ECS Board of School Trustees’ Meeting 6/10/25

001food services first. Um, is there an agenda? No. Okay. Food services first. That's all I know. Good luck. At this time, we'll go ahead and start with He's awfully quiet, I would say. You go check. He's timing it. Thank you. Well, we'll I got it. That's all that matters. I did. I got I did too. This wasn't funny. He's counting on us being late, I think. Well, we can actually pivot. Um Jake, can you go ahead and and we'll go with our alternative school presentation. Thank you. So while Mr. Quiet is coming over and we'll go alternative school presentation at this time. We'll have our No, we're we're switching gears. You're a little We're going to have Apologize. We're gonna have Mr. Eric Chandler, uh Chris Hennings, and Brian Hammetry come and present to us

002about our autonary programs here in Elcart Community Schools. [Music] Uh hello esteemed board. Uh Dr. Huff, sir. Uh my name is Eric Chandler and I am the principal of the one-of-a-kind Pride Academy. Uh do I have control of the Oh, well. All right. Okay. Um, so, um, the Pride Academy has been in existence for four years. We were, um, excuse me, Elcart Community Schools had three, we took it over because we had a contract with Basher at the time and we took over the Basher program and combined it with the three um, special ed ED rooms within the district from Hawthorne, Eastwood, and Beardsley. Can I ask when you say ED for this if somebody is can you explain to them what that is? Yep. Uh students with emotional disabilities. Thank you, sir. Appreciate. Yep.

003Um and so we decided um after we had a group of people, Dr. Higginson, Tony England, um Lindseay Brander, myself, and Brian Hammondry started in 2018 looking around the state trying to find what a program here could look like. And so then in the spring of 2020, it was decided that the program was going to come to fruition. At that point in time, I was the uh principal at Hawthorne. And then um I heard that this would be coming about. I applied and then the Pride is Academy started out at Bristol for three years. And this year we finished up at Mary Beck. Um so there we go. Pride. Um the mission of the Pride Academy is to foster a paradigm shift that cultivate cultivates an innovative mindset for students, staff and community to bring

004safety, structure and a sense of belonging to every student and classroom by uniting educational neuroscience with power of teaching. The vision is a place of innovation, safety and belonging. So at Pride, we are K through well K through five now. We were K through six. Our first three years we were K through eight. Um okay. Uh we take from we take students from all 13 elementaryaries. They get referred to us and I'll talk about that a little later. Um how they get referred and they are students who have pretty extreme behavior issues, lots of eloping. Um I'm going to say defiance, but I'm going to be a little more elaborate. um where it can be physical violence. Um it's not just the average I'm not going to sit in my seat. Um and so we

005work with them to try to regulate themselves and figure out what's the best interventions they can use so they can stay in the classroom. And the goal is once they come to Pride, we help them get acclimated and then also start liking school again. For a lot of our kids, they just had traumatic experiences in the school that they were at. And so, we try to get them to love to learn again. And so, that's what we do a really good job of. Um, this past year, um, one of the students, RLF, we instead of like regular awards, we had the pride chain. One of the students, he got the P for persistence. Um the two adults on the outsides, Alva Antonio and Joseph Temple, they were our distinguished staff members. And then Andrew Jagger,

006our special ed teacher, was the teacher of the year. And then for the adults, for staff morale, we had um every Friday we had the and then some award. Whoever did more or worked and helped whether it's other adults and things like that. And we would always say they went above and beyond and then some. Um, if you ever watched The Last Boy Scout, that's where it comes from. So, 90s reference, sorry. Um, here's a picture worth a thousand words. Here's some of the adventures they went on. They went to Biz Town on the apple orchard using fractions for our recipes. Um lesson about social emotional learning with the spiderweb, giving out compliments and trying to figure out how that works to, you know, contain the web to make it still stronger because a spiderweb

007initially is one of the strongest things on Earth. Um but trying to have the class understand how that works out. Um our attendance over the years when we first started um there are a couple factors with it. Us being out at Bristol um parents saying hey they missed um the bus. We're not bringing them things like that. So our attendance was a little barely over 80%. Um but as you can see it increased every year. Um, yeah. And then this last year I think was kind of really interesting. The fifth and sixth grade classroom was at 90%. Um, and so that was something that was really good. Um, they were very very much there. Um, they were topped out at 11. The breakdown for the classrooms we have K through two. uh then one and

008two, three, four, and five, six. That'll change a little bit going into the fall. Um and so with the four gen ed teachers, we have a pair of professional in there with them as well. Um so we have two adults in there. Um we try to keep it close to 10 in each classroom, but sometimes with behaviors and things like that with the third and fourth grade room, at one point in time, we had 14. um that was a bit heavy um at one point in time, but towards the end that room ended up actually having 12 and it was Mr. Wheeler did a good job with that towards the end of the school year. Um the PLC process, everything that Pride does, we try very much to stay on track with the other 13

009elementaryaries. Um we use the pacing guides. We tried very much to focus on phonics all through K through six. That was the big goal for us this year because I know one of the big things for the district is the test scores and making sure I read was where it needed to be. Um, the thing that I talk about with anybody who's ever been to Pride or wants to come hang out at Pride for a day, um, our kids, it is very hard for them when it comes to taking a standardized test on an iPad. Um, test anxiety is a real thing. I've had multiple kids, whether it is them tearing up my office this past year in the spring. it was the practice test and my office hadn't been rearranged like that all school

010year. Um, so when it gets to things like that, when we talk about the data later down the line here, I just want people to understand like it is almost like a day treatment program. um it's the only one like it in Indiana and but there is also big gains that we get from our students that is not necessarily in the data in the data points and so like for K through two the curriculum we did foundations my view follow the pacing guides for the district and the big thing with that is when our students and it's time for them to have like say we're talking to feeser and it's time for them to go back we have to be able to show them that they are still on pace with their former classmates because

011we still want to them to have that connection. um kindergart kindergarten NWA even though um like if you look at the bottom two from fall to 2024 to spring of 2025 even though the growth is not what you see in your traditional classroom setting the growth was still there and that is something phenomenal that we look at for our students um and always trying to discuss with them what that looks like with that achievement. Yeah, you explain this chart to me because I don't I don't understand it. Okay. Um, so I can I'm going to start with the top two. So you had the RIT score for the fall and then for the spring there's like emptiness. So those t kids actually went back to their home school. So that's why there's nothing there. And

012so like in the middle of it, that is like the average like that is where you want them to try to land hopefully, but usually it is more with the right, which is like where No, wait, hold on. Sorry. Nope. Scratch that. You want them to be on the far right. And so our student landed on the far left. And then the mean is like where the average is. And so we want them to try to be in there a little more and higher. I'm not sure if that even made sense, but I apologize. So, so what you're in and this so it's showing that they didn't meet projected growth right under the student because you'll go because you'll look at like the growth index like they're minus3 the one student then minus 12 instead

013of it being like flat out or a plus sign. So does so does that growth index mean that they that they decreased that they were that they were they weren't they were below even where they were to start with so there was there was less growth I mean there wasn't any growth at all they lost is that what that minus 3 and minus 12 is saying so for kindergarten that means they're lower than the standard average so they may have grown from this fall of 2024 to the spring. Not not the 140 to the 158 like they grew that route. Do you see what I'm saying? On the far left, but for the average for the national average, they did not grow like at what say the national average should be. May I follow up

014for clarification, Mava? Yep. So, I'm going to look at the student who had a 143 um RIT score in the fall of 2024. Again, I don't know who this student is, but what that is saying is that student is finished at 12th percentile. So, every student who received a score of across the nation is because it's a norm reference test. Um, they projected them to grow 21 RIT red writ but 21 points we'll say for this area. So this student went from 141 143 to 161 did not make their projected growth for that year. So if you go across all the way to the growth index, they were projected to get 21. They only grew 15 points. So it has a negative growth. They're good grow in the classroom, but they're did not meet what

015every other student who had that exact same score, who took this test within that exact same window. They didn't have that same level of observed growth. Okay. And so the observed growth was a negative three for that year. So then then there's a standard deviation error that's in there and that's where that no and that plus sign. So that child if they took this test 100 times most likely would have fell within that range of 150 158 to 164. So that's why this student you could consider them hey making typical growth a year's worth of growth. Does that help with that explanation? Thank you. Okay. And for the second one, that was what I would have a little bit more questions where it's coming in really low at 131. That is um where we would

016expect um beginning kindergarteners to come in. I don't know the age. What grade level is this? This kindergarten. So that student came in at 131, finished the year 141. Kindergartens are expected to leave a roughly around a 150 RIT score. That student was expected to grow 22 points. uh 22 RID RID score u grow or RIT score growth supposed to be 22 um projected growth they finished at 141 for all the kids who start off at 131 kindergarten you really should be growing a lot at that very low they did in here in this aspect you see 22 as should be the projected growth they grew 10 if you go to the right and see the growth index is minus 12 that there no that's not so we have to do a lot of catch-up

017work with this particular student and if you go to the right the conditional growth index that is saying that student compared to anyone else who's in that um anyone who is in these type classroom settings actually had a negative 1.64 actually growth went backwards for that individual. So um that's why it's very important to know your growth conditional growth index because that's based individually off that classroom uh and your median and your median your rich score and your ranges or hey how do we keep making sure that our students are performing with like students who are at that particular score not necessarily in that classroom that particular score I'm I'm I'm comparing students who who are 141 right yeah so hopefully that provides some additional context that no problem thank And so first grade, you

018can see very similar um growth patterns and Dr. Huff did a fantastic job putting it into perspective for these first graders as well with a minus3 with the growth index and then a minus12 and then for second grade and and just so people have some context with second grade assessment that goes from a test in in kindergarten and first grade that's read out loud to a student and in second grade there it is not uh read out loud to students. I'm assuming it's the same way that um pride. So um you typically will see if students have a little bit of drop as they make that transition. Um and that test is also a little bit more um comprehensive and the much longer than the K through one test. But I'm going to turn it

019back over to you, Mr. Chandler. And so for the third and fourth grade curriculum using my view and the district pacing guides um strategic interventions with my group my small group and you fly um is another tool that we use with this small group interventions with the base of using and looking at um CVC words especially and phonics. Um, so I read this year, the previous three years at Pride, we had zero students pass. Um, this year we had five in-house ranging from second grade to fourth grade. Um, and then two more students who graduated from Pride recently and then had passed at their home schools, which was um, very exciting for us. Very exciting for us being that that was something that happened uh, for the first time for us. Um, for our fifth

020grade students, they increased in both math and ELA except for one student. Um, although we did not have one student pass I learned this year, um, the scores did increase. Um, I think that's another thing too when I talked about the fifth grader earlier. Um the issues of test taking and those kind of things are still like something that is really big especially when as you can see some of the gaps there are and the amount of time like they've missed from school whether it be from them coming with us or whether it be previously before they got referred to us um whether that's from suspensions or things of that nature. So that's a big deal when it comes to testing and trying to fill in those gaps. um our MTSS process, we have monthly

021meetings with every school. Um and then some of our behavior sheets we watch very closely. So like say we have the teacher teaching the parah is helping assess whether there are behaviors or things like that and then they mark down like what behavior behaviors they're seeing like the areas concerned the desired outcome and some of the na things of the nature and then once we get all this data fulfilled then we go into further the MTSS process mess this up. Oh, thank you. And then so we have each student has a behavior tracking sheet. And then so the goals are like that. And then over here we have the goals and strategies. And that is a big PowerPoint that we share with everyone. And then all the different goals and strategies that we have and

022then the entry and exit criteria. This would be something that could probably be revamped revamped over the summer because this was done two summers ago um with um Shirley Elliot and Tony and myself. But the biggest thing I wanted you guys to see was when it's time to refer a student to Pride, they fill out a Pride alert. And so this form comes to Miss Brander and myself. And then they fill this form out and they have to have all this information for us. And then we go to their MTSS team and then we talk about first what kind of data do you have? What if interventions have you tried? And then as we go the next step forward, 3 to six weeks data after myself or our transition coordinator observe the student in class

023and see how we can help first before we make the final decision if they are going to come to Pride or not. Um, and so that has been one thing that I think has helped tremendously in trying to figure out like what is the best case scenario when kids come to Pride a a parent component in this um in this process. And when you're meeting with um you know, you're working with these kids, obviously they there's there's a lot of um things that are that are being done to help them be able to be productive in a classroom and learn um in in the in a productive way. So how how do you bring the parent in because the people are asking them to go into this program? It's a specialized program. So what's the

024commitment from the parent aspect to make sure that their kids are getting there to make and how are you working with them so that that these um the things that you're doing can be reinforced at home and the support can be given so that this child um can get back into a regular classroom if if that's the the path um that works best for them. But let's say for example Cleveland is going to want us to look at a child. Um, so I make sure to tell them like you need to have the discussion first that you're thinking about referring them. And then if the next step is like having a conference and say, "Hey, you know, the next step after this 3 weeks is like we're going to need to have a conference with

025Chandler from Pride to say like here are the next steps." Once that happens, like I introduce myself, I explain to like what we do at Pride and then usually nine times out of 10, the parents on board because they're just looking for answers. Um then we talk about like we have a good partnering relationship with Oaklan and Bowen um for skills training and having them come in. I explained that our social worker is heavily involved um and explain like on Mondays we have another social worker that comes in for individual sessions and just it's usually a really good working relationship. um letting them know like we're going to try our best to keep them in school, but if they're a danger to themsel or others or if like say they're trying to elope from the

026building or things of that nature, then then we have to talk about like next steps, but usually it's a pretty good cohesive relationship. There are some parents who have not been okay with how things have been handled. But um some of the uh Pride Academy practices and PDs, we do a lot with uh social emotional learning. Um a lot of trainings on it. I have some handouts to pass out to you guys in a little bit. Oh no. Okay. Well, you guys can click on that part later. Um we talk a lot about the zones of regulation as well. Um, and basically that's just students talking about where they're at, whether they're red, green, blue, or yellow, and those are broken down for them. Um, we have a zones of regulation room where they can

027go and take a timeout to regulate themselves because sometimes they just like we have lots of kids who just need to get that energy out. um working on you whether it's a jumping doing a puzzle um kinetic sand things of that nature and you know we have some kids who just need to easily say I am mad and that's a room where you can go in and if you need to scream it out you can scream it out and then you know 5 10 minutes later come back to class and for some kids that is the best place for them um and then they can go back and handle their business. Um, every staff member is trained in crisis prevention inter intervention. Uh, for us, the escalation is the key. One thing that I've tried

028very hard to explain to every person on staff, it's all about your tone of voice. Um, because a disregulated adult can't regulate a disregulated kid. And so if you have a calm voice, that helps tremendously. And so getting them to understand that because if you're heightened, they're going to be heightened. That's just the way it is. And I can give you multiple examples. If you come at them like that and it's just remembering, too, they're kids and they're going to bite back. They're going to say nasty names. They might spit on you. They might kick you. It's all happened at Pride before. So, you just got to figure out how to let it go and keep it moving. And these are some of the books that we've done um book studies on. I highly recommend

029What My Bones Know um for anybody who's had who's had any kind of trauma in their life. Um fantastic book. And then I would also highly recommend that one kid for the first two years for Pride. That is um a book that we definitely talked about from Brian Mendler and we actually did at back to school university three summers ago. We Jamie Ingen, Emily Zikus and myself did a presentation for some staff members about it and that PowerPoint is all in here. Um, also the book Becoming the Educator They Need is also a fantastic one um for anybody. I think that's all I have. I can pass out some of the things we work on for where we talk about the behaviors and their struggles and things like that. It's a quick question. How uh

030how many maybe I should know this but I don't. But how many students do you on average do you normally have any given time? Um 40. 40. Yeah. Like I think we ended the year with 37. At one point in time we had 44. That was around February. Um, and so it it usually fluctuates anywhere the start of the year we'll probably have like 32 because sixth grade's gone. So it's going to be interesting. What's the average duration of stay? It it it depends. We've had some kids who have been there the entire four years. Um, and those kids in all honesty, I don't see them going back to a traditional setting. Like I've joked with Brian before, like you'll see them because they just and the parents don't want them to go back to

031the traditional setting because they know they're not going to be successful and they're okay with a smaller like a smaller setting. How many of our are in district students and how many are out? They're all they're all in district come from directly from our school. And so when you say like like parents don't want them to go back into a gened setting. Um so when we think about like what we do with them after graduation, so they go from you to Brian, what happens then if they haven't been in a traditional setting and they haven't been able to acclimate to like, you know, out outside of, you know, do we have work for them in in high school or what do we do to prepare them for career and college life ready after school? Well,

032I think some some of our students who have graduated from us and went on to Brian are like doing half days with Brian, half days at the career center. I think they'll be ready. That kind of a setting is a more conducive setting for them. The career center atmosphere traditional. Yeah. I think sometimes it's just over stimulation. It's sometimes it's just noise. Like we have a student right now because we're doing summer school at Feaser. Like he was with me yesterday. We walked in. He looked in the cafeteria and it wasn't even that noisy, but he was like, "Nope." I was like, "Well, you can just stay with me." Like, "We'll go get everybody ready for breakfast. It's okay." And then he was fine. Like, he stayed in. He did everything Mr. Wheeler asked him

033to do and it was fine. But it's good for our kids to get to know themselves and be like, "Yeah, that's not Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. We have Mr. Hammondry. We'll talk about the Elcart Academy. [Music] Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah. I thought we'd just get that out of the way to start out. I like looked around. I was like, "Wow." I was like, "Wow, we'll get it." I wanted I had decided Sorry to get off track a little bit. It's easy. It's easy. It's like here it's Brian and I. Okay, here we go. Yeah. I had decided a few months ago I wanted to cut it but I wasn't prepared to answer all the questions from the students and staff. So I thought wait till after commencement. Got it cut the day after. First

034day of summer school, you know, I started answering all those questions and seeing a lot of the, you know, familiar faces. But yeah, I did. I did. Yeah, I did. I did. I was ready for a change. So yeah, I just went all out. But good evening everyone. I know most of you, but for those I haven't got to know quite as well yet, my name is Brian Hammetry. I'm the principal at Elkcart Academy, Pride Middle School, and our alternative to suspension program uh for the district. So, I'm here to share a little bit about what we have going on. All right. I always start out with the mission and vision and I think our mission and vision aligns with the Elcart promise, right? We want to know every student by name and uh not

035just to know their name and know their story, but to help them get to know themselves and find out what their purpose is, what their goals are, what they're going to go, where they're going to go next. And we have a highly trained staff, not just in the area of academic instruction, but our staff is trained in deescalation, trauma-informed practices. uh they're uniquely qualified uh to serve the students in our district that um that come to Elcart Academy and we want to prepare them for whatever's next whether that be enrollment in college, enlistment in the military, employment and our program helps them explore not only you know who they are, what their goals are but they get to experience uh some some opportunities out in the community and opportunities you know in Elcart High School

036in the career center as Eric mentioned. All right. I had cool pictures. I don't know where they went. Uh but what uh I wanted to share uh we had an exciting year for graduation. Uh we had 23 graduates. Uh we will have 23 graduates graduates by September 30th. Uh we're, you know, I chase uh we're chasing down some kids that still need to finish up. Um but they're coming to summer school. They're getting it done. They're motivated. Um we had two additional graduates uh from comparing to the 23 24 school year. Um so we serve about we we impact about 3 to 4% of uh the district's graduation rate. Uh we served 167 students total this year at the high school. So our enrollment hovers right around 150 students total. Sometimes it's a little more,

037sometimes it's a little less because students are transitioning sometimes back to the high school or they're graduating or they start with us a little later in the year. Uh I put our projected graduation rate uh up there. It's 81%. Uh, I'm proud of that because across the country, the majority of alternative programs, and I'm not sure if the PowerPoint that I've shared with you has this graph, but the majority of alternative school programs have a graduation rate below 60%. Uh, a high end is usually in the 70s. So, uh, this year we had 81%. Last year we broke 90 for the first time since I've been the principal. I was really excited about that. I was hoping to replicate that. I'm confident we will next year. Uh we have a lot of systems in place

038to help prepare us for graduation. U as students are entering into their junior and senior year if we know they're going to stay with us. Um so I anticipate next year being back up at 90 or above. Uh I think we're really high I know we're a really high performing alternative high school. So I included a pass rate here. And what that means for us is students that have taken classes at Elkart Academy at the high school. So we start out taking two classes at a time uh in person, right? So students that have passed all of their in-person classes, no Fs, right? Uh we have 70% of our students for the 2425 school year have been able to do that. uh you'll see that's an increase from 23 24 and it's a huge increase

039from 22 23 and the reason for that increase is we really changed how we uh we changed our academic calendar so rather than going by semesters 18week semesters we offer classes in six week terms only two classes at a time so it's a little accelerated it's almost like mini summer school sessions a little longer than summer school but uh that's I think a fair analogy um we're able able to focus on the essential standards. We use the uh for our core content area classes, we use many of the same common formative assessments as Elcart High School. Uh and as you see from the graph there, the print is really small. I apologize for that. Uh the majority, so it looks like 73% of the standards that we covered, students demonstrated either proficiency or they exceeded

040mastery for those assessments. And again, we're using the same common formative assessments. The the reason we're able to do that, I believe, uh, is smaller class sizes and we get opportunities to work with students, um, more individually, find out where those deficits are, address those deficits right away, and help them uh, meet those standards. Uh I I really like our six- week uh schedule too because students who oftent times don't arrive to us on a winning streak uh they get to experience some rent wins right away and it helps boost their confidence. Um so we had over 20 standards assessed. We've been using uh Mastery Connect similar to Elcart High School and it's really helped our teachers uh hone in on where our students are at because they can start they can start with us

041in October, November, you know, in the middle of the year and we need to get to work right away. Many of them are juniors or seniors and they're credit deficient. So, we need to know where these students are at, and Mastery Connect's been a great tool for us to be able to assess those students, find out where they're at, and then help bridge the gap for them. Uh, we uh issued uh at the time that I put this together, 1,08 credits so far. It's a 9% increase, and we had over 205 credits pending uh for our T6 term six. It's our last six week uh session. Uh and then we had even more because we had some seniors that week uh right before commencement come in and and get some last minute credits done so

042they can walk and now they're they're finishing up the rest uh during summer school. Uh something really exciting we've been doing over the last couple years is organizing um service learning projects. Uh, so we have a staff member that connects with some of the organizations you see here and and more uh that I couldn't list. Every Friday, we take 14 students out into the community on a service learning project. And what they get to do is they get to find ways to give back to their community. And for a lot of our students who often don't see themselves as having something to offer to others, they get to be in that position for sometimes the first time ever. And especially with the parks department, the city government, the police department, they not only get to

043participate in the service project, but they get to learn about a career that's available to them. Uh and and that's and that's an added component because they get to have their eyes opened up to opportunities that they did not realize uh were available. Uh and it's right here in our community. And I think that's important. uh we've been tracking uh since 23 or 2223 there's 68 uh seniors or or graduates from Elcart Academy that we've been staying in touch with and we call them once a year and we ask them few simple questions first check in how you doing how you been and then we ask them are you currently employed how long have you been employed uh are you enrolled in college or some type of post-secary uh opportunity um and and or or

044are you enlisted in the military? And some com one of the uh common factors through all of those conversations, those students, those graduates are still living in Elcart, right? So, we're helping support uh future Elcart residents and I believe Elcart leaders uh and they get to see these opportunities through these service learning uh projects um so that when they graduate from us, they're ready to contribute and they know what's out there for them for for them to do. So, uh I put this in here. Um everything we do, it hinges on relationships. uh we've learned a lot uh not just as a school but as a district about the impact of trauma on the brain and then we're left with the question okay we understand all these impacts of trauma then what do we what

045do we do and research has shown that healthy relationships based on trust can help heal some of those neural pathways that have been dram damaged by trauma right um because we know you know uh the plasticity of our brains, right? It can flex and grow and change. Um, relationships can help heal heal that and we've found that those relationships help support students not just in the classroom but also outside the classroom as well. So addressing behavior uh behaviors of concern, one of the main things that um we had focused on in previous years are those kind of big ticket uh behavior issues, things like fighting, um physical confrontation, intimidation, and we've been able to decrease those every year and we're down to um 30 total incidents for the school year. Uh we had two incidents

046of fighting total. Now, that's going to count as four on here because, you know, takes two people to fight. So, I don't like that number, but the number is the number. Uh, I would like us to get to a year where we don't have a single one. Um, and I think that's possible. uh because the staffto student ratio helps that the relationships that we're building with students and the culture that students are entering into. All of our students start with an intro class where they learn our core values as a school. They learn about what success looks like at the high school before they even have an opportunity to have passing periods or switch classes. They spend their first six weeks in Elkcart Academy 101, right? Um, so before they're entering into that, they get

047to know those expect uh expectations um and see that played out uh before before they just jump into what we have going on. And that's helped a ton. Um so something that I need to improve on um reducing suspensions. There are I I feel like I'm pretty creative in how I address behavior. Uh but there's more work to be done and um there's been an increase in suspensions this year which I'm disappointed in. Um so I need to look at some of those behaviors I was suspending students for and find different opportunities for us to help them learn, right? Because discipline I believe is like an academic intervention, right? If a student fails an algebra quiz, I'm not going to kick them out of algebra, right? Um if a student is failing their behavior quiz,

048I need to find an intervention that keeps them connected to school. Um there were seven less recommendations for expulsion or seven total recommendations for expulsion for the school year. That's four less than 23 24. So we be we were able to keep more students long term. Um one of the specific behaviors that we want to address and we're going to work that into our intro class curriculum is verbal aggression. There was a dramatic increase in verbal aggression. Um, but with verbal aggression, uh, I would like I did want to I I recognize that we can deal with words when things get physical, like you need to take time out, right? Um, words we can deal with. So, uh, but it's something that we need to we need to address so students feel comfortable if they

049feel safe and and they're able to learn. Uh, our attendance rate is another area of growth. Uh, we're we have 73% overall attendance rate. um something that we're really focusing on, we're trying to look at those bubble students, right? So the students that are approaching 80% attendance um how do we get them from 67% to 80 um or or even 90. So uh we have MTSS intervention plans for every students uh student in our program unless they have a individualized education plan um receiving special education services. Um, so a lot of those MTSS intervention plans are focused on attendance and we involve, you know, all stakeholders, parents, probation officers, uh, case managers, the students themselves. Um, and we've seen some success with that. Uh, we've had a 95% increase in students attending 80% or more.

050Um, a lot of students enter our program with attendance uh, percentages in the single digits. Uh so uh we we have work to do but I think we're making progress. Um and we can always grow and learn more. Some of the professional development opportunities we're providing for our staff. Uh CPI crisis prevention institute. Uh they help us learn deescalation strategies. Um we use restorative practices going back to looking at discipline as something to learn. Right? So, I like to use the analogy, you know, if you make a mess at my house, like with my kids, if you make a mess, you got to clean it up, right? So, one way we address behavior, if you make a mess either with your relationship, your behavior, um, how do you clean that up? How do you clean

051up your side of the street? Um, and then self-regulation, when you learn about your brain, right? When you can identify like, hey, I'm disregulated. I'm not going to make a good decision here at school. Um, I need to find ways to help regulate myself. and they can use that not just in the classroom but but but outside the classroom as well. Um I know I spent most of the time on the high school. Um but I did want to talk about the middle school as well. We served 37 students. Uh we had 13 students successfully transitioned back to uh their middle school which I'm very excited about that. Most of the middle school students we want back at either North Side, Westside, Pure Moran, or prepared to start at the freshman division, um their ninth

052grade year. um uh talking with I don't have the exact numbers but talking with some of the assistant principles uh specifically at Pier Moran uh they said that their uh state reportable incidents had decreased uh after um uh using our program um and helping um kind of give those students a restart um uh they've been able to you know stabilize some of the environment in their in their own buildings. uh something we're do to prepare for the future. Uh so looking at preparing juniors um making sure that they have some of those graduation requirements outside of credits already complete before they enter their senior year. Um we're trying to transfer as many students back to Elcart High School because of the added opportunities they have. We have a smaller staff. We can't offer as many

053classes and opportunities. So we have 28 students at the high school that have either transferred back or are preparing to transfer back next school year. Um, as I mentioned before, students have their intervention plans. We have 12 students uh starting career center programming next year, which is more than uh we've experienced since I've been in this position since 2020. Um, and then we've also designed a new uh locally created pathway to help students meet the box three requirement. So, they'll be learning about uh marketing and business. Um, which I'm excited. I think they'll they will get uh I think we'll get more engagement for that. And uh next year we intend to serve even more students at the middle school level. Uh last thing I want to touch on is the alternative to suspension program.

054So that's grades five through eight uh students that would come to this program for either one to five one from one to five days. Um and then here's some just statistics about the usage of of this program um that I'll I'll let you guys look at. um at your leisure. Um lastly, I just uh want to thank you for this opportunity, for the opportunity to lead these programs and for the support of these programs because I think uh it helps us deliver on the Elcart Elcart promise for all for all of our students. So, thank you. Yeah, I have a comment and I'll be very brief. I was able to attend your end of the year um award ceremony with your staff and your students. um you're really making a difference with the the kiddos

055who are there and also you have people who were part of the program who have come back to help serve students. I was very impressed with the level of camaraderie amongst uh your students and um you have some outstanding teachers there as well. So I just want to say hats off to you. It always starts with um leadership um and I think I just want to say thank you for what you do. Appreciate that. No problem. I just said it because you got a haircut and nothing else. Good job, Mr. Good evening. I'm Christa Henning is the principal of School Without Walls. Um, for school without walls, we take students kind of from all over the place. Um, students who um aren't being successful in Elcart High School for whatever reason. Um, whether it's attendance,

056whether it's credit acquisition. Um, this year Brian and I work really closely together and I had the opportunity to um, help him with some of his students who needed a quieter place to get their business taken care of. Um, so we try to support pretty much everybody um, however we can do that. And then at school without walls, students when they have finished their credits and they're getting ready to leave, we actually have a bell and they ring the bell and then all the seniors or whoever is there all cheer for them as they ring the bell. Some students we record it for their parents. Um some parents want to come and see it and then you know they're waiting until commencement happens. So I we recorded that for everybody because it's something that we

057do. um data looking at credits earned in the fall, 96 credits were earned for Elcart High School. Um and that would include um students that have been at the freshman division um and if they had happened to end up at JDC. So we had lots of students enrolled in classes, not as many um credits earned. Um some of those credits students didn't finish and so they picked those back up in the spring. Some of those classes from the fall students actually go into the actual classroom in the spring. So maybe they weren't successful because they weren't working on the online platform and then we put them back in the actual class with the teacher. So that's everybody not counting the school without wall students if that makes sense in terms of what Apex does for

058us. Can you talk about something? Thank you for this. Uh Mr. Scott looked like I didn't want to go ahead. No, you go ahead. Go ahead. We may have the same question. Um how how were uh are these classes and credits tracked in Apex? So um school school without walls has a spreadsheet and on that spreadsheet it has the tabs the names that you see on the side. Elcart Academy ETI it has all the schools of study and so their counselors put their name their grade whether it's credit recovery or a full class. Um and then we use that 45%. If a student has earned less than 45% they do the full class. If they earned over 45% then they can do credit recovery. Credit recovery means that they are doing the end of unit

059tests and then if they pass those they go to the next. If not then they have to go back and do the reading to be able to catch up to where they are and then they go on and do the final. So, school of study counselors actually dictate what class the students will take and then school without walls plugs the kids into the classes that the counselor has told us that they need whether it's credit recovery full class followup. Thank you for that explanation. Can you talk about the internal controls that are utilized with inside school? let's say for grading purposes. How is that mechanic how is that mechanism monitored by by yourself to make sure that um not a lot of people have access to for grade manipulation and so forth? So the only

060people who have access to grading for school without walls are myself and my four teachers. Um, and then we on that same spreadsheet that tells you, you know, what class it is, whether credit recovery or whatever, there's a box that says student has completed the class and then school without walls puts an X and then the counselor has to upload their name in powers school and then every teacher just like regular high school regular teachers have a grade book and so then that name is put into the grade book say under English 10 and then then the counselor puts an And then school without walls goes back in and then they put the letter grade actually in the grade book. So I cannot get into my teacher's grade books nor can they get into each

061other each other's grade books but we work off of a spreadsheet. So there's multiple checks and balances for this process. That's Thank you. Um, on here I thought that the projected graduates that we would have were 145 and I just text my staff a few minutes ago and asked if our number was 145 and they told me that the number was 162. Um, and then we are running summer school. So, for the high school students who did not finish um and maybe had one or two classes, some of them are in regular summer school, some of them are in summer school on Apex, and then some of them we continue to track um and we'll track them up to September 30th. So, we'll continue to try to get the number as high as we can

062with school without walls using Frank Kurt, um Tracy Miller, the trreny officer, Will Cody, who also goes out with her to try to find kids and get them in. And really, we get on social media and try to find a friend of that person's and like, you know, hey, get a message to them so we can get them in here. Um, and then myself and my secretary are 12 months and then we will use our time to continue to pull them in so that they can continue to work over the summer. That way they can be done before the next school year starts. Thank you for your level of detail and your explanation as you go through each one of these. When you talk about regular summer school and Apex classes, can you just explain

063for those who are not there's people in this room who don't who aren't in education, what are some of the classes that they cannot take on Apex? Um, if they're a freshman or sophomore, they do not take English 9 A or B, English 10 A or B. All of those are in person with live teachers. Um, they do not take algebra 1 A or B. Um, most of the time they don't take geometry, but if they need it later for credit recovery, they can. Um, juniors, the only setbacks that they have, we don't offer English 12 A or B, and we don't offer ECON in government. And we do that based on grade level, not that we don't offer it. We offer them like to a se if you were a senior, we could give

064you all of those if you still were deficient or you still needed those credits. Appreciate it. And then this student was very important. She came to us as a teen mom. We were able to utilize the TAP program. Um her father was in prison when her mother went to prison for killing someone. She was left with no one. Um she was sent to Chicago to an aunt. That didn't work. She was sent to Minnesota to a different relative, got pregnant there. Then they didn't want her. She was brought back to Elcart. Um she didn't think that she would make it. She had her, you know, she every the worst case scenario was everything for her. We got her with the TAP program, School Without Walls, has its own social worker. Um, and now she um

065graduated early. She moved down to Florida with a grandpa and now she is in the military. So, you know, everything like to I got goosebumps all of a sudden. Everything totally worked out for her when she came to us as a kid who believed nothing would go right. Like she was going to turn 18 and had no one to still guide her in a direction. So, um, I had to put her in there. And then school without walls, we service obviously any students that we get for school without walls. We service Elkcart High School. We service Elcart Academy. We service our students who go to JDC. Um if they go to the juvenile detention facility, they also use Apex. We try to put our Elcart students on Elcart's Apex. That way, if they return after

0662 or 3 weeks, sometimes after 2 months where they're not going to be able to necessarily hop right back in and still earn a credit, they can then come to school without walls and we keep them for the remainder of the semester and then they can go back out and join their peers and be back in the regular setting. And then homebound. It has been hard to find homebound teachers. And so, um, School Without Walls and Apex have become some of the homebound teachers for those students. For whatever reason, they are on homebound. Um, with uh, Apex this year, we also bought as a district from them courseware, which is another platform that Edenum offers. um because we have a school of business and a school of human services and we also needed to offer

067some hospitality management. Um those classes are classes that were being offered out in the regular setting at regular Elcart High School. Some of those students were not passing those classes and or being gone for periods of time. And so school without walls learned a new program courseware in order to be able to offer those um pathways and allow students to be able to continue to earn the boxes and check the boxes that they needed. Um we're actually meeting with uh atum again in a couple weeks to be able to continue to look at the new pathways as the state requirements are changing. they continue to change with it and so we may be able to offer some other parts to continue to help Elcart High School and the pathways as they um change as well.

068And for me, school without walls, I offer it. Everybody come check it out. We're willing to help. Um we're getting out uh in the community. We're working with, you know, different churches to try to help us. Students always need snacks and so we're always trying to figure out how to make that happen. Um we've actually had some donations that will be taken over to summer school um tomorrow. So school without walls is always there to help um and try to do whatever it is we can and thank you for everything. A fantastic presentation. Appreciate the dataentric uh portion of your presentation. Very very well done. Thank you Mr. Anne Chandler. Also thank you for your presentation as well. Um do the board have any questions? Questions. Great job. Thanks for We appreciate you. Thanks. Thank

069you. And that was Mr. Quiet. We didn't do Good evening, President Scott. Uh members of the board, Dr. Huff, um thank you for your flexibility. Um thank you to my colleagues for their flexibility as well. Um take a few moments to talk through um some of the on your board packet tonight. we'll be asking you for um or recommending the contract with the food service management company. And so we like to talk through a little bit of those considerations, kind of how we got here, some things that we really wanted to hold important um how we selected the vendor through RFP process and then next steps of what that's going to look like and allow you guys to ask some questions if you have any um when we wrap up. Um, but to start, I

070think it's important. We we went into the start of this school year um transferring just under half a million dollars from a rainy day fund um to bring our operating balance back to zero in the um food service count. We moved to district-wide C, which was uh we anticipated increased participation, and we did see that. It raised our revenues by uh close to $800,000. We also joined the NE uh NIESC which is a co-op that allowed us some purchasing power. We thought that um we hope to see um some improved uh purchasing power and and drop down um some of those costs. I think we saw some but not to the effect that we had hoped to see. Um I credit to Pam and her team. I think they were doing a wonderful job um

071with with uh purchasing the way they were. Um, as we've gone through the year, we've have continued to our cash balance has not been positive. Um, we've we've continued, Pam and her team have have worked to move that into the right spot and we just haven't been able to get it there. And so, um, we said we need to look outside. We need to we need to figure out how we get this under control from a financial standpoint. Um, but we know Pam and her team have been, um, wonderful, um, loyal and and served our community very well. Also, this was a tough decision as we moved through this. Um, and so we wanted to make sure um that anybody that we worked with, you know, we continue to provide the best meals um for

072our students. We know how important that is um day in and day out as in these learning environments um that they have healthy nutritional meals that they're excited about. Um we've got a large food service staff. We want to make sure that we honor them and their hard work um and make sure that they have opportunities um as well. And then the third and and last point was we just need to have a sustainable financial future for the food service department. We can't continue to um support that with um rainy day or operational dollars to keep that afloat. Um and I think it's very important to remember and we've reminded our food service team as we've gone through this process that there's no company that we would work with that's going to come in and

073um with a their own uh workforce, right? They need our staff. um they need our dedicated employees that have that expertise of working with our students, our families, our our teachers in the buildings um if we're going to be successful and no company would have put a proposal together that said otherwise would be successful and I think that's important to remember as we talk through this um you know our our staff is important and we want to make sure that they have opportunities um in this process as well. So, we put out an RFP. We work with the Department of Education. Um, there's a very strict process around this RFP process. It's federal dollars. Um, and so it's uh mandated uh pretty rigidly. Um, these were the eight factors that we weighed in the RFP

074process. So, cost would consider um their food management cost um uh management and consulting uh cost per meal. Um and then it also looked at proformas that these companies we had six altogether respond to this RFP and they projected revenues, they projected their expenses and projected a bottom line of what what we could see as a district. Um they all approached it a little bit differently. Um and we felt that um uh Chartwells who we will recommend to um at the board meeting um came back with the most realistic numbers in terms of the margins and and the things that they used. they they looked similar. Um, and so we felt comfortable there. Um, financial conditions really just evaluates the the balance sheet of the organization, right? We want to make sure we're working with

075a financially sound organization that's not folding up in in a year or two. Um, the registration piece is really just making sure that they're registered with the IDE um, as a food service management company and they have all that um, documentation behind it to support that. Um, personnel management. Uh, this was a big one for us. Again, we talked about our people. we wanted to work with a partner um that gave us the flexibility to honor the work and and time that they put in and we'll talk a little bit more about that. Um Chartwells also provides uh really wonderful opportunities for professional growth. Um they um not only serve 100 districts uh or I'm sorry 700 school districts across the country uh 44 45 in the state of Indiana. They also come for they're

076a part of a very large organization that has opportunities outside of food service or uh maybe with different organizations. So whether it was, you know, you want to remain as a uh you like working at Elcart schools because it's you're on the same schedule with your kids and it allows you opportunities to be involved in the district, you can do that. Um or you wanted an opportunity to grow and become a chef and and do some different things. It also has those sorts of pathways and we think that's uh a really wonderful opportunity. or if they want to grow within Elcart Community Schools, they're still here within our walls and and working with us day in and day out and have opportunities at the district. Um experience and references, again, I talked about it. They

077uh Charles have 700 uh school accounts, 44 in the state of Indiana. We felt that was important. Long-term relationships um that have grown, right? They've grown that footprint. And I think that speaks volumes when you can talk to your peers and get um good references back on that. Um promotion of foods uh of school food service programs. Um lots of different things to talk about here. Um opportunities for um internships for students potentially, right? We have the career center and some a really great culinary program. So they they would um have the opportunity to tap into that. Um there are opportunities for child or student nutrition education and so they have programs where they have a celebrity chef program um where they bring in um there is one called the um discovery kitchen that um

078I've seen an example of where a chef comes in and and shares a simple recipe and talks about spices and how that can impact their lives. Talks about healthy eating, what does good food look like, how to you know simple recipes. Um so we'll bring a level of um education um and promotion of really um exciting menus. I think their promotional materials and and the menus that they prepare outstanding as well. Um the involvement of student and staff really dives into opportunities um for them to engage with um the community, right? So they have um family and student surveys. they will meet with our student council to kind of talk about what they like to see um how how they can improve um in that area um and and always looking for opportunities for community

079involvement and support. Right? So if if we have an event with food at it, uh Triwells will hopefully help us out and you know wants to come alongside of us and see how they can and be a part of that. Um the farm to school was interesting um in in terms of how we uh rated this. Um it was interesting to see they 200 so if 250 mi radius was what what you look at of sourcing food um and they're projecting around 75% of that they can get local right so I think that's a really wonderful um opportunity uh for our local community and and to serve local food to our students um and so those were kind of the those were the eight criteria that we looked at in terms of um the decision-making

080process us. I think the next question we ask is um how do we hold ourselves accountable? How do we hold this contract, this partner partner accountable, right? This is a big move for us. We want to make sure that it's a successful and if it's not that we we're able to pivot. Um we will um be uh hiring a food service specialist role that their primary job their job is to be that um uh district employee who um is dedicated full-time to oversight for this food service management company. Um so they they will be reviewing documents along with the the CFO um and the business office making sure we're hitting metrics um getting feedback providing kind of that liaison between the district and this group to make sure that all of our um needs are

081being met there and if they're not how how are we addressing those and and and getting that cleaned up um and then you know monitoring these KPIs. I think number one first and foremost you kind of why we're here is a cash flow positive operations. Um that's that's our biggest goal. Um we should be seeing operational efficiencies in terms of um inventory management different pieces like that that they will provide um on monthly quarterly reporting basis so that we can maintain that again when we talked about um the um involvement of student staff right we'll have um engagement participation surveys um labor surveys so and make sure that um our staff's being well taken care of um internal andteral internal communications um between the district and um also our families, making sure our families are

082aware of the menus and and all the opportunities that are available for our students. And then I think, you know, the transition uh through this is crucial for this partnership and um something we will certainly revisit um as we see as this rolls out. The transition again, we talked about our commitment to our staff. I think this is there's been a lot of um questions. Um it's maybe rais r ra r ra r ra r ra r ra r ra r ra r ra r ra r raisen some levels of anxiety for some of the staff that's involved in our food service department. Um lots of questions. I think it's important to remember that you know we all have different value propositions when it comes to a job or a role. Um again some of

083us some of us took a position because it had the most money. Some of us took it because it had the best hours. Some of it because it had a benefit package. And we all have our different non-negotiables and things that we're willing to um you know be flexible around. And so as we took all these questions into consideration, you can't meet every need exactly, but we are looking at what we're calling a hybrid model. Um what that hybrid model means is we've got some employees who are close to um being vested in the state pension plan, which is Indiana uh Indiana inst um Perf. Um it's 10 years to vest and once you're vested, it's yours. you're you're now in the state pension. And so we're going to look at two years. If they're

084within two years of that, we want to honor that and make sure that they can get to that vested um time. Um we're also looking at retirement. There's some employees that have put a lot of time and energy into um the food service department, Elkcart Community Schools. We want to make sure that the they don't lose out uh or miss those sorts of benefits. And so we're looking at two years on that as well um where we those employees could be grandfathered in if they choose to um as Elcart employees. So those benefits would remain um for them and then transition over to um Chartwells um once they've hit those milestones. Um the other piece that we're looking at is acred benefits. Um again uh making sure that the employees uh feel that um they're

085they're not losing those things. We're looking at that from a the language that's currently in our handbooks and how that's handled um to make sure that we're coming to a reasonable number. Um but we will provide a proposal to the to the group on what that looks like. And then insurance benefits is another question that we've getting a lot of qu a lot of concern around. Um we can confirm that there will be no lapse in insurance benefits if they were move if they're moving transitioning from Elcart Community Schools to Chartwells. Um our plan will carry them through um that transition period as they move into Chartwells. they have similar um and actually they have a large variety of plans. Um they certainly have one similar to ours and other options that may fit um

086better for those individuals transitioning. Um where else did I have sorry um they also have 401k right? So there is a retirement plan that uh will be available for our employees. Um um they offer sick and holiday and all of those benefits as well. So um and we will make sure that they honor that we're honoring um in terms of seniority, right? So your years of service here um and from a seniority standpoint um would translate, right? Not everybody's starting at zero if they're moving from Elcart Community Schools to Chartwells, if you've been with the district for 15 years and somebody else has been with the district for one, there would still be that um seniority um piece involved. So, um those are some of the things we're looking at considering um working towards to

087make sure that again we we need to honor our staff in this u move. And then finally, kind of the timeline, what what we're looking at next. So, as we look at this transition, um pending um some approval, we have uh scheduled a meeting to meet with all the employees on the 12th um to talk through what this looks like, give them better information around what the next steps look like them. um in July we would just start to transition you know any anybody that's moving um transitioning to Chartwells um make sure those benefits are paid out and however we've um put that together and then in August um the team would start their training um to kind of the Chartwell's um expectations and standards and they'd launch for first day August 14th so they

088would be ready to um start service that first day and they would we would continue our food service program the way it looks today. They would take that over. So, this contract would start in July um and they would take over um and continue that food service or the summer feed program the way it looks today. So, that was my very quick overview of kind of how we got to, you know, where where we came at, uh where we came to this decision from. Um some things that we considered um and and what it might look like or what it will look like as we transition through this If there's any questions, I'm happy to answer those. Our staff to be comfortable or better. Yes. Thank you. I did not mention that employees who move

089to um Chartwells will receive a 5% increase. Um that has been um that will be the Yes. So the same I looked they have I think actually one more holiday pay. I mean is there holiday the days match the days that we give off to them right now? And if the school is closed, like what is their plan of action? Like do they have an opportunity to make up those days or do anything if school is closed and there's no pay? They do have more. So some of our employees have holidays in the food service department. Others do not. Um depends on the the amount of time and the hours that you work. Um I all employees will have those holidays um with Chartwells. Um so that will be a change. In terms of time

090off, I I I don't know that answer. um we would we would expect that they would right just like we do today. We have those um um academy days to make sure that all of our employees are whole through those um e-learning days. Um and we would have similar expectations. Did we ever discern about Dr. Jordan in the clinic? Did we figure that out or how to navigate through that? That was a We have started to look into that. Yes. So we've reached out to the clinic. We have started that initial um uh the initial steps to figure out what we need to do to make sure that they those that use Dr. Jordan. I know we have a lot of employees that use Dr. Jordan as primary care um can still have access to

091our clinic. Um we don't have the finalized plan, but we're we're building that. Yes. I'm just putting this in my my little language then you can adjust to me. So we had money. The money we spent landed us in an area that we were in a deficit. We tried desperately to clean up the deficit with the help of the team. It didn't work out well. So we chose to go with an outsource before which was working with um what did you say the NIC? Thank you. That still didn't bring us to where we needed to be. So we decided that we needed to move in this direction because we can't really move funding where we need it to be to clean up where we're at right now. But in the event that Chartwell isn't as

092successful as what we think for Alcart, you use the word pivot. So we have an way out if it's not successful, but you've had experience with them. I've kind of met with and talked to some people out of Michigan that have used Chartwell, too. So it's been good for the employees. We know they're getting an increase in pay. We know that they're getting better holiday. They'll have a great opportunity to communicate on June 12th. So even though it's scary and overwhelming, it's what we have to do in this district. And even though I know that we're two years of looking at some people are close at four years to retirement or the benefits, you have to have a staff gap at some point. So we need to do this in order to make it right

093in our food service department while respecting our food service employees even though they have to reapply that standard and what we have to do. But as a board and the people surrounding you, the commissary needs to know that we have asked a lot of questions and it isn't an easy decision, especially for me to do anything that you guys would think is disrespectful. But to do what's right for the school to get us where we need to be, we have to make some difficult decisions and hope that our people are supportive of what we're doing in the long run. We're looking at a vision to protect you, protect our school, protect our children. So, this did not I'm I'm basically talking to you guys. This did not come as an easy decision to me. I

094love you guys and support you guys wholeheartedly and I would hope that none of us as a board would make a decision, but we've got to think of longevity for our school, for our students, and what is the best practice. And I will give kudos to Zach. This was not an easy decision. And I will give kudos to Dr. Huff and everything that they did to research this. It's going to be a bumpy road because it always is, but we have to believe in ourselves and believe in each other to get through this. So like you want to like take me to task that's great but in the long run we have to do something that's going to make a difference right now. So I love you guys and everything that we do wholeheartedly but

095know that we did not come about this lightly. We did not. Okay. Sorry it wasn't really to you. Okay. I appreciate it and I I would echo that. It was a a lot of thought went into this decision. Um a lot of conversation around this and again honoring our employees and the work they've done. Um Pam has served our district very well and she served her staff very well. Um she has a wonderful team and that team will be intrical in the success of this food service department moving forward. I think we can't stress that enough is that um it I'm excited or I'm hopeful um to see um this on the other side as that su success story and that same those same faces that our kids see every day for lunch and breakfast

096are the same faces that they um see as as we kind of turn the ship from a financial standpoint um in the right direction. Along those lines, how many uh other vendors answered the RFP? We had six total. um one that was interested and didn't respond. Um they ranged from some very large companies um to some very small companies. Um and so um yeah, so but six total for submitted a response. Also along uh Kelly's point, I mean this is this is something that the board has met with uh Chartwells. We had many many questions um uh that were asked and answered. So um a lot of times I think folks look any questions any questions we look around a lot of our questions uh have been answered uh uh prior to this the one

097question that I cannot remember the answer to though um the retention rate for Chartwells on a basis people from chartwells here with us I don't know if you guys can it was it was 96% I had 916% in my head so yeah okay and I wanted to add you guys that they were amazing when we met with them and they look forward to June 12th and the questions that are going to be asked and answered and you know I wholeheartedly hope that as a staff you guys like put yourself out there to ask the authentic questions so that that way it's all out in the open so that we're not leaving anything behind so that we're all questioning everything later or talking and not having true answers. They're willing to answer it completely honestly. They

098sure did for us and they were very patient with those questions. May I call Mrs. Gary and up to just um ask a question regarding um opportunities for growth within the organization. For me, I think that's important for our our our staff. Um professional development, I think no different than the teaching profession. So we we want to make sure that our people have opportunities to grow within an organization and not stay flat. So I think who best to speak to that. Um so I want to just see if you can give us a very short synopsis on what are some of the opportunities that are available if I sign up for to Chartwells and it's July. What are some of the things that I could potentially look forward to um by joining the Chartwells team?

099Great. Thank you. Uh I appreciate the opportunity to speak on that. And uh one thing I would like to say is that I am very passionate about employee development. Um I'm very you know this is um just from a woman perspective this is heavily populated by women field is you know the lunch lady and so I'm all about empowerment and development and I would say I've been with the company for 17 years. Um, and just to show you, I started out as like an assistant director, um, low man on the totem pole at Warren Township Schools in Indianapolis, and today I oversee um, $200 million in business in six states in the Midwest region. So, to to take me from just an operator in a building to all the way now to this, it just

100shows um the level of development that we that we as a company um, believe in. And so that also starts with the with the hourly employees because as we commit to uh growth of as a corporate as a company, we need our employees to grow with us. And it's okay if we have employees that are with us that are we we try to meet them where they're at. You know, if they're like, "No, I'm very happy here within my community and this is where I want to be," then we find opportunities to to give them within the school district itself. if they're looking for more. Um, we have a a hype, we call it a hypo program, um, where we have food service workers that are interested in possibly becoming an assistant director, a production

101supervisor or chef, food service director. And then we start to develop them and we start offering them. We have, you know, all sorts of online classes. Um, we have a regional team, regional chef, regional dietician. Um, and then we start engaging with that and then bring them through that. Um, and so the big thing is is just giving them opportunities and experiences to um that they may have not gotten before when when you were self-operating, right? Many people think, "Oh, I'm just here. I'm the lunch lady and, you know, I'm, you know, I just I just put, you know, fruits and vegetables on a plate." And and while they do that, great. And they do it with love and they care about those kids. They may have other aspirations. You know, hey, have you ever

102thought about, you know, how do we promote the school lunch program? Have you? Oh, you have that idea. Okay, let's talk through that idea. Uh, and let's try to give you a project and and kind of bring that to life here within the school corporation. Um, and then you never know, it grows legs and it could be a best practice within the company. We've seen that happen before. Um, I would say with uh with the 46 districts um that we were speaking of here in Indiana, of those 46 districts, 14 of my food service directors started as an hourly food service worker. Um and so so we do have very dedicate dedicated tried and shrewd programs for development as long as they want it. But then I do I have some some people that they

103say SS I'm good. I'm good. I'm happy where I am and I'm like that's great. That's good too. They're passionate about serving their kids and their community every day and that's all we can ask for as well. Does that kind of answer give you a little bit? Okay. Sorry I've been that short. I get I get passionate about that stuff. No, I I No, thank you. I appreciate it. I I just have seen um just in my uh experience with with Chartwells the opportunities of for people to grow in that profession and not just um to in your role but like to go on to be chefs to go out and to um actually go work in the business side. Yes. On the other side um because of the relationship back and forth. So I

104just want to say um um when we're making these decisions this has been a a year-long process. I think um last number that we talked about Mr. acquired was um over time was at 4.8 million over seven years or something like that. Um we just cannot continue to operate at that level of deficit. So um I think for our due diligence, we have to make sure that we bring in people alongside us to to help us to correct and become efficient in that area. So I just wanted to say u thank you for this opportunity on board as you take a vote on this tonight. I know that you've been um received lots of information and hopefully all your questions uh potentially could be answered during this work session. Thank you everyone. Any other questions?

105Good. Okay. Thank you. Good. Thank you. All right. Then I will uh end the work session. and we'll reconvene at 7:00 for our normally uh scheduled board meeting. Thank you. Coming to the uh June 10th, 2025 Elkart Community Schools board meeting. At this time, I'd like to call the board meeting to order. If you please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the you may be seated. Miss Vanderbone. The Elcart Promise. The Elcart Promise. Every student is known by name, challenged and supported by highly effective staff in a partnership with the community will graduate career college ready and life ready. Thank you an uh next we have our invitation to speak protocol. We do have somebody uh when I call your name please come up to the microphone uh state your name

106and your affiliation uh with the uh the school district. Uh you'll have uh three minutes to speak on any agenda or non-aggenda item. Thank you. Uh I can't Chris come on up. I was like it it I don't know why I thought I needed to put my full name. I Well, that's what threw me off you up. I was looking for someone very formal out there. No, that was that was so shaky. Well, it's very a form. It's very formal in the writing. Uh, so I I don't know why, but I put my full name. It says Chris Thomas Bartley. It's all very confusing. Hi, I'm Chris Bartley. Uh I am a teacher at the Elcart High School and I am up here representing uh very quickly Unified Track blowing uh the horn tut toot

107twotime backto-back state champions. Thank you very much. You can actually uh say that again. Really? I just wanted to come up and make sure that you guys were aware and invited. We're going to be having a community celebration Monday 6 pm. It is at the freshman division. It's still in up in the air whether it's inside or out at Rice Field. So, but I just wanted to make sure that everybody was aware and please come. The kids absolutely love it. We'll get the posters again this year and they get to autograph their posters and they're super excited about this. And uh of course we want to say thank you to um all of our supporters. um sent us well wishes, good thoughts, uh some uh staff who were able to come to the finals and

108of course uh Bobby Presswood and members of uh Elcart Police Department and Elcart Fire and Ambulance who were able to come and welcome us home on Saturday night. Okay, thank you. Good. Quite the achievement. Thank you. All right, we have the excellence of Elcart, Miss Wood. Thank you, President Scott, members of the board, Dr. Huff, community members. I'm grateful for the opportunity to share our highlights in the areas of academics, arts, and athletics. For academics, the class of 2025 was honored by their schools of study for academic and personal excellence. In addition, thousands of dollars in scholarships were awarded to stu who support students successful futures beyond high school. Elcart Area Career Cent's pre- N nursing one students recently earned their certified clinical medical assistant certification through the National Healthcare Association. This achievement equips them

109with valuable skills for entry- level healthcare jobs and provides a strong foundation for future careers in nursing, radiology, sonography, and more. The class of 2025 has officially graduated with 789 students receiving their diplomas. This remarkable group leaves behind a legacy of hard work, resilience, and school pride. Many are headed to college, some already holding associate degrees, while others are entering the workforce with industry certification and hands-on experience in their chosen fields. We look forward to all their they will accomplish in the years ahead. In the area of arts, six students from Elgart High School participated in an Indiana all-star marching band, which performed at the Indie 500 Festival Parade in downtown Indianapolis. The band made up of students from across the state proudly represented their schools by wearing their home uniforms. Arts and communications school

110of study creative writing writing students partnered with second graders at Mary Dailyy to bring their stories ideas to life. Each younger student imagined a unique book and the high schoolers turned those ideas into personal illustrated stories. They return to deliver the finished books and read together with the second grade buddies. For athletics, we are proud to introduce this year's Katherine Wolf Award recipient, Elkart High School senior Elizabeth Higgins. Elizabeth is a dedicated multiport athlete and committed leader, excuse me, both in academics and the community. She has contributed to youth sports programs, completed an internship with the Southbend Cubs, and works as a lifeguard with Beacon Health. Elizabeth will attend Grand Valley State University this fall to study diagnostic medical sography. We are excited to announce Max Maloy as the year's Tim Bringle Award recipient. Max

111is a standout standout multiport athlete and leader, earning two NIC MVP titles in cross country and serving as swim team captain. He holds multiple school records in track and consistently excels at sectional, regional, and state levels. This fall, he will attend Belmont University to double major in accounting and finance while competing in cross country and track. our Elcart Lady Lions and so our softball sectional champions. Congratulations to Elcart High School athletic softball which wins its first sectional title in Elcart Elcart High School history playing Warsaw score of 5 to zero. For our future happenings, June starts the summer school and various opportunities throughout the district. June 11th will be our Tim Bringingle Awards. And as always, please be sure to follow our district and school social media pages as we share each day as the

112excellence of Elkcart schools. Great job. Thank you, Wendy. Next, we have the uh consent items on the agenda. Do I have a motion? I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion and I have a second. Any uh discussion? Yep. With a total of $6,500 from our community, we have donations from the following companies. Each of these donated $500 and it goes towards the Skill USA national event for diesel. It's for their travel expenses. So, at $500 a piece, we thank uh Jeff Dodge Racing, Diamond Equipment, Frederick Roman, and Simon's Concrete and Excavating. And then we had two donations that went for the Elcart High School National History Day National Qualifiers and their travel expenses. At a donation of $2,500, we thank Welch packaging packaging and at $500, Brian Bailey.

113The Triappa donated $1,000 towards Pieraran's bring change to mind club and our volleyball team again received a wonderful donate from Hart City Toyota of $500. So $6,500 from our community. Thank you, Elkcart. Thank you, Miss Mullins. Do I have any other discussion regarding the consent items? Seeing your hearing none, all in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. Next on the agenda, we have new business. Uh Dr. Roush, textbook adoption. Thank you, President Scott, school board of trustees. Dr. Huff. Prior to asking for approval, I would like to just give a overview of the textbook adoption process that took place uh this school year. Uh Elcart Community Schools has not adopted textbooks for a number of years. And so uh we've gotten out of that textbook cycle. However, this year the Indiana Department of Education had a

114list of highquality curricular materials uh for reading and for STEM courses. And um we did choose uh our reading, ELA, and math from that vetted list from the IDOE. I do want to give a huge thank you to all of the teachers and administrators for giving their input to this adoption process. All of the sample textbooks were delivered to all the buildings for teachers to have time to view and provide feedback either via survey or through a content area specialist. And then they provided that information to me. We met then as um a district, the ETA, they gave me names of those uh teachers that wanted to serve on the district textbook committee. And again, most teachers uh all gave input into this entire process. And believe me, I could not have done this uh

115without everybody's help. Um, as you could see and as I read off when I ask for the approval, we um went through a lot of uh a lot of textbooks. So, I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone. It is very exciting to um all of the Elcart Community School teachers and to administration uh to have approved a um science of reading textbook that was vetted by the IDE uh called Amplify. And we will be doing this K through eight. Uh so I think that's going to be very exciting uh over the next six years um that we're all going to be using the same exact uh textbook company. Uh uh big hats off to Barb Kite, director of elementary schools. I took some elementary teachers and coaches to the K to5

116reading textbook caravan where again they learned about these different um I think there's there I think I know there was five um IDE approved textbooks and then Amplify um they came out number one or number two in all the schools and then Amplify um they came out on top. So that's why we I'm asking you for your approval. uh middle school math grades 6 through 8 had vendors present and teachers decided that reveal math which is again on the IDE vetted list will be the best fit uh because of the resources for all of our students middle school social studies teachers agreed on the SAVIS textbook as it is uh for Indiana as you saw the titles of the book it's for Indiana so it's going to meet those Indiana social studies standards the high

117school social studies teachers were able to review and decide the textbook based on their course. As you know, when you get to the high school level, they have um the specific courses. And so input was given from the teachers of those particular courses. And then ELA teachers at the high school, they've used Common Lit um but uh we were renewing it yearly and um after they reviewed textbooks, they decided to continue with Common Lit. And so we will um have actually a 5-year uh recommendation for common lit. Uh parents had an opportunity to review all the adopted materials on May 22nd. So with that, um the administration recommends approval of the proposed curriculum and textbook adoptions for the following subject areas. for elementary English language arts, middle school, English language art, art arts, math and

118social studies, high school, English language arts, US government, US history, economics, world history, dual credit, US government, AP world history, sociology and psychology. We have any questions? I just want to say hats off to you and the entire team. For people that don't understand that this is monumental. Most schools don't do curriculum across the board all in one shot. It's on a cycle. We were off cycle. So, this is getting us back on where we needed to be. And this is herculean to pull all this off um within doing it this year, doing it all at once. So huge huge commend to you and and the team for really working together and and getting this done and I could not done it without the help of administrators. Absolutely. I mean it was definitely a team

119effort. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I think our it'll be great for our students. Absolutely. That's the that's the goal is to um get them the best uh curricular resources possible for our students and teachers. Add a comment. Yeah. One of the things too I uh that the team did a really good job is making sure that we have professional development that goes along with all these resources. This is a lot of lot of just curricular materials, right? We're talking about the books, the the digital resources. It it it doesn't go well if it's not implemented well. So, we've also made sure that we're very mindful of making sure that we had appropriate levels of PD that we're going to make PD plans with our teachers as well to make sure that

120they are able to implement these um as we go into the next year. So, there's going to be a lot of our PD is going to be reflected in all our new adoptive curriculum for the 2526 school year. So, I just want to say that was also um in the forefront and and and Dr. Rash, you're being very modest. Um, one of the things that I know that you did during this process is that we used the might of the district to reduce prices for um, as we went through this process, I want to give a personal hats off to you that um, ELA, you you saved us almost a half million dollars through your negotiating skills and throughout this other process, you also negotiated with every other vendor to make sure that we get

121the best price for the district. So, the countless hours I look forward to you scrubbing your office wall to get all that bullishness off there. Um, but to say that this has all been done in a year, again, it it wouldn't have happened without the collaboration between teachers, administrators, and yourself. But I know that you have been relentless in making sure that we were, um, that our community received not only great materials, but at a very fair price for our district. So, um, this number that we're asking for tonight is is nothing in compared to what this would have cost without this, um, lady's negotiation skills. Thank you. Um, thank you. Um, thank you very much. Um, uh, I do have a comment or two. Uh, you know, always become suspicious when they name it

122name things reveal math. I I seem to remember New York math and, uh, I remember my wife coming home and saying they were having second graders decompose uh, formulas or something to that effect, you know. It's like, okay, well, um, anyhow, um, I hope it I hope it really works well. Yes. Okay. Um the other question I would have is that uh how long have these this particular curriculum been in circulation elsewhere? Two years, one year, four years, five years. I will have to get back to you on that because I do not know that on the top off the top of my head, but I last my add some context to that. Amplify is the considered to be the leader in uh ELA curriculum. Um 46 uh districts around the state of Indiana have

123adopted all the Marian County schools. a lot of our northern um uh Indiana school districts have adopted it as well. And what I like about that is if students come in our district, they know they've been exposed to the curriculum. Um and so they're able to easily um slide in into our classrooms, it makes that transition a a lot easier. Right now we have it's dependent on the building that they're in and we want to get away from that. So I believe um that Dr. Roush, Mr. Skrip, uh Mr. surge and and the teachers have really been very mindful making sure that we chose really high quality. You can go look up these on ed reports if you want to. If you are bored and you want to fall asleep early tonight, go on ed

124reports and look up any of these that we plan to adopt and you'll see that we adopted pretty high quality curriculum. My vision is we're going to bring something and put them in front of our teachers. It better it should be the best. And I think we proved that last year with our letters um adoption and the same thing with this reveal math is um what I like about it is the remediation part of it. um their Alex program um that's part of uh to catch our kids up because we know that there are some deficits there in our um in our mathematics program and the middle school has done a really good job. Um they've basically just been surviving creating their own curriculum over the last few years. And so I really am proud

125to say that we've actually paid a lot of attention to the middle schools this year as far as a physical piece like transitioning but also making sure that they have the curricular resources. And later I'm going to talk about this is the first time that they have summer school opportunities too in a very long time. So um I just think that this process has started for a long time. So uh to Mr. Weaver um I these have been around for a while um but Amplify rates very highly and I think all of the curriculums here any one of them I'd be proud to put in front of our students. Okay good. Um thank you. Uh my next question is is that uh when we look at uh textbook adoptions and stuff like that, is there

126any uh standard out there or evidence that say okay now that they've been in service for a while say okay hey this school corporation used this curriculum right here and we think and have evidence to prove that the we've been able to advance our scores uh within our school corporation based upon the use of these texts. And I realize you have to do it with fidelity uh you know inhouse and stuff like that but uh you know as we move towards you know things that are more merit-based here and stuff like that you know I think that applies to our textbooks and our curriculum too and our vendors to demonstrate that hey their product actually works. Okay as opposed to uh you know selling paper that has black ink on it. Right. Right. So, as

127you said, everything needs to be done with fidelity, and I have um great confidence in our teachers that that's going to happen. I don't have anything that I can just rattle off to you. So, again, I can reach out and ask how other school districts, maybe school districts similar to us, how they um when they have implemented uh these textbooks, how they've done with their test scores. I'm assuming that's what you're asking, that correlation possibly. That's correct. you know, but more from the vendor side. I tell the vendor to say, hey, you prove to me, you document that, you know, hey, I want to see your numbers, okay? Put the onus on them first and say, okay, hey, here here's what we've been able to do with this. Um, so if we had a vendor

128that could guarantee if we bought their books, we'll have better test scores, lots of people have better sales. There's no way you can do that. The book is just the instrument. It really depends on how you use it, the quality of I won't say the quality of the education, how invested the parents are, like lots of things. It can't they can't give you that kind of information. And if if they do, it's not going to be accurate. It'll be a sales tactic. Well, thank you very much. You're welcome, Doug. Thanks, Dr. R. Let's go. Thank you. Um, really quick, uh, we were off cycle and now we're back on cycle and it's what, 5 to 6 years? Well, there's really no cycle anymore just because of the fact that they did away with that. Um,

129and so it was really based on on what we I mean, believe me, this is not over yet because we need to look at like our math or elementary math next year that has um that will end uh after six years. So, we'll have to look at elementary math. Um I did not touch upon the high school um math either and so um but in play it's we have a a playbook now. So thank you. Yes. Yes. Okay. And we'll we're creating our Alcart community school cycle textbook cycle. Yes. So uh yeah, thank you for everybody that was involved with this. I know it is a it's a mammoth job. Thank you. Um to look where, you know, we were, you know, where we came from and uh to get where we are today and

130and and what we're going to vote on here uh shortly. Um also, there was a couple times over this year that I came in to ask a question. I saw you at the board and I just said, "Well, you could wait." And I just and I just walked out because I knew that you were engaged with this. So, thank thanks everybody that uh was involved. It was It's a great job. Any other questions? Did I have a motion? We did. Motion in a second. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for what you're doing for our students and for our teachers. So, thank you. Next, uh Mr. Thorne, board policy 3422.12s, employees in miscellaneous positions compensation plan. Thank you. Good evening, President Scott, members of the board, Dr.

131Huff. This evening, the administration is presenting for consideration review the following proposed revisions to the compensation plan for uh employees who are assigned to the miscellaneous employee group. Uh first and foremost uh is a new position titled the food service specialist FMS I'm sorry FSMC oversight. Mr. Quiet spoke uh briefly about this position. The individual who holds this position as he noted will serve as the liaison between the business office and the food service management company. The position will be responsible for ensuring food service management uh company adheres to all of the contractual obligations compliance with various federal, state, and local regulations regarding child nutrition programs, financial accountability uh related to the contract as well as effective vendor performance in support of the district's nutrition program goals. Uh the uh proposed revisions also include the

132inclusion of the salary range for the project director of the food service community grant food fullervice community school grant. This position as you know is grant funded. Uh and finally the conversion of the compensation method utilized for the manager of community and family engagement from an hourly wage rate to a salary range. That change will not result in any increase to the total annual compensation allocated for this position. Any questions? No questions. Thank you. Thank you. Next, uh Mr. Quiet, we had a recommendation uh for the food service management uh award contract award. Yes. Thank you, President Scott, board of trustees, Dr. Huff. Um, as we discussed in the work session, I am recommending um the award of contract for food service management services um to Chartwells. Do I have a motion? Motion. Motion. I

133have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion. I have a second. Do I have any questions? Any additional questions that were not asked or comments regarding this award? Seeing or hearing none, all in favor? I opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Quiet. Dr. Huff, the floor is yours. Thank you, President Scott, members of the board community. I'll be very brief with my comments tonight. I do I too also want to say a huge shout out to our unified track team. Thank you for coming up and speaking on the uh as this is it's it's nice to go back to back as they say, right? Um and it was even better to be able to beat one of our neighboring school districts when it comes to that. I that shall

134rename nameless. Um which one was that? I we don't we we're the standard. No one else. So um but I just want to say thank you. But also we had successful um we had a lot of um athletes do very well in the track competition down there. We had a lot of top we had a few of our athletes finish in the top 10. So I just want to say thank you to the coaches and to our athletic directors and to the families for um really a great weekend. And we know our community galvanizes. We all want winners. They were winners when they left here. Um but it's nice to come home with a little bit of hardware as a reminder of all the hard work. So thank you to all those for the on

135the track teams. Um our golf team also um won sectionals the other day. So hats off to them. I think they play on Thursday um in the regional. Um very proud of our golf team. We have um a really good chance this year. So I again want to say thank you to the golf coaches and to those players. Um and then I do want also the the sectional our girls winning anything the first time. um that that is an awesome feeling. The best feeling winning in it a second time. And so um I really think we have a strong foundation and a good team that's going to come back next year. So I I think our our Elcart sports really had a good year this year. So I just want to say thank you to

136everyone who supported our sports program. Um summer school, I want to shift gears to summer school. Today was no yesterday was the first day for summer school. Um currently we have summer school activities at three of our elementary schools. Monga Riverview and Feaser um serving approximately what uh doc dctors I want to put you on spot 500 students or so Mr. describe 500 students roughly maybe a little less a little less we want it to be a lot less next year but but a lot less it is a lot less than what we thought but that's because our number of students who've passed our I reads in second and third grade was was outstanding I look forward to us beating all our district benchmarks this year and I think we're going to do so um

137and then at the high school we are also have a summer school at the freshman division and then next week our middle schoolers will be joining us as well so this is the first time from what from what I understand in quite a while that we've had um summer school activities at all three different levels and that can't be done but also was uh our community partners and girls club came alongside us to help serve our middle school students this year. So I just want to say um thank you to them. Um lastly but certainly not least our graduation last week I really think is a huge privilege and honor to be able to shake the hands of everyone who walked across the stage. Um it it that's a that's a rush being on stage

138seeing those kids really some of them for the last time. You hope that you run across them again, but you're not. Um everyone, but it's nice to make some personal connections. Um the kids really deserve the best and the team at the high school did an outstanding job with that graduation. Jeff Miller, um that is one of the most intense dues on the planet. It's because he cares and he cares deeply for the kids and he wants to make sure everything is perfect because you know what on that night they deserve things to be perfect for them. And so I just want to say thank you to Mr. Miller and the high school team security, Mr. Schneider for your team that's being there, the teachers who were there who read names, the teachers who did

139the tunnel. Um when I go um out and I talk about where some one of the best nights here, our graduation, I don't think anyone does a better graduation than Elcart um uh high school. I came here last year and they asked me, you know what, Dr. You can worry about all the other stuff. Just don't do anything with the graduation. And you know what? That's an order that I will gladly follow from here to as long as I'm in this seat. Hats off to you. And Jeff, if you're listening tonight, thank you for all that you've done for our school district. Um you you're a really good man. And so with all that being said, I'm going to turn it back over to you, um, President Scott. Thank you, Dr. Huff. Uh, do we

140have anything from the board, uh, this evening? I just wanted to give a shout out, um, to the construction trades program. I had the opportunity last week to go to their open house of the house that the kids built. It was amazing. It was awesome to see all the kids there, their friends, their families celebrating um, the accomplishment of that house. And that house is incredible. Um, so it just hats off to to Brandon and that whole construction u management team. Um, you could just see just the smiles on the kids' faces and the sense of accomplishment of what they were able to do in a year. Um, was pretty incredible. Um, so hats off to them and it was just a really it was just a really neat evening. Thank you. Anyone else? Anyone

141else? All right. Thank you everybody. Okay. Meeting adjourned.