions itself as both the gatekeeper and the judge, but that creates a dangerous imbalance. If an employee um mishandles their job, they face consequences. If HR mishandles theirs too often to get swept under the rug, accountability can't be one-sided. For a workplace to truly be safe, transparent, and just, HR must answer to the same standards of responsibility

121and accountability they demand from us. Without that, policies are just words on paper, not protections in practice. What happens when they don't do their due diligence and reporting to the district council chief of chief of staff? What goes in their file? When reports are made, do those go in staff files? How do we hire back former employees when multiple reports were made? Thank you. >> Mr. Cow, can I I just want to say I'm going to follow up with you on your concerns personally as well. >> Thank you. >> Eddie Lane. >> All right. Hi, I'm Katie Lane. Um, I have been a teacher here for 15 years. I'm also a product of Elkart Community Schools. Okay, so I got to get my debate. Got to go fast. Okay. Um, my name is Katie Lane.

122I'm a product of Oslo Elementary School, North Side Middle School. I was class of Memorial 2006. Um, I've been teaching here for 15 years at Elcart High School and Memorial High School. And my late son's name resides on that apple tree out in the lobby. And um, Elcart has been my home for my entire life. Uh today at lunch I went to sign my contract to find none of my out of pay positions were on my contract of course confused asked questions uh when I was told to write it down on a piece of paper send it back in and that is when I was directed to the paper that was stapled to our contract that stated just as Julie had mentioned um that it would not be on there. They were not finalized and

123that they would receive we would receive that money retroactively if it's approved. Uh so I look at that I start putting puzzle pieces together after communicating with my colleagues who have you know looked into this uh realized that on our first pay this Friday it's it's not going to be there. And um for myself um I'm an acting dual credit instructor who's been working with my dual dual credit kids for over six years. Um for the past two weeks we've been working really hard on getting um our IvyTech uh classes set up and getting them enrolled. Um, I am the academic Super Bowl coach and senior class student government sponsor. Um, this makes up $400 of my bi-weekly paychecks and we were given a, you know, 4day indirect notice that this is not going we're

124not going to get this money this week. Um, will my bills get paid? Yeah. Um, but the problem is that leaves my family with absolutely nothing left over. This means that my daughter who's 12 on Saturday, she's not going to get the birthday she deserves. the girl who's endured so much in her life, who has sat beside me as we buried two of my sons, um has buried her brothers, who works so hard in everything she does, she's not going to get the promised birthday that she deserves or the gifts that I promised her were coming. All because I don't have that money now. Um that promised money that has come 14 years in a row on time, always in the same format. Um I'm not getting it. I signed a paper at the end

125of last school year saying, "Will I take this position on again?" I said yes. The principal signed it saying we agree you can have your position and it was sent in every year. That has been what is necessary. I've been working in this job since the summer. Student government, we work all summer long trying to get these kids prepared to put together events for the student body and uh it's just we've been doing this and so we just assume that the pay is going to come. >> Also because I >> you've been doing a wonderful job. you made through Mr. Anderson actually um advocated for a group of people who worked in the summer. >> Yes, sir. >> I certainly can't speak it to the microphone. Thank you. One of the things that Mr. Anderson

126advocated for when we were having this conversation, he said, "Well, some of these individuals have already been working in the summer." I said, "Oh, I didn't know that because I haven't seen that." Right? And he he did. He said, "Hey, we've had people who started to do that work." That was just when did we have that conversation? >> Monday. I wasn't made aware of that till Monday. So, no passing the buck excuse. This is your real life. We'll make sure that we make corrections because there were people who were already working before this school year started. Right. Technically, the summer is still a continuation of last school year. I'm not been here 18 years like you have. In my previous district, they wouldn't have done anything over the summer. Everything would have been like a

127stipen type of pay opposed to being added pay. So, that is something that will be rectified. It'll be rectified quickly. Um, but I didn't know that there were people working on those things over the summer. So, I will tell you that conversation just came up on Monday. So, thank you for allowing me to interrupt your your time. >> Um, so this is uh this is how myself, my colleagues, this is how we've been treated. I'm I'm the teacher that kids get brought to when they failed with every other teacher. I'm the teacher that's like, "They just cussed out their previous teacher. You're good with them. Can you work with them?" And this is how we get treated. And I just my my light diminished a little for Elkart knowing that my kid's not going to

128get her birthday. So, thank you. >> I'll be fine. I'll follow Mrs. Delane as well. >> Okay. Thank you. I do think one of the things though that I picked up is that there's a lot of activity that happens in our school district and it operates in a silo. If we had at the end of the year, these are all the people who will be doing work in the summer. I won't believe that any pay would have stopped. I didn't I didn't know that. I don't know if my business office knew that. I don't know. Mr. Lozano is not here this evening if she has expressed that. But I know that for me, all I got to do is hear things one time. But I want accurate information that's out that's there. And so I

129think Mr. Anderson, Dr. Roush, Mrs. Reese, we'll make sure that moving forward we know exactly when and who is working, who's slotted for what because I agree people should be paid for when they work. But I also I want our district to know we said that things have been happening in this district 14 years like clockwork. I've only been here for 19 months. I've discovered things that should have not been happening in our school district like clockwork. That has got us into a major deficit. We spent an added pay $3.2 million in a 2-year span, 557% increase. I don't know how that started. I asked my colleagues who were here, they don't know how it started either. Well, things just don't happen on their own. So I think a person who is prudent, who is

130trying to write the ship, looks at everything because at the end of the day, I know for me, I can just let things be the way that they are and we'll be even worse case next year. Mr. Capture, you're back there. You're dealing this down to at the at the city office as well, right? >> Yes, sir. >> Are you going through every line? >> We are. >> And you know what? In the summer, it's so condensed. Senator Ro act one didn't come out until July 1st. We need to interpret 3,000 pages of documents in a short period of time. Federal grants, they stopped those on June 30th. They didn't release them until August 1. We still technically don't have the money. Literacy cadre. Oh, we'll pay for it. Guess who? They're not paying for

131it. We're paying for it. So, we have to play whack-a-ole on where these things come from. Sorry, young kids. You're getting a lesson in life. And we've talked to we've talked to your representatives every step of the way. I heard about communication. That's why I say, "Hey, on Monday, you'll get this. You'll get this." I'm a man who does everything that he says he's going to do. That's want to be. That's what my legacy I would like it to be. This has been the hardest year of my life navigating opening up a school and seeing that you're already 12 million aole before you even open the door. And that didn't start this year. That didn't start last year. That started many years ago. So in the midst of all that, you still did great things

132for children. You have the highest I read scores in as far as a large urban school district in the state of Indiana. Take pride in that. I know that does not solve that issue, but that is a story that needs to be told because that's not a story. That is fact. You have teachers and kids busting their tails to do great things for our school district. and I we will do it this year too. I don't like to sit up here and pontificate. Again, I would be a person who like to be behind the scenes, but I want to make sure that we all understand as I speak to every teacher, every staff member, every custodian, every maintenance person this year. I want them to I want them this is this is the issue. This

133is how I want you to feel about the issue and this is what we're doing about the issue. You'll see more financial talks this year than you probably in your previous 20 years here. And I've already we've already started it all summer. If you paid attention, I did financial presentations pretty much once a month or every other week. Tonight, you'll get a different financial presentation to really break down what that looks like. We are not immune to what's happening with Senate and Rolled Act One. It is one of the most devastating forms of legislation legislation ever. Mr. Crafty, you're back there shaking your head. And schools lose. school's lost, but kids will not lose under my watch and neither will adults. So, we have to do some shifting. So, I hope people offered her some

134patience, some grace, because I I know that I'm going to need it, but we're also got some heavy lifting or some things that are going to come down. And so, I have my remarks. I will follow up with all these people who spoke. This will be the last time, so don't think you're getting special treatment next time. I'm not I'm not speaking after public comment, but I want to make sure that the energy that I bring to the table, we're all responsible in energy we bring table. I don't never want us to say that we're mistreating teachers because if we fall short, we'll own it. And Mr. Anson, you spoke up for those teachers this summer. I will make sure that we follow up with them. But also, I there were people I didn't even

135know they were doing added pay positions. So, we went through every single one of them this year this So, I just want to make sure that you know I want to be a good financial steward to our school district because this district is going to be around way longer than I'm going to be here or any other body sits in my seat. Hopefully, it's around for another hundred years. But it starts with us making good decisions today. >> I'm turn back over to you, President Scott. >> Thank you, Dr. Huff. And and for the record, this was the exception. Yes. >> Uh tonight on public comment. We will be going back to the normal format and you know I I' I've talked about the format before. It's it's not the appropriate format to have this

136type of back and forth discussion. Okay. And a lot of times we have to sit here and listen. We take notes and we'll follow up. Um I you know tonight we heard about an ambiguous memo that was later uh Julie you you defined where it came from. We heard about a policy that uh to uh our chief of staff who's been here for over 22 23 24 years has never heard of. These are all things that could be vetted out prior to this meeting in a format that will allow this type of dialogue so it can be actionable so we can you know get to get the answers that you guys need and also may be informed. I' I've been informed by listening to Dr. Huff tonight. I've learned some things. I've been informed by

137our speakers and I and I' I've learned some things, but this is in my tenure on the board, this is the most accessessible superintendent that I have ever worked with and his administration is is very acceptable. You know, I I encourage you you guys that if there is an issue, and I know four days is a short turnaround, is a short window, but if you haven't uh done the chain of command, the protocols, spoke with HR, building leaders, um then and certainly you didn't speak to the superintendent. And that's when you come to the board and you tell us that, you know, we we've we spoke to numerous people and and it's gotten nowhere. That's what you know this this this format is for in public comment. So um tonight was the exception. Um I

138think we will uh >> Can we make one more? >> We're we're we're at the end of public comment. >> You did follow those emails were sent. They were not answered. >> Was one sent to me. I just want to make sure that I didn't >> sent to HR. >> Okay. I just want to make sure I just want to make sure that I didn't I want to make sure that I hold my self high and reply to people's email. There's one person to >> and and again the chain of commands if if if you know I I don't disbelieve that that occurred. If you do not get the answers that that that you need it it stops here. Okay? You you bring it up to him. If he doesn't answer then we've got as

139a board we have one employee we're in charge of and it's this man right here. And if he does not answer you then we can have a discussion but it needs to go to him before you know we say it's broken. So uh going forward we will come back to the uh uh the protocol of uh uh public comment just for everybody's understanding. But I think this was good dialogue tonight and we will uh uh he will follow up with everybody individually. No, they'll have all qualified tomorrow. >> With that said, let's move on to something that's uh uh a moment of pride, which I look forward to. We have the National History Day National Qualifiers. Uh please uh come forward. >> Thank you, President Scott, members of the board, Dr. Huff, for allowing us

140to share with you this evening. It is my privilege to introduce the two teachers that helped our students get to the national um stage in history this year. So, Dr. Natalie Schultz back here is our eighth grade high ability cohort teacher and our high ability coordinator at Westside. And Mr. Chad Crabtree is our seventh grade high ability cohort teacher. And I'm going to have him introduce our amazing students. >> Thank you, Miss Ernsburgger. Uh Dr. Huff, and members of the board, uh thank you for this opportunity. I just wanted to let you know what uh National History Day is. It's a nonprofit education organization improving teaching and teaching history, the learning of history. NHD's core program is its competition in which students in grades 6 through 12 choose a topic and dive deeply into the

141past conducting extensive research in libraries, archives, and museums. Then they present their conclusions and evidence through papers, exhibits, performances, documentaries or websites moving through a series of contest levels where they are evaluated by professional historians and educators. Through this process, the students develop skills in communication, project management, and historical thinking. This program in the state is sponsored by the Indiana Historical uh Society. This year's theme, as you can see from our shirts, is rights and responsibilities. Uh, I do want to thank our sponsors. We could have not have done this without um our sponsors and having not having being able to have the students pay a large chunk out of pocket. So, I do want to thank Welch Packaging, Hartsler, Guttermouth Inman Funeral Home, Hull Lift Truck, and Rocky Infield State Farm Insurance. These sponsors

142are the ones that came forward for a kind donation to help these students pay for the trip that they needed to get to DC. So without ado, I want to introduce Paige Miller who is junior individual exhibit. Her exhibit was Dorothy Dixs and the asylum movement. Joining her are Aneri Meta, Ana Burkshshire, Aubrey Burmeister, Brenda Martinez, who is the junior group performance winner, Musicians of the Civil Rights. >> Y, [Applause] [Laughter] go ahead and pull the microphone down to you. Just right like this. There you go. There you go. >> Uh this June we were able to participate in the National History Day competition in College Park, Maryland. It was an extremely unique, fun, and rewarding trip that we hope we get to do again next year. >> How do I do this? So the

143overview of NHD um was during this time we were there we had many different or we had many fun experiences. We walked downtown and saw the White House, Washington Monument worldwide to memor memorial and private aspects of the US capital. We stayed in the dorms of the University of Maryland College Park campus. We had opportunities to go out to explore the campus and got to know our way around. The group had an amazing time and we got to socialize with many different peoples with many different people from different states and countries. We got to see and engage in many things that most people wouldn't get the chance to do. We made very good memories whenever wherever we were even even on the metro and indoor dorms. Here you could see all the states and countries.

144We got different pins. There was Georgia, Tennessee, Missouri, Utah, Vermont, California, uh, South Korea, Korea, Guam, and Wilmington. There was a lot of fun. This experience was definitely fun. I would love to do it again this year. Okay, so we had a lot of achievements and highlights. Some really cool things we did were we visited the national monuments like the US capital, the Washington monument and so many more. And we got to meet so many new people and make so many friends. We also got to socialize with every state and also like international guests like from South Korea, Guam, Thailand. And it was really fun to see how each state had their pins. We also got to meet the speaker of the house, which was an extremely good opportunity. And we the the four of

145us uh got uh coin from the speaker of house and we got to meet the we got to see the private chapel and it was really fun and we got to stay for 5 days in the college dorms which was a really cool experience. So yeah. >> Okay. Okay, so the student impact. This experience was definitely something new for me. Me personally, I've never really traveled a lot. And so this opportunity for school, it was definitely something really fun. We walked so much. My feet hurt, but it was all worth it. It was so much fun. I had an amazing time. The dorms were fun. Going on the metro was fun. Everything was so exciting and like thrilling and I would love to do it again. I seventh grade I was not social. I I

146hated talking to people. I hated talking in front of people. I hated group projects. I hated all of that. But when I went over there, we have to trade pins obviously from other people. So, I didn't have time to not be socialable. I had to be sociable. I had to talk to different people. And it was scary. But I got over it. And now I talk to a lot of people. >> Um, this was a great opportunity for us and it would not have been possible without these sponsors. Thank you to Welch Pack Welch Packaging, Whole Lift Trucks, Rocky Mfield, Miss Lexi Gribble, Dr. Schultz, Mr. Crabtree, and Mrs. Ernsburgger. We are so grateful for all of them and we are so happy that we had got to be a part of this wonderful competition.

147Um, so here's a picture of the four of us right before we did our performance and any questions. And this is also another picture of the speaker of the house. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Um the coin that you have, can you uh give that to Mr. Bernett here? And I'd like to pass that around and we'll see it. Those are called >> Give it back. >> I will let him hold it. I won't. >> Well, since it come from a speaker at the house, it's probably made out of bronze or something. A nice metal. It's not really gold, I guess. But um those are called challenge coins, and they come out. They're very beautiful. Um my wife had gotten one uh from the um secretary of state of Indiana and stuff like

148that and uh I think they're good uh advertising. I think they're good marketing uh you know they're something a keepsake you know that people you know keep around stuff like that. Um what was your uh you did a program or a presentation you mentioned >> you were standing in front of that red curtain part. So, uh, for NHD, there's different formats you can do. Brenda, uh, and I with our group, we chose to do a performance, which and we did it about the musicians of civil rights. >> Okay. >> And, uh, the four uh, the three musicians we focused on were Duke Ellington, Bob Dylan, and Michael Jackson. and how they through their through their influence uh they like changed how people saw civil rights and they campaigned and helped others. Uh so my project

149was a bit different. I chose to do one by myself like an exhibit kind of like the science fair but for history. Um mine was on Dorothia Dixs who was a champion for the rights of the mentally ill in America in the 19th century. And yeah, >> thank you. >> When you do that, do they like talk back and forth with you? Are they asking questions to you and that's how they're kind of like seeing if the process is like valid and that you know what's going on or do they challenge you a little bit and are you in front of a group of people? >> So going to regions uh we have just three judges, a few other people. People can't really walk in, right? But then going to state, people can walk in.

150I remember going to state, there was not really many people, but we went when when we went to nationals, there was like a bunch of kids. People just walked in and they saw our performance. Our performance had to be about 10 minutes. And at the end, they would ask questions like, uh, what inspired you to do this? How was it connected to the theme? And questions related to that. >> And what is your favorite pin that you received? I like the color. >> The potato. >> Oh, nice. >> It's a little Idaho potato. >> Oh, I love it. That is awesome. >> What What does the pin look like that you were giving in trading? >> What does our pin look like? >> The prettiest. >> Oh, I thought that was ours. Yeah. All right.

151We'll work on that next year. >> We'll we'll have challenge corns next year. >> Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Doug. Doug will take care of >> We're not going to let the speaker of the house outdo us. >> No way. Oh, you guys, congratulations. I am completely looking forward to seeing you guys again next year. And thank you both and Lisa for, you know, making this happen for our children. It's just like as you talked about, Dr. Huff, the great things that are happening in our school. This is just another opportunity for children younger than you to be able to see exactly what you got to experience. and you spoke a language that a lot of children are speaking and that's I'm nervous about talking in front of people I don't really know how to do

152it and I applaud you cuz I I don't understand how that feels but I do know what it feels like for other people and you know I but but it can be overwhelming to be a talker too but I am so impressed by you that was very courageous and I think it's funny that you like the metro but it was super interesting to watch people wasn't it yeah for sure congratulations you guys you are amazing I I'll say real quick, I'm I'm sitting here looking at you ladies faces and they're bright and smiling and and for that I want to thank the sponsors as well. Um you know, experience matter, exposure definitely matters and I'm glad you guys had that experience and exposure to uh to to to our capital. So I'm glad you guys

153had fun and I also hope you guys can go back. >> I also want to thank you. Very proud of you. You represented our whole school district, our whole community well. We're we're lucky and blessed and we're better because you're part of our school community. Also, your leaders behind you. Your your Lisa Earnsburgger who Thank you for uh get out. >> She's trying to hide not happening. >> Thank you for coordinating this and making sure that this happens for our kids every single year. I think that u without your leadership um these things wouldn't be h wouldn't be possible. And I think these are great highlights of all the things that we offer our kids. Colorado trip these type things that are just not happening in other places. So again, I just want to tell

154you all of you, it takes a whole village to get things together, but it does take people with a vision and a passion. So I just want to tell all three of you adults, thank you for um doing this every year. And trust me, they are going to remember this for the rest of their lives because of you. So thank you. >> Yeah. [Applause] >> Don't forget your coin. >> Doug, I have it. Doug doesn't have it. I have over there. >> Uh oh. >> Hi. >> Bye you guys. >> Uh next on the agenda, Mr. Kavanagh. >> Uh the Eastwood report. >> You should for sure. >> Oh yeah. >> Just going to take a picture. Photo op. Mr. Photo Lab. >> We good? >> We're good to go. Okay. President Scott, members of

155the board, Dr. Thank you so much for uh letting Eastwood be here. We have our literacy coach Denise Dimmer, our assistant principal, Camry Nilly, and Apacia of Eastwood teachers with us today to celebrate. So, um first I want to highlight the district and the success that um all our elementary schools had this year. Uh huge growth. So, not just recognition for us, but uh across the district. Um we're excited to be partners with all of our colleagues um and continue to to strive for that success. Uh last year was my first year as principal at East East Eastwood Elementary School. Um historically we had been um around that 72% 70% pass rate um for iided. At the end of the year we had a 94.4% pass rate. So roughly about a 23% growth from the

156previous year. So um the overall growth and the accomplishment of our students is is something that we have to brag about. Um super excited to share that with our community, our families and and the board. Um don't want to just highlight I read. We also had a lot of growth in iLearn. So within our school improvement plan, we had I read as our top goal. Uh we met that. But also for iLearn, we had a 5% growth from the previous year as our um as our goals and we surpassed that both in ELA and uh math. So overall, everyone at Eastwood Elementary School worked hard. Uh, and we were tired at the end of the year. Uh, so I missed that. You want to go? Sorry. >> You're not gonna take my slides away from

157me. >> Um, I'm Denise, like you said, and I am the literacy coach for Eastwood. I will have to say that being in front of you guys is a lot le a lot more comfortable than being in front of the state board of education, >> especially when we're a little bit more prepared and know what we were ex what was expected of us. Um, but it does remind me of one of the most um amazing days of my life in my career. Being at the state board of education was awesome with seeing Eastwood up there. But how did it happen? It started with tier one. Um, we had foundations. Our third grade class last year had foundations since kindergarten. So, we think that that was a contributor to our success. Our teachers were um they

158were very consistent with foundations. We spent a half hour of our lesson of our day focusing on the five pillars of literacy instruction which started with phmic awareness. Um, then tier 2 which led to geodess. Geodess was a really big thing at Eastwood. We did geode intervent geodess interventions with K through five. Um we had everybody on deck when it says it takes a village. It takes a village. We had um our specialist teachers. Every special teacher in our building had intervention groups and not just one but two or three. We had um retired teachers and they were fun. We had three of them and Nancy seems to be uh a very common name with retired teachers. So, we called them the Nancy's, but there was one that wasn't. But she they were I remember

159they came in from day one and they were used to doing reading recovery uh instructional practices and they had to come to me and find out that we were now in the science of reading. And they were about to turn around and leave the building and decided that they would try it. and they looked at geodess and if you've ever seen a geodess book, it's very complex and it has social studies and science-based practices. Um, but it follows the science of reading and they uh were not having it having it at first, but they got into it and they had fun. They found one with log cabins and they brought in um what do you call those? Lincoln logs. The kids never saw Lincoln logs because they're a thing of the past. So, they built

160log cabins so they had fun with it. Um, we have volunteers. We have Mrs. Mullins come to our kindergarten class and read on Fridays, which has helped tremendously and they actually even call her Gigi. So, they know her. We have community members from all over. We have the biggest support for Eastwood, which has made a difference. And I'm gonna have to put a little success on the cadres, which I'm going to be honest with you. When um I talked to Barb Kripe last year, the first day, and I'd been in the classroom for 29 years, I didn't even know what cod. I thought, what in the world is a literacy cadre do? But I'm so happy I did it. All of us literacy coaches work really well together. And I think if you look across

161the board, not just at Eastwood, you'll see that Elcart community soared in all of their um progress that we made in Irene. And I really strongly believe that when you look at one common factor, we had literacy coaches and um I'm going to piggyback on Michelle Reese. I was with her Friday and she said when she was in a school district that she really relied on her interventionist and literacy coaches and I think Eastwood, we have not had an interventionist. So, I was the first part of that piece that came to Eastwood. And I think just bringing it all together with our awesome administrators and um putting that together with everybody, it was it was a v it took a village and that was one of the things that I wish I would have said

162back at the state board. Um but of course, I got up there and I froze. Luckily, Dr. Huff started off with a great comment and kind of got the crowd going because I we I felt like I flopped, but I wanted to make up for it here. We we watched it. You did great. >> So anyway, thank you for having us and we are so very proud of our school. And one other thing, I did not flip the slides because I talked too much, but um if you look at the pictures, we have added pictures. And the really awesome thing about these pictures that shows about Eastwood is they're all pictures of students that staff have brought to Eastwood. And that was the most amazing thing because we have lots in fact we have lots

163of people sitting here that have had students have their own children go to Eastwood. My own children went there. So we are all vested and very proud of Eastwood. So thank you for having us and this is a celebration one. So we can be happy. >> I want to go to the keys to success. So just to wrap it up I just wanted uh to just say um Elgar Community School is investing in letters. um teachers have sat down, they they've learned a ton and they've implemented all those practices in our classroom. Um I think there was some hesitancy because it was almost a mandatory training like what in the world's going on but as we started diving into it you could see the teachers running with it and implementing those practices in the classroom

164and so um thank you to the board to Dr. Huff the cabinet members for investing in that. I think that has grown our teachers quite a bit. um strong PLC practices um setting expectations practices that have been implemented from years um may not have always been best practices and so coming in to a new school into a a new year um setting high expectations um and some sound practices. So the PLC collaboration giving teachers time to collaborate with one another get coverage for classrooms um again we can't do get that accomplished without Dr. of um and the cap cabinet members um backing on that. And so again, parent and community uh partnerships, uh we can't do it without them. That's what we're here for. We're here for the kids and the community. And so um

16594% is hard um to get to, but we're our goal is 95 to get to that state uh level. So we appreciate >> 94.7. >> It's technically >> we round up we round up in Elcart, my friend. >> Let's be honest. We'll get there. >> So, thank you, President Scott, board members, and Dr. >> Huff. [Applause] I just want to tell you one, thank you for your service that you do for our country. You uh every year um I know that you have >> you put your literal life on the line for our country. So, I just want to say thank you. It starts with out amazing teacher. She's one of the funniest ladies you'll ever get a chance to spend time. I enjoyed our time down at the state house. It was nice to

166brag on our school district and nice for it to be recognized, but you you did a wonderful job down there. Your hopefully your family was proud that that why you were there. We all win when kids win, right? I I want that to be our calling card. Um also great leadership, Mrs. Neely, outstanding assistant principal there. Um hats off to you've been at Eastwood out here for a couple months too. Just a few. And Mr. Kavanagh for a first year principal. You killed it. You did a wonderful job there and you're a great leader and and they're very blessed to have you there and that is a true school community. So, I just want to tell all of you thank you. Um you represent our school district well and I expect to see continue great

167things at your school. But I also know that we have another school here as well. They're back there sitting in the back. Woodland Elementary School. He's ready to talk tonight. Doc Dr. But also >> he's what' you say? >> I'm just happy for my colleague. >> You're happy. Thank you, Mr. Be. Appreciate. But I just want to tell you thank you. Appreciate and look forward to all those things. Celebrate as long as you can. >> Absolutely. >> And we'll look forward to next year. >> Thank you. >> No, thank you. Job well done. [Applause] >> Let's keep uh the positivity going with the excellence of Elkart. Thank you, President Scott, members of the board, Dr. Huff, community members. I'm grateful for the opportunity to share highlights in the areas of academics, arts, and athletics. Students

168and staff are settling into the new school year with energy, enthusiasm along with diving into lessons and routines. Schools have kicked off the year with pride assemblies, celebrating the values of persistence, respectfulness, initiative, dependability, and efficiency. setting goals and inspiring everyone for a successful year ahead. Last week, it was announced our third graders made impressive gains on iAre with 80.9% passing up to 64.7% last year and the highest in Elcart County. Nine schools are now above the 80% thanks to our dedicated staff and hardworking students. In the area of arts, Riverview second graders kicked off the school year with creative math inspired art projects. They worked on color by number projects in which each color was tied to a math problem, blending creativity and critical thinking. Highlighting girls goth and athletics, Elcart defeated Southbend Adams

169on Bent Oak 216 to 232, improving to 2 to1 overall. The teams continued to show steady progress. The golfers excelling on the course and working towards their personal best. Girls flag football. In preparation for the upcoming season, captains and co- captains have been selected to help lead their teammates. There is a great excitement around this new program as it begins to take shape. You can catch the very first game tomorrow night at Southbend Adams. Some of our future happenings. September 1st will be closed for Labor Day. September 4th, Elcart Area Career Center has a back to school night. September 12th, our Emmens coaches award at halftime. September 26th is our homecoming. And as always, you can stay up to date by following us on social media. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next on the

170agenda, we have the consent items. Do I have a motion? >> I have a motion. Do I have a second? >> I have a motion. I have a second. Do I have any uh comments from the board? >> Yes, we have at $26,400 we have our um donations from our community. So, we have two donations for our cross cross country team. One is a $1,500 donation from Dana Homo and then one is a $1,400 donation from Pure Vita Pop-Up Yoga Adventure Retreats. And if you are not familiar with that, that is Jenny Nolan who also was our diving coach formerly and does a lot of yoga with a lot of our ath athletes pro bono. So if you're ever looking for yoga, she does a a wonderful job, but she donated that to build up

171our girls cross country program. Um we had $500 from Legacy Heating and Air. That's another one to point out. We have many of our employees that graduated from our Elcart Area Career Center that work at that company. So, that's really important to realize when we talk about community partnerships and what they do with our students and their businesses locally. So, thank you to them. They donated that for um volleyball, travel, apparel, etc. And then we have $3,000 that came from Lorie Marks and that benefited our new teacher orientation and our welcome back breakfast. But once again, here she comes, Phyllis Tubs. $20,000 to our athletic department. So, at $26,400, we once again start our year with a wonderful bonus from our community who believes in us. And then we'll take a minute to celebrate Janet

172Simmons, who has retired from our school district after 31 years of service as a Beardsley um assistant tech or tech assistant. So, we thank her for her um time that she spent with our students and we look forward to her um enjoying her retirement. And on that note, we can move right on. >> Thank you, uh, Kelly. I have a motion and I have a second. All in favor? >> I opposed. >> Give me a copy. >> Motion carries unanimously. >> Next on the agenda, we have old business. Uh, Mr. Thorne. Thank you. Uh the administration is presenting for final consideration uh proposed agreements with Michigan Public Broadcasting Corporation for a WVPE and Frank Films for the Elcart Area Career Center. >> Administration presents contracts for final consideration for Eden Menum and EXL Learning. >>

173This looks a little bit different. They're all presenting their own contracts. So if you have questions, you can ask them because he's just going to ask. So a little bit different. >> Good evening. >> I am presenting the contracts for approval. Final approval for ADC sprigio emerges healthcare staffing relay hub and loveway. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Tech services is presenting secure W2 sweet hawk and adtech administrative and technical consulting. That's that's all of them. >> That's all for >> Okay, >> final. Yes, we'll be back. >> Do I have a uh a motion for uh the contracts as presented? >> Motion. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I have a motion. I have a second. Do I have any discussion or questions from the board regarding these contracts? >> Yeah. Um

174on the uh tower, uh who owns the land or that the tower sits on? >> It's a great question, Mr. Weaver. is actually owned by the Hayes Hayes Corporation actually owns the tower. WNIT or Michigan Public Broadcasting leases that from us from them and then we lease from WNIT space on the tower. >> Okay. Who owns the land? >> Hayes. >> Oh, so we actually they're on our property and they own that little piece. >> We're talking about the tower in South Bend. The big tower. >> I thought you were talking about these over here. >> We're not talking about our little tower here. We're talking about the big tower in South Bend. >> All right. Didn't seem like I read through there that it really said that that way, but that's okay. All right.

175Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate that very much. >> You're welcome. >> Good. >> Any other questions or comments from the board? >> Um, was somebody doing one on Frank films? >> Yes. >> Okay. Um on Frank films um parts one, two, and three. Um what are we getting for our money there? >> You are getting some promotional films that promote what happens at the Elcart Career Center as well as the many partnerships that the Elcart Career Center has for our students. So it's really all in terms of providing promotional videos talking really focusing on the great things that are happening at the career center. All right. The second question is, do these go through Wendy? >> Because there are promotional, video, marketing, communication. Uh, >> these are also these are also funded by

176a separate grant. So, the answer is of course Wendy would have access to them as would anybody else, but no, they don't actually go through our communications department in this particular. My point being was that in Wendy's role in her position and stuff like that, you know, I believe that, you know, she kind of represents and makes the brand for the school corporation. And I want to make sure that everything that we put out there represents the brand and the marketing of our school corporation. And so I'm concerned that, you know, when I see things that are she may be not involved in or something like that, it's like that's what we pay her for. We should use her to do that with. Now maybe she doesn't want to do it but uh you know

177after I brought it up but but any you know consistency and you know thoroughess and stuff like that that way you know the left hand knows what the right hand's doing and stuff like that and we do have some of that here with the career center and stuff like that. Sometimes they kind of do their own thing. All right. And athletics sometimes does their own things when it comes to marketing and branding and so on and so forth like that. We need to bring all that under one person, one house, and so it's unified and we all generate the same message over and over so it's repeatable. >> I'll be happy to share that wisdom with the career center. >> I'm I'm also assuming that uh there there's nothing that goes out. I I see

178in the proposed schedule for the campaigns, there's a first draft, revision, final delivery. So, none of it none of this would go out uh without the the district signing off. And if and to his point, I think it is a good point if if if Miss Woods is not involved, um she she should have a seat at the table just to be involved because since it parallels what she does uh uh with the district, I >> very much agree and and certainly I don't think uh Mr. Eekens or anybody at the career center would have a problem with Wendy having a voice in this matter. >> You can thank us later, Wendy. >> I know. I want to see Wendy's face. She's like, great. >> We only do this because we like you. >> I

179have any other questions or comments from the board regarding the contracts as presented? Hearing or seeing none, all in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion passes. Next, Mr. Thorne, we have board policy 7440.01 under old business. >> Thank you, President Scott, members of the board. Uh Dr. Huff, uh the the administration is presenting proposed revisions to electronic monitoring and recording policy. Uh this revision addresses the district's use of video surveillance equipment as well as smart sensor technology, including the use of vape detectors in our secondary schools, and we're seeking your approval this evening. >> Thank you, Mr. Thorne. Uh, do I have a motion on board policy 74 7440.01 electronic monitoring and recording? >> Motion. >> I have a motion. Do I have a second? I have a motion and a second. Do I have

180any questions or comments regarding this policy? >> Okay. >> Lots of questions. I just think about the policy. >> No. hearing or seeing none. All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion passes. >> Next on the agenda, new business. Mr. Thorne, the podium is still yours. Uh contracts. >> Thank you. Uh the administration is presenting contracts for initial uh consideration. The two that I'll be speaking to is the Unbarber Academy contract and medical communications ambassadors LLC. Uh the Barber Academy contract is with the career center and medical communication ambassadors is an adult education program contract. Bringing these for initial consideration and I will step aside for my colleagues. Initial consideration also adtech administrative and technical consulting. That's for our -ate services >> administration presents contracts for initial consideration for the crossing national incorporated for the high school.

181>> Good evening. Administration also presents for initial consideration a propo proposed agreement with Alexia Voyager Soprus um for Aadians. Um I am just going to make a note here that this is a change to a previous contract that uh you have agreed to. Um the formative assessment grant is only allowing for K to2 to be funded through their grant. So we are amending that pro contract and bringing this to you for initial consideration at this time. Um and that that is a cost savings. >> Good evening. Uh the administration presents contracts for the initial consideration of a continued uh partnership with policy analytics. You >> good evening. Um I am presenting the Elcart County special eden special education cooperative contract for your initial consideration. This is for services for students uh with blind low vision

182I apologize who are deaf heart of hearing that require specialized services. This this is a change in the scope of our relationship with this co-op prior. >> It's our last year with them. We're working on our step down services. Um and I will be providing Dr. Huff with a report on what that looks like over the course of the next 18 months. And um these services have been reduced in this contract as well. >> Thank you. Um Mr. Thorne, I have a question. Um that way in two weeks when you come back you'll be prepared. >> Yes sir. >> The uh Eden uh contract what were the result that the contract is a year old correct? I think >> I think it's actually >> is it two? >> Two years old. >> Really? Man time

183flies. But anyhow what has been the results that we've gotten through that program. You don't have to answer that question today. Two weeks you can answer that question. >> I'll make sure that I get all the information you want from Mr. Brandon >> and and you know and we're going to get a good story, a good positive result out of this is what I'm expecting and stuff like that. >> So cool. >> Yeah, you're I don't know where you're going >> here a little bit longer, D. >> Under new business board policy 2623.01 test administration and security. >> Good evening. Uh again uh the administration is bringing for preliminary consideration revisions to this policy which reflects a change in the title of the district test coordinator not in terms of the individual but that individual's

184title. >> Bri just for preliminary consideration. >> Thank you. And also uh >> question that was a very simple one word or two-word change wasn't it? >> That's correct. >> Is there any reason why we wouldn't go ahead and uh actually uh pass that tonight? other than um there's there's no sense of urgency from a timeline of >> urgency from that standpoint, right? And we have a we have a a couple board members or one board member is not here tonight. So, I want to make sure if she does have any questions, she's afforded the opportunity to >> Well, I talked to her and she didn't >> just only one voice is seven, Doug. >> Two out of seven. >> And then the uh any other questions or comments? Uh the the next is administrative

185guidelines 5200 student attendance. >> Uh thank you. Uh we are uh proposing adoption of these guidelines which will align our attendance practices with the requirements of Senate enrolled act 482 and we are requesting a waiver of a second review of this administrative guideline. >> Thank you Dr. Roush. We have a uh proposed revision for the 2025 2026 school calendar. >> Yes, President Scott, school board of trustees. Dr. Huff, uh the administration presents proposed revisions to the 2526 school calendar and requests to wave the second reading. October 1st um will no longer be a synchronous day as this is count day. So, we'll just have November 4th. >> Important to be here on on count day. >> Yes. Do I have a motion to uh accept the 2025 2026 revised school calendar? >> So move. >>

186Second. >> I have a motion. I have a second. Any questions or discussion regarding the revision? Seeing or hearing none, all in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carries. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Almost a little premature. Uh, Miss Brander, you have agreement for non-residential services. >> Yes. Thank you, Board President Scott, members of the board, and Dr. Huff. The administration recommends board approval of an agreement for non-residential services for an Elcart Community Schools student. >> Thank you. Do I have a motion? >> I have a motion. Do I have a second? I have a motion. I have a second. Do I have any questions or discussion regarding the agreement for non-residential services? Now this amount is this a straight pass through that just Elcart schools handles the transfer of that money through the

187system too. >> It's a reimbursement >> or we spend it and then we get reimbursed. >> Correct. >> Okay. And so how many similarly situated students are there on this program? >> So this is sort of a a a blanket terminology that the state uses for a program called special education excess cost. So, the state allows for us to request reimbursement when we have to provide services for a student with a disability that is sort of above and beyond what um is needed, I guess, to access the general education curriculum. For some of our students, that is services within a residential facility, but it's not many. Most of them are receiving um they might require more um staff attention during the day, and so we're allowed to request uh through an application process to get

188reimbursement uh for those. So, you've seen several of these come up on our um our board packets within the last couple of month months, and that's because we are ensuring that we are applying for any available funds that we can receive reimbursement for. >> Add to what you're saying, please. Um we went a long period of time without asking for reimbursement for these. >> Correct. >> So, we've lost out on opportunities of hundreds of thousands of dollars over years. Um under your watch, we've actually pursued every single one of those. >> Yes. And we will continue to pursue them. So, I just want to tell you thank you for your diligence and making sure that we get reimbursed for every single one of these. >> Yeah. Just to be clear, that did not occur under

189your watch. Under your watch. >> Under her watch. >> I'm just I just want to make sure >> we have been diligent about making sure that we have done this. That did not occur under her. >> Commas are important. >> I'm just letting you know Mrs. Brander is doing wonderful overseeing two department but she is making sure that we get reimbursed for every dollar that we are owed by um these entities. So I just want to tell you thank you. >> Thank you. >> What is the uh span of age range from the youngest to the oldest in that category? >> So students that are we're submitting excess cost applications for. >> Yeah. Well, I mean, well, by by law, there's probably an age range that, you know, go does it go from first grade

190to high 12 or does it say no, it's only applicable to 6 through 12 or whatever? I don't know. >> So, by law, you know, the um Disabilities Education Act law, we're required to provide services for uh students preK through age 22. >> Okay. So, all right. All right. Interesting. Okay. Cool. Well, yeah. Thank you. I'm done. Do >> I have a motion for the agreement? >> Motion. >> We already we so long ago. >> It's all right. >> All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carries. >> Thank you. >> All right, Mr. Ross. Financial report. Good evening, President Scott, board members, Dr. Huff, and the community. I'm here to present our financial update for the month of uh July closing. All right, our first slide um is our expenditures in the education fund. Um I'm

191going to highlight three funds, our education fund, operations, and rainy day. So, let's start here. Um on this slide you'll find the expenditures for the month of July. On average we spend about 7 million a month on salary and wages out of this fund. Um you will see this is July and our wages and benefits have trended down but that's only because it's summer months and we're out of session. You can see we spent about 5.6 or so million in salary and wages this month for July. On the left, you'll see kind of a summary where we spend um 97.6% of our fund on salary and benefits as previously noted in previous presentations. And that percentage is higher than other educational institutions/industry standards. So a 10% decrease um would move us to a much better

192position in this fund. And also um you can see our ending cash balance I want to point out here is 1.9 million. We would like to have at least at least a month's worth of expenditures in this fund. So 8 n 10 million would be more ideal to cover things that come our way especially as we're heading towards the impact of sea in 2026. Another note before moving on from this slide. Um we've spent over 60% of this fund. Uh last column there. Uh we have 41% remaining in this fund. So that's another indicator we're running high in this fund. >> Should be closer to 60%. >> Right? The inverse would be better. >> The inverse would be better. And then on the uh the spending at 97% on salaries and benefits, a 10% reduction

193will get us closer to the 87 which is closer to the industry standard of 87 to 90 or >> Yeah, it's a little more aggressive because you know our cash balance is pretty low and we've got to build that up a little bit. So 87 might be a little below industry. You know a lot of schools shoot for 90% but we're just not in that predicament to shoot for 90%. Yeah, >> this is actually my real co-presenter. She and I co-present often. >> One of the things I think people also need to know is that this is without ever making a transfer into the operation fund. We made a transfer of only $1 million. Most school districts typically take that 15% off the top and move it to the operations fund. We didn't do that

194as a school district. I don't think we've done that for a long time. Is is that what you're finding as well? >> Yes. At least for this year, we've made only 1 million of the 9 million slated in transfers to the operations fund. We have not been able to make that. So you'll see on the next coming slides how the operations fund is buckling to support this fund. Um so um yeah, we're running high in this account, but we are have taken some measures that we're going to talk about in a few more slides what we're doing to kind of reverse this trend. I also want to thank you for presenting the information in this way. It this lets people really know what's happening in the various funds. I think the way that we previously

195presented information um may not have always informed our community of what was exactly happening. I would like to see this next as we go through compare this to where we were last year. I know that there's some preliminary information show things are getting a little bit better based off some changes that we've instituted, but we have a lot of work to do to get it to where it needs to be. But I do want to say these things just don't magically appear. Somebody actually has to create them. So I just want to say thank you to you and your team for um putting information like this. And we mailed we emailed this information out to every staff member this week in my newsletter. I hope you looked at it be so that you can have

196this information look at another time and we will also send this out back um through our posts. Wendy, another job. Is okay to give her another job, Doug? >> Absolutely. Okay. Yeah, we'll make sure that our this gets sent out to our community in another way in another aspect for those who don't look in the board packets. But go ahead. >> My apologies. I should have asked the superintendent before I gave you another job over there. >> No, I told Wendy she should stop sitting right there. She should probably sit in the back. >> So, to summarize our education fund and look at it at a at a different view here, this is um our expenditures. These are our expenditures from January through July uh for 2025. Um what you see here um the green

197is our revenue for the month that particular month. Red is our expenses and the bars right um that blue line um is our ending cash balance for that month in the education fund where we want to be. If you can see that red dotted line above the bars we'd like to at least be there that I mentioned to cover at least a month and a half of expenditures. Um the red is where we'd like to be. That is the floor and the green would be we'd be doing much better. But if we could at least make it to the red first. Yeah. Um so we got work to do in the education fund. Okay. Okay. So, operations fund um similar format um where you can see our expenses for the month and how it looks

198in terms of percentage on that pi uh graph on the left. On average, we spend about 1.7 million in salary and benefits out of this fund. You'll see salary and wages for July out of the operations fund also trended down as expected due to schools being out of session. um a few things and Dr. Huff, my co-presenter as he called him, he selfnamed himself that you see what happened when I don't. Okay. All right. So um >> but um >> well since we're copers and I think one of the things too that we have to say in there and I think and that Tony your team has saved us actually a lot of money this by um the work that they've done in the middle schools as far as construction. This is going to show

199up here but it's actually a savings. We did not u bid these out. So, how much money did we how much would they have charged us if we would have um utilized uh outside construction companies to do that work? >> So, the last I looked, we spent about $64,000, a little over 2,000 man hours to perform the demolition and reinstallation of tile in the buildings. That is about 35% of what they would have charged. So, our savings is in excess of $100,000 by using our own very capable people. It looks like an increase in spending here, but technically it would have cost us money somewhere else. >> It would, and we originally discussed the possibility of being able to reimburse ourselves through the bonds. So, we've kept track of every every hour, every dollar we've

200spent with our uh our own people to uh pursue that option, which then would reduce the expenses out of this fund if we're able to continue forward and do that. And that that is being captured uh the savings that we can present at a later date like in in a yes >> some sort of footnote or >> payroll has tracked it every um pay period so that we have the by by employee by hour that they've worked and the dollar amounts >> and corresponding what saved is by >> Yes. Very good. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you Mr. G. >> That'd be nice. >> Okay. Just to uh pick back up here on the operations fund. A couple things to point out. Um, this fund is, um, like I said, buckling to support

201the education fund. It has not received its slated transfers, uh, from the education fund, which is allowed by, um, the state where we could transfer up to 15%. Um, we've only made 1 million of the 9 million. Um, with that said, also you might want to recall back in about May, we transferred the balance of our operating referendum into the operations fund. So that's holding this fund up too. And look at our cash balance, 4.3 million. 3.5 of that, so to speak, was from that transfer. We would be much lower had we not made that transfer. So you can see you know this fund is in a pretty um you know uh tight position. Um so with that being said um you all may recall especially the public that we have a geo bond pending.

202So we have applied for the geo bond that's in process. We're hoping to get that in October. But we've got to say we're going into debt to hold up this fund, which then kind of holds up the education fund. It's not an ideal place to be. It's temporary, uh, like a band-aid, but um, like I mentioned, we spend about 3.3 million a month out of this fund on average. You can see we only right now have only like a month and a couple weeks, so it's running on fumes. We're hoping that geo bond, you know, gets processed soon. We may have to transfer from a rainy day. That's just something we've got to, you know, cross that bridge if we get there. But >> point out it also in June we got we received the

203property tax payment. So that bumped us up, but because of our spending and and things that we're still we're not our trajectory is not the right trajectory. >> Yes. >> Thank you for that. from an overall standpoint because that money should last us longer than it will. >> Yep. Exactly. And that's the next slide. It kind of shows us how we've done in this fund since January through July. Month by month. You see that bump uh that Mrs. Vanderbell Vanderella just spoke of. In June, we get our property tax revenue. And then pretty soon, we're just going to start going straight down. We'd like to see a little more level line where you see that red dotted line. We'd like to be there to have at least a month and a little bit more of

204a a cushion to cover expenditure. So about 5 million would be a more comfortable place in this fund give or take that red dotted line. So and the last fund uh I'd like to present um in terms of these consolidated funds is our rainy day fund. We started the year at 7.9. We have had to make a transfer out of that fund to um balance the education fund. I think that was in June to prevent it from going it was negative to put it back at zero quite frankly. So our fund of last resort. So we got to protect this as you know as best we can. Um but this kind of illustrates all the funds are taking a hit to support the education fund. Uh next slide is just um all these these three

205funds we just spoke of how it looks from January through July. um the cash flow. Um only thing I really want to point out here is once again that floor that we're you know aspiring to we would have 15 16 17 million in cons you know at the base floor in you know to be in a more stable position. You could see July it looks like we're, you know, doing good, but that's because of that operations bump that you spoke of when we got the property tax revenue. It's going to start sliding back down. And kind of to wrap up the cash flow, um, this is something we work with with our partners, policy analytics. They help us look at historical data and help us project future cash flow. Um, here's the three funds we

206just talked about, education, operations, and rainy day. What I want to point out is it's a lot to look at here, but for 2025, you can see we started with a about a 14 million cash balance in all these funds. um with our projected expenditures, we're going to have a deficit. We're going to be deficit spending this year. So everything we're doing is to decrease that deficit. So we're looking and that's next slide. Everything we're looking at to close the gap on that deficit. We haven't just accepted, yeah, we're going to go 10 million. You know, we got to look at everything. So everything is on the table. 2024 went from a $3 million deficit to a $9 million deficit. What happened during that time? Where were there some big expenditure? And this year we

207bought curriculum at things that we typically wouldn't have done like during this year. U we bought curriculum. I think we paid for letters out of the education fund this year if I'm if I'm mistake. Is is that accurate as well? >> I think we did out of the education fund. So, those are things that we aren't going to have to pay for in the future, but there were some one-time things this year that we definitely had to um and I don't want to put you on if you don't have an answer now, we can come back to the board >> on what it was for 2023. >> I just think that's just a big that's a big jump from to to overspend by $6 million in one year. Like from this year looks like 204

208to 24 to 2025. It's like roughly a a million and 1.3. But I know that I know what's inside that 1.3 things that we won't we won't have to do again. >> Yes, I can strange echo. I can dig into that a little bit more. Um >> for sure that did predate me a little bit, but I will definitely see what I can find for you. But >> added we we became members of literacy cadre. We had to we bought curriculum. We um I'm trying to think some letters was those are just all big ticket items that I know that we won't be doing again um in next year's budget. >> Okay, >> I mean you throw you off your game, but I just want I just these things keep me up at night, but

209I want to make sure that people understand that we know what's happening inside these funds. I do not know what happened on those two years. So we prior to me even coming on board um savings initiatives were already underway and I'm just citing a few that have you know were already in the works and some that you know we have been um working on um curriculum uh you see there ending some contracts negotiations better pricing administration and building level staff reductions um we've been assessing how many allocations we can have of added pays and extended contracts. It's just been kind of, as you've heard before, given, but we actually have to put a dollar amount on these numbers before they're approved. They were, it was kind of backwards. They were approved before finance had a

210dollar amount on these added pays. So, now it's like, we need the dollar amount. Can we afford it because we're trying to cut through that $10 million deficit? So, everything's on the table. We also had some other things too at play like um last year we had a compensation policy that paid um subs at a very I think healthy rate um that also went into the education fund as well um as far we had some split pays that were pretty healthy as well. Um and all those things overtime was just given out without any type of approval process. I don't think our internal controls are very strong. Um, now I think that we do have things that are in place to make sure that these things don't happen again or limit those things from happening

211again. Um, every contract goes in front of the board. I just think that um this is um when you see my gray hair at the end of the school year is because we're working to make sure that these things never happen for whoever sits in these in these arenas. I would not wish this on anybody the h but I do I want to thank you for jumping in head first and making sure that you're a good financial stewards and you and I think one of the things that people need to know is that you are definitely are a rule follower and processoriented individual. Doug, you're laughing but you know I'm telling the truth. >> I agree. >> And so we I feel like we have the team to make sure that this is uh a

212year from now there's going to be lots to celebrate but it's just going to make sure we get through this year. But I appreciate all the things that were that were that were >> appreciate that and I'm glad you pointed that out because me and my team and even cabinet were working on tighter internal controls. We just may not see the results of that at the end of this year. >> We see it monthly though a little bit. >> We should start seeing it you know um soon but you know internal controls is a process right? Um so we are working diligently on those. Okay, so that concludes my finance update. >> Thank you. Uh insurance update. >> Okay, just have two slides for us here. >> Okay, our insurance plan update. We are a

213self-funded uh insurance plan. We collaborate with um a number of partners to make this work. Um we work with Marathon, Sumis, we work with Gallagher very closely. And these partnerships have afforded us the um 80.7% loss ratio we see. That's essentially um the use of our premiums um in terms of how much premiums are used to pay for our plan. So I have better wording for that. Um it's the percentage of premiums earned that are paid out in claims and related expenses. So we don't want to be at 100 105. We don't want to spend more than we have in premium. So this this is a good metric for um this month. >> We want to see that number though anywhere from like 85 to 90%. Correct. >> The lower really the better. >> I

214is it is the lower the better? >> Yeah. For some reason I thought it was like at 40% that means we were overfunded. >> No. If we if if our uh uh the loss ratio is lower it means we're having a good year, a healthy year. We're not spending as much money as uh predicted on our >> Are you Are we talking cash balance? I think we're talking about cash balance of the fund. >> Yeah, that's >> the law. We're talking about I'm currently talking about the loss ratio. >> Okay. I think there I think we're talking about two different things. >> Yeah, I think so. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. The cash balance of the fund. >> Yes. >> Is you know it's it's if it's if it's preunded then Yes. I mean it it

215if we're closer to the predicted >> Yeah. Okay. That's what I was trying to I'm sorry that >> that's what I was trying to expect. >> Yes. >> Fair. >> And so I've added this slide so we can take a look at where we were last year uh at this month in July. Um on average January through July we were at a loss ratio of 1.5%. So now we're at 80%. So that's good. And at the bottom you can see where 2024 how it trended and where we're at on 2025. So the fund is healthy at this point. And that concludes my insurance update. >> Any questions regarding the financials and the insurance uh update from the board? >> Thank you, >> Dr. Hoff. I've spoken a lot tonight. So, so, but I'm going to

216continue to always praise and up on our community. I I want to say thank you to our transportation team um for the hard work to start the school year. Um remember we reduced routes at the middle school down to a mile which to roughly walk zones so miles sorry not transportation route walk zones to a mile which means we still have a lot of routes sit and they're doing an amazing job. Mr. uh Smith back there um he is taking the bulls uh by the horn so to speak over there. I just want to tell you thank you for all that you do and your team. Um had a very interesting conversation with them this week. I just want to they are seen and they are heard. So, just want to tell you thank you

217to the transportation team and they've been very flexible this year as we've been adding routes as we've been registering students. So, I just want to say thank you to the transportation team. Also, hats off to our uh teachers for starting I think we had a pretty successful start off to the school year. Um, just for some of the things I've seen around the district, whether it's robotics at ETI, um, I I I saw some great photos of Mrs. Mix making jewelry in her classroom at the high school. the marching band did an awesome job at the start beginning the at the football game. Uh Mrs. Miller um who's at Mary Dailyaly kids are doing body movements to to learn more about some numeracy. Our teachers are very creative and innovative in making sure not only

218are kids engaged but actually actually have really good outcomes and good experiences here. That does not happen without intentionality, without a purpose and without um the I think the skill and the will of a teacher. So, I just want to tell you thank you for making sure that this school year get off to an amazing start for our kids. You do this every single day. Um, and I just wanted to tell you thank you. Um, I do want to say it was a huge honor last week to go down to um to represent Elcart um at the state house um and and brag on our school district. Um it is nice to be number one in a category that means something to children. It means something to our teachers. It means something to our community.

219I know that's 80.7. I will wear that on a t-shirt everywhere I go out in the community because to go to get there and triple the state's average, that does not just happen on its own. That happens with again the stories that are happening at Eastwood, the stories that are happening at Woodland. The the the intentionality has happened at Beardsley. Again, it's not just your school, Mr. Kavanagh. It has to happen down at Beck for it to be your old school, right? We want to cheerlead and champion everyone. Mr. Beal, you said it best. I'm here to support my colleague. That is the type of leadership you need in order to be a great school district. And those teachers, even though she was scared to death to speak and forced me to do some things

220I was down there, Mr. Mayor, she's wonderful. These are the stories. These are it's not our scores. They need to know our people. Our people are wonderful people that we have. We're a very giving community, loving community, and all the things will be great for us because you know what? We're in it for the right reasons, which are children. And so I just want to tell you thank you for for that opportunity to speak down there and to share our story and I will share that story every single day until next year's scores would come out and then when it's another 16% they'll say we're cheating and then life is over. So we won't be doing that. And then I just want to just lastly uh share I've been very intentional about the things that

221we've been sharing at our board meetings. I don't want anyone to say they do not know about our finances. They don't know about the conditions of our buildings, about the state of where we are as a district or where we're going as a school district as far as academically. I think academically we are going to be the destination place for everybody in the north when it comes to outstanding outcome. I think we saw that today. No one else is doing the national history day like we do here or the Colorado trips. We have other schools that join us for these things. Correct. We're doing awesome things for kids and with teachers and with family. >> But SEA1 is real. It is going to impact not just our district. If you are paying, you're seeing schools

222every night at these board meetings talking about their financial futures look different. The behaviors of their organization have to change on a dime. This summer took four days off and I talked to y'all every single day at 1:00 a.m. where I was and it was 6 because you know what? This stuff is important. We can't I don't control the the laws. I didn't make any of these policies, but you know what? How we respond to them is up to us. I wish this was a normal start to a school year. It wasn't. There are still money. They said they were going to come to us and still hasn't gotten here yet. So, how do you deal with that? Do you deal with it calmly? Do you deal with it proactively? Do you deal with it

223with a plan? Yes. All those things. Because again, kids are watching. Adults are leading. And this is what you are. This is what we're paid to do. were paid to lead out front. I you can't run from Senator Ro. It is everywhere in our community. The mayor, I felt so sad. Sorry, Mr. Robford. He had to give a speech where $30 million were being cut from his city right there. We're no different. We're down $5.8 million. You must do something different. We can't just continue to do the things that we've always done. What we've always done has got us here. So, we have to make some dramatic changes to to to make sure that we are responsive and I think that we are definitely on the road. But the first thing is to be informed

224and to be informed is pay attention to what's happened at board meetings. Read the information that comes out and then go to a credible source. A credible source is, hey, I don't know what that was in the board packet. Can you explain that to me? Doug, can you explain to what this looks like? Dr. Rous, can you explain this to me? Social media is never going to give you good explanation. will give you confirmation of what you want to believe. So, I will I will answer every email that has to do this and I look forward to presenting to every school about our financial and what our plans get because I think it's not going to be my it's going to be a team approach on how we get out of here. So, again, these

225aren't the conversations I want to have, but this is a conversation I would hope you expect to have from your superintendent. And so I think this is where I earn myself um as a leader and I'm looking forward to definitely um engaging with our teachers, our custodians, our pair professional, anyone who touches the life of kids here because I think they're not only old the story but also hey what's what's our plan? How do we plan to uh turn the tide according to Rhonda? I'm a terrible co-host. So I won't I won't take her out on these on these excursions with me, but I will um I do think that we have the right people in place and the right people in the right seats. So again, um there's going to be a lot of

226heartfelt decisions uh that are going to be made this year. Some that are not going to be very popular and and I'm I'm not okay with that, but I think it's the right thing to do. So at our next board meeting, I will I would expect everyone to pay attention to what's what's going to happen our next board meeting foreshadowing and I have I will come up to that podium and tell you what some of our plans are, but I don't want you to say you never were informed of what's happening in our school district. So, um, that's it. Mr. Scott, I am not speaking for the next three board. I mean, other than when I go up there. >> Okay. >> Um, >> board. >> Well, yes. I want to I Well, well, go

227ahead, Eric. >> No, please go. >> Okay. So, I want to like add on to that and I want to speak from a place of pure humility. Uh when I started this journey on the board, I um inserted myself in many places that I did not belong for the good of what I thought was the school district and the children. Uh fortunately, I had Doug Thorne who was able to give me a lot of guidance on where I belonged in a chain of command type situation. Um and it took a long time to realize that like what Troy said, we have one employee and that's a superintendent. But in our heart, especially my heart, I want to believe that I'm there for every single one of you. And I've learned from different principles and mentors

228that are all over this room, that there is a way that you go about things. And I know that when it affects you, your pay, your your personality, your school, your whatever it is, you want to just get to the quickest fix possible. But we have a role and we have the right people put in place that before it ever comes here, we hope. And there's some situations that are still unresolved right now that they're hoping for resolution that sit in this room right now that we hope that we can get to where we belong by following through the right course of action. And like as a parent of children in this school district, I start with my teacher. If I don't have an answer from my teacher, I go to my principal. If I

229don't have a principal, I go to my director of education. If I don't go to my director of education, I land at my superintendent. If I can't get through to my superintendent, I land with my board. We can't make the positive impact in our community if we don't search out the right conversations. Coming straight to the board might feel very validating and important, but if we can't meet somewhere in the middle, we can't get to where we need to be for not only our community today, but our community in the future. So, I know that it seems this is the greatest place to go or even some of you coming to us for answers and we just leave blanket. But there is a natural rule of order for us to have the greatest success in

230our school system. So, we need to kind of like land in that lens. Um, and and know that that's how we're going to get to where we need to be because this is a great school system and it's had its es and flows of sorrow and pain, but we're going to rise up above that. Now in saying that back there is woodland which I want to say to Jeremy I thought that was such an amazing thing for you to call out like the success of your peer because that is the one change that I have noticed in the past two years that has begun to happen under different leadership. We are no longer elementary schools swimming on our own and trying to like make our own work. We are starting to support each other and

231I see it when I pop into the different school systems. It is a lot different conversation with our vice principles and our principles now that are meeting together. That's our foundation. That's our soul of our school system. And watching our principles work together and praise each other is what's going to make a great difference. Now, I decided that I wanted to name a moment of this schoolboard meeting my own. And I wanted to call it Kelly's Corner. And it's where I take like a different group and I celebrate them. So, I popped into different schools and I realized that even though they have their own day and we celebrate them, our secretaries, we have definitely forgotten how hard they work. So, going into the school system and seeing children popping in at the last minute

232to get registered, like nobody knowing exactly where they're supposed to be. There was a child at a school that wasn't even supposed to be there. And there is like busing and people running late and everything. Here are these group of secretaries starting with our own two right here at this superintendent's office who feel things like you cannot believe that they need to be applauded. Our secretaries need to hear this recording. You are the most amazing human beings I have ever seen running a school district especially at the beginning of the year. So when we're like ending a schoolboard meeting I want to find a group of people that we talk about and today it is our secretaries. So from you two to also the front of our building here at the school system but in

233every one of our buildings what you did to make the school year run. I say applaud applaud applaud and shout out to our secretaries. So that is the conclusion of Kelly's Corner for this meeting. I'll see you in two weeks. >> Just for just for clarification on Kelly's Corner is it's a corner spelled with a K. Are we for the agenda? >> Oh yes. My You know what? Everything I do has a K, but just Yeah. >> Okay. Got it. I got it right here. >> Corner. Please spell that correctly. Dor. I will put a little badge on in two weeks. Yes. >> That was very well said. Um, so I >> I might allow you to join me in my corner if if things go well. >> I will be I would be honored.

234I'd be honored. But I you know, I just I kind of wanted to say um kind of echo what you mentioned. There was a lot of things shared tonight that had some passion. Uh some folks spoke with some passion. Dr. Huff, you responded with some passion and that's okay because we are passionate people doing passionate work and I appreciate that. I also want to say that I firmly believe that although we are dealing with some challenging times, finances and things like that, I firmly believe we have a leader that can help us navigate those things, uh but doing it from a space that, you know, sometimes reality isn't pretty, but it's always real. I think that we are really looking at some real situations that we have to attack and I'm confident and I am

235comfortable with the leader that's helping us navigate through that and I just wanted to share that because um everything we do is with intentionality and I think you know it's a it's a collective lift and uh I appreciate the things that are said in the public. I appreciate the team that we are working together to kind of right sh right size to ship uh as best we can. So, I wanted to share that uh this evening, but you said it much better. >> I always will. No, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kid. I am kidding. Also, go wild cats. Just Just saying back there. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Thanks, Eric. That's so true. >> I think discourse is is paramount in a society that is often lacking of of discourse. We are watching a world

236literally where people don't talk to one another and they just make up their own assumptions. I think the beauty about school is we not only have to talk to each other, we are better when we do talk to one another. And so I there's something that needs for communication to be improved. Okay, I will we will do that. I think that's a two-way street though. I also think one of the things that um we owe each other and I that's something that we talked to uh I've talked to my team about is how do we make sure that we are celebrating the things that are happening in our school district because no one else will do it but us in the most competitive world when it comes towards education kids have limitless choices now when

237it comes to school there's no reason why Elkcart shouldn't be getting all of them and if children were watching I would wonder. But you know what? Kids are going to come in here tomorrow and they're going to say, "You know what?" in front of the teachers because you know what? The teachers are the best public relations for our kids because they do a billion different things for them. No kid is ever going to say, "Man, I stayed in that school district because I had the greatest superintendent in the world." Not one. I've never heard that phrase. But here she >> or school board. Nah. Well, look, I but but but I do think the things that we owe people are consistent communication to be as honest as possible and also when the conversations are tough,

238treat them with dignity, treat them with respect and value, but be care for them enough to say, "Hey, this is the actual truth, not a filtered version of the truth." I can't look at these numbers and say, "Hey, that that they're not that they are what they are." My skill is what we do with them. And so, um, I just want to say I believe discourse is healthy. I believe discourse is honorable. I believe discourse is seeing the humanity in individual. It's when you say, "I'm not talking to them." And you make up narratives about him or her. Not like it's ever been happen to me before in my life. Um, I think that's where we lose um, a lot of our humanity and I do not want to go that direction, but this is

239Elcart's a great place. Let's continue to make it a great place for kids and great place for people by having these type of discourses. So again, I just want to tell you thanks for the opportunity and for the teachers to allow me to actually chime in on those three minutes. That says a lot about them too cuz they didn't have to. So just want to say thanks. >> Anything else from the board? >> I'll just finish it quickly. We heard a lot of uh you know passion tonight, but we also heard a lot of great things about being down state. If anyone forgot, you know, why we do it, why I ran to be on this board is the kids tonight when the smiles they have on their face. When they were leaning in to

240an uncomfortable situation, leaning into education and they're smiling and I won't forget, I'm not very social, but after this trip, I'm social now and I like to talk to a lot of people. And when she held up the buttons, she had to speak with 50 or 60 people to get those guys. That's why we do it. all of us, whether we're an educator, staff, board member, it's moments like that that bring me back to say this is why we do it. We can make a difference, all of us collectively. And I think this is the right team and the right district to make a difference in their life. So great job everybody. And with that said, meeting a journ.