001Well, and at least as of today, we're the highest paid starting salary in the area as well. Yeah. Northern Indiana. Yeah. You get to the top faster in our district as well. So, really consider what you go to school. We're always recruiting, but Is that just saying the facts? Yeah. Uh I guess the last thing is the playground since it was brought up last couple of board games. It is being installed uh next week. Um we did talk about or mentioned to the uh participant that uh we're also going to pave the lot uh and put in some new striping that might be put on hold. um we're running into some um difficulties with getting it done. So, uh but we'll have equipment there next week. Wonderful. I think one last thing um one some
002legislation that was passed, we're still waiting for some guidance on it is the ability for school to assess uh fees um for um fees for supplies and and materials to supplement instruction. So, we will probably be uh discussing that and looking at looking at that and maybe bringing some recommendations to the board once that's clarified on what that can be. Uh thank you. Uh any questions for Bob or Allen? Legislation. We're going to try to hit a few legislative things in each one of these areas that we felt were relevant uh from our team and then I don't know if the rest of you guys you have some updates later that would be okay too. Um so uh next up then would be student achievement and and our student achievement commitment. Uh we start out
003and I know Javi you have a couple I read updates I think that date is in and Yep. So um this week we are for the first time having our second graders the opportunity to take the I read assessment a second time. Um and also for the first time, uh our third graders get to take it for the second out of three possible times in third grade. So that will be taking place this week. Uh and we recently also received our WEDA access uh results and just very briefly some some highlights. Uh in the WEDA access is our English language learners assessment. Uh a little comparison year-toear uh 2,000 students uh took uh participated in the assessment not including kindergarten because this is their baseline. Uh we have uh 5.2% of our students who reach
004proficiency this year. Um and then when talking with uh Miss Penning we wanted to see percentage of students who grew at least a half a point in their access score going from one to one and a half. And uh last year we had 19.38 students do that. This year we have 26.3 students. So we had more of our students grow uh more this year. And then for students who grew one point or more going from like 2 to three or 3 to four. Uh last year we had 240 students or 13.4% of our EL population. This year uh 21 and a4%. So again more of our kids growing um more. Uh we also have important to highlight uh 13% of our students uh are eligible now to go into the monitoring uh and for this
005it has to be if they haven't reach proficiency they have to be in fourth grade and there are some criteria for that to take place but again that number is a little bit higher than last year at 13.2% compared to 10.6%. So our EL staff and our teachers again, you know, this idea of teams and supporting all students, uh we're starting to see some great results. So that is all. Thank you. Awesome. Well, very excited about the data there too. Uh 1% growth minimum, right? Just keep keeps building. Good job. Uh one other thing we want to talk about in this area, uh we we have a series of grants that we we are uh uh working on writing right now. So, I just want to just throw them out of the board. Uh, we're
006working on the deadlines, getting things submitted in time. So, we want to just tell you about the grants. What you'll see later, if we get the grant, you will see contracts for services and things of that nature, uh, that then we'll need your approval on. So, we just thought, well, let's just update the board on where we are. So, we've got a digital grant. Uh, I don't know if there's anything anybody wants to say on the team about that. This is a repeat grant $50,000. Uh we have an uh Indiana digital intervention and training implementation grant new grant and that's a new grant and we're looking at potentially once literacy which we've talked to you about I think in the past as well as maybe and for maybe brainware there's no maximum amount for that
007so we're just whatever we end up feeling like this is what we want to write for we hopefully we can get that uh I'm sure there's a sweet spot they say it's unlimited, but you know there's limits always. So we want to ask for the sweet spot on that. We have a community foundation of Elcart County grant that we're applying for for SOIP lab for kids that are struggling with sensory integration focusing skills and cognitive training that we're going to be doing. It'll be a two-day a week kind of program uh that we'll be doing with them that hopefully we'll get that and you'll see that coming your way. I will say there's one other grant uh that we're asking for some training and work for launching our uh support from the community foundation as
008well on uh our entrepreneurship program support. Uh we have a robotics grant uh yep uh applying to introduce uh first Lego League. So the first Indiana robotics league uh one team at each elementary school and two teams at uh the intermediate. Uh so that will be a nice addition to our programming. Uh it robo kind that that is also a repeat grant. Um a lot of these that included just digital tools to help support accessibility curriculum for all students special education students particularly. Yeah. And I think there's a robot that they can talk to. Uh, and then our behavior grant which we were awarded and I think I talked to you a little bit about last week we hired a uh intensive behavior coach which will lead our behavior consultants in helping us be even
009better at handling difficult behaviors in the classroom. So that's just a quick update on all the grants in that area. Um, any questions about any of those up to this point? Hopefully we'll get them and then we'll be coming back to you with contracts for some of the work that we're going to do there. Those are federal federal and state. Um the Okay, let me see. The community foundation would be the Elcart County Community. The foundation of it's called Foundation. Elcart Community Foundation. Yeah. Yes. Community foundation of Elcart County. Yeah. They changed the name a few years back and struggled with that ever since. Um though two of those grants would be from them. um particularly focus on brain training for one of them and preschool. So the preschool part of it we would participate
010with them with our preschool and potentially our preschool be a training site and then the other part of it is for the K through four primarily at this time for the lab. So that would be community foundation. Then we have um yeah except for the robotics one. Okay. Um, that concludes our report on student achievement. And so we have operational excellence and we're going to start out. Uh, I think Jeff Rudd, are you here somewhere? Oh, there you are. Okay. Uh, Alan, do you want to do any introductions? Yes. Uh, so Jeff is our technology director. He's been I think this is his third year. Yep. Third year as our technology director. He's here just to give you a brief update on um some some of the things we've been working on and and what
011they do. So if you want to come on up to the podium. So your IT staff has gone through some tremendous changes over the last 3 years. Uh we've changed in the size of the department. We've centralized the department. Uh and the amount of devices that we now support has ballooned. Um we're over 8,000 devices now that 14 individuals are responsible for maintaining and and taking care of for the district for the year. Uh so far to date we are at 4,615 help desk tickets. Of those help desk tickets we have done all of them but one as of today. We have one that is still open right now. Um that's amazing. Uh when I first came here our average resolution time was 2 years and 9 months. Our average resolution time right now is
012just under 3 hours. We are the fastest, most efficient IT department in this area right now. That is one feather that we are very proud of. Uh we continue to brag about that one. Uh, and I do check with the other districts to make sure that we stay there. Um, on top of that, we have been working tirelessly with our vendors. Uh, we were overpaying for quite a bit of hardware that we would use. Um, I'm not a big fan of that. I I like to run lean uh, as much as we possibly can. So, working with vendors to get better pricing on our hardware, we are taking our e-recycling and using that money that we can get from that to go into buying new hardware. So, we're trying to fund our own recycle uh
013of devices for the district instead of having to go back and ask Bob for more money. Uh because that's what we like to do. Uh sorry, Bob. Um on top of that, um we're still working on uh projects going forward. We're in the middle of the Skyward migration to cumulative going uh next starting at this summer. Uh so we're going through the database, cleaning up information now, getting that ready for migration. Uh we are ahead of schedule on that. Uh we also have the HVAC project going on at the junior high that we're working on. Uh we have to remove a bunch of equipment. So we're staying on top of that to make sure that we are not interrupting classes, but we have everything out in time so the work can get done as quickly
014as possible so we can put it all back up for the first day of school. Um other than that, we are still working on ways to be more creative in cutting costs, eliminating programs that we're not using using anymore, eliminating waste on hardware that doesn't need to be purchased or isn't needed anymore. uh trying to be as efficient and cost effective as we possibly can. So, it's been amazing over these last three years what we've changed. We have managed to simplify the environment, make it more um not only uh efficient, but uh reliable. Uh we don't have outages. We're not taking stuff down during the middle of the day. Um I couldn't tell you how long it's been since we actually had an outage. Uh so, in the three years I've been here, we've been
015incredibly stable and we continue to be so. So, thanks, Jeff. I got a question for you. You said we're migrating from Skyward to what? Uh we're on Skyward SMS 2.0 right now. Uh their new version uh that is replacing SMS is called cumulative. Okay. Uh it's still Skyward. It's just the updated version. Thank you. Yep. Any other questions? Any questions? I would say one thing, you know, when Jeff came on board three years ago, one thing I I I told him we we needed to do was run a more lean and efficient um department. uh we had over 20 we had 21 people around that time we've narrowed down to 14 14 and we have increased the amount of like he said the devices that we are supporting so um moving to the help desk
016model has um saved us quite a bit of money over the over the long haul so I thank him for that I guess what is our biggest I guess concern out there is it being hacked I mean is that the thing that we are most concerned about from a security standpoint uh security standpoint, cyber security is always an issue. Uh we're always keeping an eye on that. We have a a pretty robust platform in place now. Uh that was one of the first initiatives I brought uh when I came on. Um our biggest concern is always users. Uh if something's going to come into the network, it's going to be from a user. So we have um we have checks on top of checks on top of checks. We have four iterations of backups uh
017to make sure that we have a reliable uh point to recover. Uh our servers are also replicated every 15 minutes. So in the event that we do have to restore something quickly, we can do it as in 15 minutes instead of an hour. Um we double check and triple check and we have contingencies everywhere. Uh that's something that has been taught to me throughout my entire career. Uh and we take that very serious here. Uh so we have had um alerts to threats of being targeted. Uh, and thankfully due to the the stance that we've taken to date, we have not had any type of breach. So, we're we're pretty secure. Appreciate that. Thank you. Good questions. Other questions for Jeff? Not a question, just thank you. Appreciate it. No, thank you. I mean, without
018you guys, this isn't impossible. So, I appreciate it. I will say this, too, and kudos to Jeff. His team has been very efficient. they, you know, you don't even notice the technology, which is probably the best compliment I can give you. So, well done and appreciate it very much. So, thank you. We try to cross train on everything. So, I don't want one technician being the the sole uh information holder. We try to teach everybody as much as possible. So, we try to be as efficient as we can. Thanks, Jeff. Thank you. Uh, next up, can I Yeah, go ahead. Terry, I've got a request coming in on the audio or whoever's in charge of the audio. Maybe it's somebody's saying it's whistling really badly. Okay, thank you. Um, okay, back to me. Uh, Dr.
019Medaf. Uh, yes. So, the electric bus grant that we had approved and then kind of sent a letter to, we had gotten we'd gotten an email from the actual company, one of the salesmen, saying that um the new buyers because they were in bankruptcy, the new buyers are uh uh out of out of Quebec and so they've decided to pull out of the US market and only sell to the Canadian market. So, uh we had already sent a letter saying that we were going to not participate. Um that is now a moot point. So, we are uh clear on the on the electric buses. Thank you, Dr. Metave. Uh next up, uh Bob, did you get your Chandler playground update to Okay, that's what I thought. Okay. Uh next up, uh would be Lori has
020a family engagement PD update from yesterday. Plans to improve family engagement. As you know, we contracted with Patricia and she came time um and had some PD with our principles. It was very well received by them and um she'll be back in June. Um but just appreciated at the end of the year when they're busy thinking about other things that their engagement was very high and it was good learning experience. Thanks. That concludes our report, Mr. President. All right. Thank you all for that. Uh we will now go to item five which is our board committee reports and we'll start. Do you have any updates from the student perspective tonight? Yes. Well, um youth adviserss had their campaigning going on last week. So we have new adviserss that will be starting in June of this
021year. And well I can list off some of their names. So the new school board youth adviser will be Kimberly Montalba. The shade tree adviser will be Brianna Garcia. The city council adviser will be Ael Reyes. Zoning and appeals will be Ezra Ty. And then parks and recreation will be Anna Rayundo. And then aviation will be Valerie Ortega and traffic commission will be Pearla Cervantes. And then also we've had well tonight is orchestra senior night. And then we've had a AP exams going on since last week. So hopefully that's going well for all the students that are taking tests right now. Thank you for that. Uh other board members uh committees you sit on foundations meeting tomorrow morning trades meet this Thursday go redevelopment meets tomorrow. We're all kind of a day ahead day ahead.
022Okay. All right. We're doing well tonight. All right. So we will then move on and we will go to item six which is our consent agenda items. 6.1 Approval of accounts payable dated May 12th 2025 and payroll dated May 2nd 2025. 6.2 Gifts and donations. 6.3 Marching Band Overnight Field Trip to Toledo, Ohio September 20th, 2025. 6.4 4 Marching Band overnight field trip to Indianapolis October 24th, 25th, 2025. 6.5 Marching Band overnight field trip to Indianapolis, November 7th, and 8th, 2025. 6.6 Reappoint of Marilyn Graver to Goan Public Library Board of Trustees. 6.7 Self-contained program numbers. 6.8 Personnel. Anything to highlight or questions from the board on the consent agenda items? Retirement. What's your question? A retirement. Yes, I was checking numbers. Sorry, I do that. We are sad but excited to announce uh Cheryl
023Williams, assistant principal at uh Goan Intermediate School, will be retiring at the end of this school year after 31 years of service. U she's fantastic and we're going to miss her. So, thank you. Yeah, actually I was wanting to sorry tab pull item 6.6 out of the consent agenda to an action item. So uh the request u and any board member can uh make that request is to have a cassette engine item move from that to the action item. So with that request uh item 6.6 will become item 7.3 on the agenda. I guess I would ask just so we can have an official Well, I don't know if we need an official vote on that. Um but yeah, it doesn't have to be. So item uh 7.3 of the on the agenda will now
024be the reappoint of Marilyn Greyber. Okay. Uh so with that uh revision u items uh 6.1 through 6.5 and 6.7 through 6.8 are approved as presented. Uh items uh item seven are action items and we will begin with item 7.1 2025 20226 student handbooks. Uh so the last couple board meetings we have uh presented you with the red line changes uh for the student handbooks of both the elementary and secondary levels. Uh we would ask they be approved. uh if there are any changes or addendums and there probably will be uh based upon some policies and stuff that once the school board adopts uh redopts the nola uh policies those will be added to the to the uh the agenda and will be brought to you before they're put their their addition. May I please
025have a motion and a second to begin discussion and voting for item 7.1. I'll move for the uh for the passage of item 7.1 2025 to 26 student handbooks. Second move by Mr. Glicks, seconded by Mr. Goodman. I think this is the third time this has been brought to us. We have as two discussion items. Anything additional from the board and maybe a question that hasn't been answered. It's good. That means we either asked a lot of great questions or All right. All right. So, we have a motion and a second on the floor for item 7.1. All those in favor, please say I. I opposed. That passes uh five to zero. Item 7.2 approval of wedding welding ventilation. Dr. Evans. Thank you. Uh we're looking at having a career in technical ed uh tech
026program welding program at Chandler next school year. With that in mind, we'll need to install a new ventilation system in the old school cafeteria to accommodate the welding class. Uh we did receive three quotes. However, one of the quotes was uh not complete and did not include the ventilation portion that needs to be on the roof. So, we're recommending the lowest qualified quote uh of Shustster sheet metal of $111,887 to uh supply and install the ventilation system for the wall class. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Evans. May I have a motion and a second for item 7.2 to open for discussion and voting? I'll move for the passage of item 7.2, approval of welding ventilation. Second. Moved by Mr. Glick, second by Mr. Goodman. Questions from the board on this. I know this is something that
027has been discussed as well at previous meetings. Um, this it's a good problem to have because we are having a lot of students that want to be in this program and we need more space. So, it's a good place to make an investment. And I'm sorry Bob if if you already said this but we did we are making this somewhat portable. Some of the ventilation it's going to be somewhat portable like we could relocate it in the future if needed. Uh I imagine it could be this summer but it will be fixed. Yeah. Yes. There was one question I didn't ask the last time. I thought well might as well ask it now with the dur quote. Was that just they messed up or did they not get all the information? Do you know why
028it didn't have sufficient details? They did not feel comfortable installing ventilation on the roof. I'm not sure why, but they just chose not they wanted to provide a quote for part of the job and not like they wanted it somewhere else or like when you said they weren't comfortable on the roof. Is that because they didn't want to be on the roof or they didn't want to put in that location or I I hate to speak for them, right? Um I just don't think they were comfortable putting the ventilation. Got it. The other two companies didn't seem to have problem with it. One of the advantages of the other two companies is that they both were able to provide the technical drawings that we needed. [Applause] And the first company that didn't provide qualified bid
029didn't have to do technical either questions on item 7.2. All right, we have a motion and a second on the floor. All those in favor uh please say I. I oppose. same side passes 5-0. All right. Uh and now um item 7.3 uh which is the reappoint of Marilyn Graber to the Gan public library board of trustees. Um do you want me to I I can at least introduce it and then we can open it up. This I'll at least introduce it just to give context and then we can open it up for a motion and a second. Um, so the Gan Community School Board gets to appoint three individuals to the uh public library here in in Goan. Um, Marilyn Greyber is going forward for reappointment to the board currently. She was first appointed
030in 2017 um and um is just shows interest in continuing her service on the library board. So I will at least introduce it in that manner. So so I would anything else you'd like to add Mr. No just and Dr. Metaf can put in some color too. Uh she's she was a teacher for us, an English teacher at the high school. Fan from all things I hear, she was a fantastic love to have her back in our classroom again. Um and she served well in the the board and we just thought we would bring it forward to continue her service uh since she was doing a good job on board and we didn't have any other interest although we didn't put it out there to ask for any other interest either. So okay. All right.
031So, with that, I guess I would ask for a motion and a second uh to open uh discussion for item 7.3 and ultimate voting. I motion that we open for discussion the appointment to the ocean library trustees. I'll second moved by Mr. Goodness, seconded by Mr. Glick. So the the main reason I wanted to move that off of there, I think we had had a discussion maybe two years ago about an appointment that was also stuck in a consent agenda and I'd felt then like there was no public announcement, no discussion about it. It's just kind of people there get to get just brief. um especially when it gets sent agenda item because it doesn't get a public discussion and I feel that library boards are an important part of the community just like we
032don't even appoint ourselves with no public discussion. Um nothing against uh Mr. Griber but I feel like it should be at least presented and opened up to the public saying hey we have an opening. I don't know if this was posted on the library website. I don't know how they do that. I just know that if we are appointing we didn't talk about this beforehand. Um and I one of the questions that I immediately thought was it says that she did a lot of advocacy down at the state house. I like to know what type of advocacy it was um just for myself and knowing did I like what she was doing or not. Um and then also what is the makeup of the board presently? Does it represent a broad swath of goan or
033is it pretty much everybody's the same? Those are questions I didn't see answered in any of the documentation for that. So, I don't know how I could vote on that. And then also, I don't know if there's anybody else out there in the community like an opportunity to I don't know how I could vote without opening that up to them to at least apply. So, those were my questions. I don't know who that should be addressed to. I'm not quite sure how that's all determined. I will have to look here first of all in in board policy. I don't have it off the top of my head. So where what it is for appointments? It may take me a minute to look at that. So others have comments or questions while I at least search
034for a second here. I can speak a little bit to the advocacy. Um I believe Mrs. Graber Miss Gra uh Miss Graber was an active um goian education association member and so advocacy that she done was probably through um advocacy days uh um furthering the the association's um lobbying of of the legislature. What was the name of that? I'm sorry. The Goian Education Association. And that's our that's our teachers association. Teachers association. Yeah. I believe that was the advocacy that she took part in. Trying to remember when uh Mrs. Graber retired. Um it may have been in our stuff. I can't recall off the top of my head. See, she was here for my son in 2014 as a senior. So, um, just I was trying to put in perspective. I mean, she was with
035Scotian for uh a while as a educator. You know, last time this came up. Thank you. I looked up our board policy. I can't remember what it I think it was. I didn't know if it was a board policy. I don't know if that was a legal state law. It is. It's not because I know other boards have had it's all policy by pol. It's all Yeah. Just other things in our county that have been dealing with appointments of library boards. It's each entity can set up their own bylaws on that. I mean I I will say uh Mrs. Greyber has has represented I think our interests well and she was a very wellrespected educator while she was here. Um you know she has come before us before to answer any questions we had had.
036I mean she's wants to do what's what's right uh to support public education. So, just trying to see what I can find here quickly. You at least have a good keyboard. Other thoughts while we sit here for a minute and search getting to see the magic happen here. Um, yes, my wife actually serves on the on that library board. I think she was appointed by the county council. Um, and so I had asked her who appoints the other what are the other appoints on there. So, so she's from the county council. C um county commissioners get one. Um, uh, the county council gets u three. We get three, I believe. So there are seven total on that board and she can correct she's watching so she can correct me if I misspoke. Is everyone searching
037like I am? Yes. Okay. I don't I mean searching for library appointments or library it would be appointments. Yeah, it just be general appointments. General appointment just for reference uh the term does not begin until the 1st of July. So, um, it does not have to be finalized tonight. I will at least make that statement. We do only have this meeting in the month of May and one in June. So, I do have some clarification on that. Thank you. Um, so the school board um appoints three, the Elkart County Commissioners appoint two. Um uh the Elcart Township Advisory Board appoints one and then the and then the um three two commissioners and then the Gan City Council appoints one. That was the that was the other one. Thank you. And the library does have an
038interest link on its site for those that are interested in in um in and being appointed. I know there had been some turnover and I just know this um for my wife. There had been some turnover with some people um leaving the board or um for because of other work commitments or or moving. And so that, you know, I know that our last replacement was actually a um appointment for the remainder of the term of of somebody who one of the council members who had moved. This is why we're redoing our board policy. I I think we might have had to go to Indiana code or something. I guess other comments from Jose or Brandon. Any opinions? I've read I guess other comments. I mean, so we have a motion and a second on the
039floor here. Um, option is to to proceed forward with a vote tonight. Option two is is to uh ask for the item to be tabled to our June 12th 12th date. Um, June 9th. I'm listening to him. My point is I mean even if if she ends up getting appointed that because we're public board and appointed to a public entity I think it should be part of our duty and appointing is to open that up for people to apply for the job. So that's what I'm requesting that that it be made open and told the public, hey, we're going to be appointed board member. If you're interested, you can apply because I'd like to see where and I would like it if we could have, you know, had a little bit more background information prior
040to showing up this for me personally. And what I what I will say just to I guess respond to your point, we would have to put together a group to determine what an application would look like. So if we would go down that path, which right or wrong that would not be able to happen probably in the timeline we currently have. Now if that's something that we want to move towards that's I think that's fine. uh but to you know to say I'd like to know more background well she provided some background in her eyes that might have been sufficient and in other eyes that that may not be so um who to determine what's the right amount of background or not without a formalized application where did where did this application come from their
041website that it is on their website the board of trustes interest form there were any to uh us. So, we would we would have to create something different if that would be our long-term desire to to do that. So, I'm just not to make a counter point, but you know, just as a as a point, right? So, So we usually if I can speak we usually um receive anyone who's interested from the library um the library board saying hey these people are interested um this was the only name that was presented to us so I would assume that is probably it might be the only name that they received correct right so yeah and and I I'll be honest I don't know where it's known what the terms are of current board members. I don't
042know if that's on their website somewhere and maybe I I don't have that at my fingertips at the moment. and she and every person who is interested in reappoint does fill out that form again on the library website and the terms are right on the on the uh on the library website library website under goan uh public uh library board of trustees. We appreciate your your Siri there. They my wife is just nope tons of stuff. So, we appreciate that. So, and our reason for putting it on here really is just that it's it's your responsibility to um appoint somebody and if you don't feel comfortable with the process, we're okay with that. We're kind of ambivalent. Um there hasn't been any process other than this in the past. I do recall our conversation though.
043Um, and we hope we we, you know, we have these goals about getting our NEOLA policies done. Uh, have had conversations even with our Neola rep as of today about 30 minutes before coming down here. And so we're we're meeting Thursday this week again as internal just kind of looking at the board policies and plan to bring some stuff to you guys like I said a package before the hopefully at the June if not the July board meeting. And we in that we will have administrative guidelines that we can say if that's the wish of the board uh when when the board is appointing someone to another board. Uh we want to make sure there's an application process that gets out to everybody. You know my staff would collect it and then bring the applicants
044to you and then the board would be responsible for going through the applications and picking the people that you would like to represent the board. And then you have to I assume you have to vote for correct meeting. So yep. Okay. Um any other discussion questions on the item? Currently we have a motion and a second on the table. Are we ready to vote? Hearing no other action. I'm seeing some head nods. All right. All those in favor of the approval of a reappointment of Marilyn Graber to the Ocean Public Library Board of Trustees, uh, please raise your hand and say, "I opposed." Same sign. Okay, we have four uh yes votes and one abstension. How do you How I We can't really say it there because the motion was about How do you request
045the process be reviewed? I think you just talked to me. Okay. Yeah. I I think it's going to be part I think it's part of the board policy, right? We should have administrative guidelines that we follow, right? That the board would have some you you indicate the policy that you want. Then we yeah we put the policy in front of the board members and then the board will ultimately approve or deny any policy that gets brought forward to us as Neola is assembling them. Um and if we think that there's another appointment and we can look that is going to maybe be prior to that then we can determine if we need to take uh intermediary kind of policy if if we feel that's necessary. That fair? Okay. All right. Thank you all. Okay. Item
046eight. We'll have some discussion items about the new high school graduation requirements. Clicker. [Applause] You can just say click click. I could. That is not how I teach. Um while while we're finding that um I did put just some extra information at your seat because there's just no way to condense the new diploma into really small bite-sized pieces. Um it's a lot. So that's kind of if you want to do extra reading or take a look at it for questions here at the end. Um I was thinking that would um maybe help. So, as we take a look at this, um, just a little bit of history on why the state board of ed decided to change the diploma. So, this has been going on in discussions for a little over a year. Um, the
047diploma hasn't been redesigned for quite some time since the 80s. Um, we were joking before the meeting about my age and, uh, I graduated in the 80s. That's how long it's been since it's been changed. Um the state is a little like nervous that fewer students are graduating college ready or career ready than in the past. Um employers are naming that some of our graduates as a whole in Indiana. This isn't specific to goan. It's in the whole state are missing some real world skills. Uh which often goes back to trades actually. And then we know we have chronic absenteeism um that's affecting the entire country. Um every school system is dealing with it on some level and we are finding that student disengagement has risen quite a bit. I would cite some of that
048to have happened during COVID. Kids kind of figured out maybe I can learn from home or what have you or they, you know, they got good at that some of them or just flat out really lost interest in school. And so the goal from our state board of ed and Dr. Jenner would be prepare all students for employment, enrollment or enlistment. And those are going to match our discussion on readiness seals today as well. Okay. So, sidebyside comparison. Um, you actually again have a much more detailed comparison. Uh, similar colors. I was hoping to just help that make sense for you. Um on the left we have just some features to look at. In the middle would be our current diplomas. So we will have three school years or three cohorts yet that will uh
049continue to use our current diplomas. Um which would be our core 40, our academic honors and our technical honors diploma. By the way, core 40 uh 15 20 years ago was our honors diploma. So, this continues to change in terms of strength. And then our incoming freshmen will be on the new diploma. Um, we can opt to use the new diploma for for our students that are in the other three cohorts. There are some positives that could help some of our kids graduate on time if we were to do that. Um, but it is a more robust offering. I wouldn't say it's harder. It's more robust and there's more choice. So, our students who are graduating this year are graduating with an absolutely wonderful diploma. Um they're not missing out. It's just this will we
050believe catch more students um and give them more post-secary options. Um and so really from the beginning, the first iteration of the diploma, I don't know very many educators who thought it was a good idea. um the feedback uh really was listened to and by the time the state came up with the second iteration it felt much more um practical and immediately I really felt like hey this is this is going to fit nicely for goan we're in Alcart County we're in a manufacturing hub um CTE central we're going to be okay with this diploma so when you compare that uh rather than core 40 academic honors technical honors. We now have the GPS diploma that matches up with a website called GPS. Um that all of our data uh is there from for each
051high school in the state. Um a lot of things. So they're they're kind of going with the same lingo. And then there's the GPS diploma plus in that. Um there's a point-based system, but really you start out, you get 22 credits, your 9th and 10th grade year, and then 11th and 12th, you start to focus on some of your choice, and you can earn 22 more. So that you do need a total of 42 credits. Um sometimes in print, you see the 22 and I' I've heard people say, "Oh my gosh, they only have to get half the credits." No, those are 22 core credits that we're really putting in ninth and tth grade and then um our choice comes in later. So, a lot of student um choice comes in for personalization. I'll give
052you an example. Um just our halfday CTE programming, we offered one half-day program a year ago and this coming year we'll offer 11. Um, but that's not even all of our programming. That's just halfday programming. And so we do have things that run in single um, periods and take place at the main campus, kind of what I've started calling what you think of as Goan High School. Chandler will house our half-day programming, which is then part of that dust collector conversation and all of that. Um, so college credit is optional, but it is encouraged. It is strongly encouraged and I just want to throw in there, it can be easy on the new diploma to accidentally focus on CTE only. Uh we still need a strong diploma that's going to get our kids into the
053college of their choice or the university of their choice. We still want our kids to be able to go to Stanford, you know, um Purdue, wherever they want to go. So, we have to continue to offer a strong diploma in terms of their academics. And so, we do still have that ICC, that Indiana core curriculum that we're offering where students can earn 30 college credits uh for free at the high school. And so, it is encouraged and we have many, many, many, many students. I should have come with a number. I apologize for not having a number for you. Um, if we end up doing an update on the 24 and 25 cohort, I can give you that. Um, our dual credit continues to uh increase. I can tell you in our course requests, we
054have enough dual credit requests for history and English that we are filling u multiple teacher schedules with that now rather than just one person or how it started out where maybe it was half of their schedule. um it is now very much the norm to sign up for dual credit English in history for example. So timeline uh we can opt in right away. Uh again that could be helpful. For instance, the state is allowing us to opt out for uh really specific reasons and students. Maybe there's a student who needs to not take algebra 2 that exists in this diploma. um that kid is going to also be most likely in a strong robust CTE program where they're using math. We just don't have to have them sit for that particular math class. The majority
055of our students will take algebra 2 and then they also have the option to take pre-calculus, calculus, quantitative reasoning all for dual credit. And so we are again continuing to offer that strong diploma. Um, if you take a look at uh the difference in the GPS diploma and the plus, the plus includes encompasses GPS. So, you have the 22 foundational credits in 9th and 10th grades. Um, just as a maybe a reminder, a year ago, we really restructured how we offer services at the high school. We have a 910 office now. We have an 1112 office. Uh, all the 910 things occur in one location. your counselor, your admin there. And then the 1112 office is just like a postsecondary hub. We just have a lot of things going there. We have our college coach.
056Uh we do career uh counseling and then all of our CTE and dual credit work happens up there as well. And so the plus is pretty robust. uh you must earn a credential of value and you must hit 650 plus hours of work-based learning which is a lot um but pretty exciting and so I want to um this slide I could not make this slide look better smaller I apologize there's a lot to these seals um you have even more detail on your last page from the state if you really want to dig into some of those things I thought you might be interested with the seals. There actually two components. There are seals for the GPS honors and then there are seals for honors plus. And so these are just some highlights. Um but
057it really gets pretty complex. So we have enrollment just meaning you're college ready, employment career ready, enlistment, military ready. I recently uh had the opportunity to meet with our parent advocate group um that Lori is is leading and I was able to show uh transcripts. I took out identifying information but transcripts from recent graduates. So this would be 2024 graduates and showed that we have students who easily meet requirements for enrollment and employment. Um, we we even have a handful of kids who can hit that military ready, but they're having to reach out for some other help through the military if they if they're going to want that seal. So, as we take a look, one of the things I'm very encouraged by and wanted to be sure to highlight here as I wrap this
058up, how ready are we or not for these seals? So, to be really honest, preparing for this, I couldn't believe we're as ready as we are. I tell you, this this is just changing all the time. Um, I'm very excited. So, this is an example. This is not comprehensive. Please know that. It makes me nervous publishing something and knowing that someone might think we represented all of our eggs here. um we are at the moment able to offer these seals with what we have going which is very exciting to me. So our enrollment we have again those 30 over 30 college credits available to our kids for free. Um our employment seal we have capstones and work-based learning experiences. Um, credentials of value are simply earning um, some kind of certificate or credential that you
059can take to the workplace. Um, so for instance, we are offering that in our CNA, EMT, welding, education professions, and our construction program. We have the ability to do that in our advanced manufacturing as well. That will start this fall. And we can offer dual credit in welding. And that will start this fall. Um, and then let's skip and listen for a second. The GPS diploma plus um programs that already offer the 650 plus hours and credential integration are listed there. Uh, like I said, we're moving to 11 half-day programs. So, this will continue to just get better and better and better. If we back up to enlistment, we are on track for the second year in a row to have the most students enlisted in the Army National Guard for a a public high
060school in Indiana of our size. We kind of won that uh classification last year and we had the Blackhawk ride and all that. We're not getting now. They're like, you're used to it. No, no Blackhawk ride this year. Um but we are on track again to to lead. We have some really specific reasons for that in our community. One I think worth noting is a pathway to uh kind of solidifying your parents are going to be able to have a faster pathway to getting all of their paperwork taken care of if they still need to work on some paperwork. Um so that's a whole very fascinating um plan. The piece we're missing is if we want to offer that seal and we just would need to decide and and obviously this would be um a
061school board weighing in on this thought. Um we would really need to get JOTC going. Um I personally have a strong desire to I have awesome contacts for that. We have people knocking on our door asking us to do it. We have some pretty high up um military saying we will help you. We know who you need. they want in to do that. I don't think it would take much, but I did want to throw that out there that I haven't pursued it beyond that. Um, but that would allow us then I believe all three seals would begin to match what we can offer that we we really could get all of those taken care of. Um so kind of with that then I just wanted to kind of you know make a commitment to
062you that we are um fully committed to preparing our students for postsecary um options which could be anything. We want our students to graduate and be able to have choices. The last thing I want to do is ever feel like I'm why our kids didn't get to do something. I just I worry about that. Um, we want our kids to have options. Um, we believe we're growing the dual credit. We've been doing that for a couple years. We are right in the middle of growing CTE. Um, it's kind of like whiplash at the moment for that. Our work-based learning is really growing. We are kind of changing some of how we offer services to our students. Uh, not really changing, we're enhancing what we've already started this year. And so, I'm pretty excited about this
063diploma. um excited about just uh the opportunities we can offer. Something else we're bringing in would be a biiteracy certificate. We have we're going to start that this next year. We have so many students who already have uh the ability to um use dual languages by literacy would just increase that and we could actually give some cert certification in you know maybe we have kids who specialize in translating in the medical field or the legal field. Um so highlighting things that our our students are already doing and just to kind of go back to I I bring this stat up kind of everywhere I go. We know from the chamber here in town, Nick will say in these next five years, the majority like over 90% of the management in town uh will be people
064of color, primarily people who speak more than one language. We are the only high school in our city. They're coming from us. And so I am really, really, really excited about that. And so that's kind of the goal of all of this. How prepared will our kids be to be the managers and our next door neighbors and stay in Gan and you know what will we have here in the next 20 years? So I would be happy to answer questions if you have any. So you said we're going to hold course with the diplomas. We're not going to move it up. We're going to keep our current standards the core 40 and the academic honors through 28. Is that correct? Did I hear you right? We can do both. Okay. So, we will offer both.
065So, it'll be up to each individual student. Yeah. Actually, it's interesting. Um, as as this continues to grow, it's almost like every student ends up I keep calling it a portfolio. It's an individualized plan. Um, the data tracking, I love that, but it's a lot. It's daunting. And our counselors, I would say, are feeling that. Um, you literally have we now are matching up the c the state codes to each class so that when we print their transcript, you know exactly the state code of every single course they took. Um, because that's how tightly we're needing to track. And then the state pulls that data directly out of our management systems. U maybe not every second, it's, you know, a pretty specific timeline, but they pull it directly. There's no fudging any of it, right?
066Like it's just it's there, they pull it. So, we have to be on our toes and have that information like correct all the time. Um, but yeah, we're going to keep every option, you know, whatever is best for kids. Just one clarification for myself on the ones that require work hours. Is that stuff that we provide all the work hours or is it offsite? Um, so it it's a little tricky. uh we're we're trying to actually get some clarification on that because we do have opportunities in our building and right at this moment we're not entirely sure. So it's it's funny our counseling department chair and then um Darren Holapo one of our assistant principles and then John Everingham who's been working with us with CT they are all researching that now like we had
067a conversation today about that. It'd be wonderful if they can do that inhouse. It's not super clear yet. Um, so I would say plan on it not being in house. So if it's not in house, if you don't have businesses will want to provide it really limiting. That's been the biggest fear of a lot of the especially rural districts that don't have a lot of That's a great question and that's an awesome followup and that's maybe that's layers embedded in in me saying I have felt good about it being here in Gan um where we have so many jobs but absolutely that is a real concern for smaller districts that are out kind of on their own. they're going to really need to focus on maybe the academic side of things more than the programming
068side of things. Do you envision as far as strain with staff? Um, do we have guidance enough guidance counselors to implement something this big? So, um, it depends who you ask, right? Um, but here's what we're doing next year. We have um we'll have our CTE director. We'll have a CTE specialist who's been a part of uh reporting the 3A report all these years. Um he'll do work-based learning half a day and he will focus on the CTE programming that single periods over at the main campus. And then we also have a data secretary who only does all things data for post-secary. Um and so that has taken some pressure off. And then we have an assistant principal who focuses on um post-secary like dual credit. So where maybe that could be a counselor in
069school districts that do employ an additional counselor. We have doled that out a bit. That all happens in the 1112 office. It has just started in the last month. So, we haven't gotten to feel maybe how natural that will or won't be. But we have we do have that in place. So, four school counselors, four four school counselors though, four assistant principles, two career coaches, uh one bilingual, one not. Maybe they're both bilingual. They're both bilingual. Um, uh, we also, um, in Spanish, that's where we have the and the other folks she just mentioned, uh, CT, CT director, specialist. We're kind of geared up for what I'm trying to say. I feel like we're although people are concerned because it seems like the strain would be on guidance just looking at it, you know, and
070we're going to have some new guidance folks next year. So, it's going to be and then with the four and four, we're paired up by grade level. So you have a ninth grade counselor, nth grade admin, and the same for each grade level. We have not had that all of this year just through some really odd things that happened. Our admin team has been a little short staffed this year. One had a baby, things like that. Um, and then counselors also were down one person, but when as we're moving forward and kind of putting these things into play, um, I'd like to give it another year and see. I I do believe what we have in place is going to be really effective. So it's like one counselor and an assistant principal per 450 and
071then we have this additional support with the but we also have a social worker and we also and then we have two uh the career coaches and then we have really John and who is what's his Ken Cross so he'll be ha he and JJ Deo will share work-based learning so JJ will have half a day of that and half a day of of really running our entrepreneurship academy and then which which is very unique to the county high schools. Pretty excited about that. Um and then Ken will have a half day of the workbased learning and a half day in the 1112 office um working on along with our data secretary. all of those pieces that have to be in our LMS perfectly so that the state can pull that data and not have
072errors and such. So, we've really had one central office or tech office person kind of handling that data reporting with Ken's help. Ken does a lot of it actually. Um, when we paired up that person from Tech along with Ken back in 22 or three, we saw a just a huge uh doubling of CTE offerings and and monetary gains. And sometimes it's literally just doing the right I mean, you I'm preaching to the choir. I know you're a high school person, but like it's just that tracking, right? making sure you've got your data and ducks in a row. Mhm. Anything else? So, and isn't there a guidance secretary as well? Yep. So, we have an 1112 secretary for guidance and those admin, a 910 for guidance and admin in that office. We have an attendance
073secretary and I have an assistant and then uh we have a registar. Um, and the only secretary, well, we have two that are not that that only speak English, and that would be our data and my assistant. Everyone else in the offices are um fluent in Spanish and English, which is incredibly helpful. And I think the issue really is going to be systematizing the work. It's not that we don't have enough people to do the work. It's we have the systems in place to service the kids the way they need to be serviced. and it's going to be extra services they need. And I I really feel pretty strongly that we're well staffed. We just have to figure out what are the systems that these folks need to be running on. We thought we'd have
074a better handle on that at this point and just really had just an odd year of things that happened. Uh, and so as as we have been able to be a little more into like our the correct numbers in the last month or so, it looks like we're going to be able to manage this with some of the workload. Um, is there any way that AI can I love extra jobs or is it all manual? it might already help us a little bit. I don't know. I mean, some right like you can it certainly can be useful for just pulling your data together, but the truth is um we also have some amazing things that our admin have will that you've let them purchase. And so we have a pathway program um that we jokingly
075call Robbiey's robot because the guy who helps us on the phone's named Robbie and it just tracks everything for each of our students. We have educ um we're just getting started in but we can upload all of that there and we'll get this snapshot of a student of like this all around everything for our MTSS support. Um we have Skyward that in well now Q right it can really do more than maybe we even you know it almost just it can be too much right you can just really go down a rabbit hole. Um, so yes, I mean I would consider that AI, right? Like absolutely that can help us track everything. Mhm. All right. Well, thank you very much. Greatly appreciate it. Yeah. All right. We are two closing items. Um, so we'll start
076with 9.1. Uh, any administrative items tonight? Yes. The last day of school is Friday, May 30th. uh with the teacher's last day on June 2nd. Uh graduation will be held Sunday, June 8th at Foreman Field for all the board members being there. Uh we have an executive session tonight immediately following this meeting. Uh shouldn't take very long. And our next regular board meeting will be held on Monday, June 9th. Thank you. And 9.2. Anything from the board tonight? Silence is key. All right. 9.3. I'll take a motion for adjournment, please. I got two motions. Second. All right. All those in favor, please say I. I. We are ajourned. Thank you. Thank you for joining us tonight.