001I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all I'd like to welcome you to our uh regular meeting here uh in March just a few opening remarks as we get started here this is a meeting the school board in public for the purpose of conducting the school's corporation's business and is not to be considered a public community meeting there is time for public participation for agenda and non-agenda items as listed on agenda item number two our mission as Goan Community Schools is to to we promis to inspire Innovation excuse me empowering potential enriching our world and our vision go Community School's Elkart County School District of choice uh item 1.4 is approval of
002tonight's agenda do we have any revisions to the agenda no we do not all right so the agenda is approved as presented and item 1.5 is approval of the minutes from our March 10th 2025 regular school board meeting members do we have any revisions to those minutes I'm seeing heads shaking so the minutes are approved as presented uh we will move on to item number two which is public comment and I will invite Mr Glen null to come up and speak speak to us sir give you your medicine first okay um reminder you're welcome a reminder that we need to buy American uh I know that from the last meeting private discussion that the the electric buses are probably dead and I I still would have had a problem buying it out of Canada just
003because I like a buy American and it's a good policy to have and especially now um the outer door button still isn't functioning the dinner one seems to be functioning so you understand what that means with the Ada Okay so here comes the nice part going be nice today because I might want to be remembered that way so about 11 years ago I got hurt and people couldn't understand how I got nights after that for a little while at least I think it had to do with the Pharmaceuticals that I was taken but I did get a nasty note from the hospital said they couldn't handle all the heart heart attacks that people were having because I was so nice I don't want to go that far though just remember that you're spending my money
004not just my money it's your money too but it's it's all our monies and spend it wisely make the correct decisions that will affect students citizens down the line Next Generation to generation after that in the old days I can remember when before I was on the board they were honoring some teachers or something and students got up and said I so and so you know taught me this and that and that's what I live by just remember that is that's the True Legacy of the school system what what we teach students and sometimes when we teach we don't know we're teaching and we could be teaching negative or positive so just keep that in mind and don't have a heart attack on me okay thank you Glen and that will conclude our uh public
005comment this evening uh we'll go to item three our superintendent's reports Mr Deo thank you Mr President uh first up uh Dr Bob Evans has some updates for the board on finances Dr Evans right uh so what's in front of you are the cash flows for January and February for our funds and I the way I do them is I separate the Personnel costs for each fund versus all of the other costs for them um since they're monthly cash flows you can take 100% divide it by 12 and you get about 8.3% would be the average uh maximum spend for each month and as you look through there you see the education Fund in January was right on target at 8.08 operating referendum uh we less That Just sh 4% uh Debt Service those bills
006are are paid in June and December so you you should see Zero expenditures on those until you get to June and December uh operations is high but it's high because you might remember that I had authority to transfer some monies from uh operations to operating referendum so that was an expenditure from operations I anticipate that as the years go on that will get closer and closer to its Target so it's high now but since we're spending Less on operations it should meet the Target by the time we get to the end uh and then self Insurance that's a that's my conservative uh budget we we have to spend what we have to spend based upon our claims and so we're at 9 99.98% in that in January looking on down without going through each one
007you can see that education fund is now within Target uh operating referendum is is still low um in operations is getting closer to the Target by the time we get there into February so things are progressing uh just great the way they are and I imagine as the year goes on they'll be even closer to where they should be are there any questions concerning cash flow I'll ask I guess on or even clarification for the Self Insurance are what you're showing today actual cost or are those what you are estimating because I know a lot of times we estimate early in the year for Self insurance would be actual actual cost yes okay I know a lot of times at the end of the year we have a a positive where it comes in way
008below because to your point we didn't have as many claims exactly and uh and we did last year and so um we're a little high in January but I think by the time we got into the end of February we're just almost exactly where we we would hope to be for the year instead of 16.6 it was 16.73% it's not surprising we might have had a lot of illnesses our St yeah yeah other questions I I would uh I guess pass this on then next our student achievement commitments and we're going to start out with uh Dr metf uh you're going to give a brief update on educ climber training that we've had what it is by the way so climber is a the kind of a data warehouse that we have um we have
009uh recently we got at the beginning of the year um we spent the first part of the Year entering all our data all our assessment data all our attendance data our Behavior data from our uh SMS systems um we had our first training with our principls and they were they they could bring a either assistant principal um some brought their coaches their literacy coach um assistant principles uh we had our first training on Wednesday the 19th it very well I think principles were happy with what they're going to be able to do and also what teachers are going to be able to do very easily to find out about the individual needs of each student and to be able to track how each student has done um over over uh previous years into this year
010so that we can better create interventions if needed thank you Dr map next up uh M Mr Jimenez uh would you introduce the Waterford staff to give a brief report to the board yes good afternoon um we are honored to have here the awesome uh Miss Peña principal at Waterford and her some of her amazing staff in Waterford who will give us a brief recap of what's going on with the di program so as Mr Jimenez said my name is Christina Pena and then I have a couple of teachers in our dual language immersion program Joy St Germaine teaches our first grade English side Shelley Kaufman teaches third grade English English side Shannon Aguilar teaches fourth grade Spanish and then Daisy Lera teaches kindergarten Spanish so that's kind of some of the teachers we do
011have 10 teachers total in our DLI program so the goal of our dual language immersion program is to have bilingualism and biliteracy in both English and Spanish and that's what we hope to achieve um K through however our oldest kids are which right now they're in seventh grade um from when we started the program and it'll just continue um and so we hope to also have higher academic performance and in their classes you'll see that with their data as they're teaching the students in both languages and then also just to develop that cross-cultural competency um so that our students are aware just of other cultures and different things so the Dual language immersion program really is a 5050 model so half of the students day is in Spanish and the other half is in English
012the English side teaches obviously our e but then also has the math reinforcement um and then incorporating that science and social studies our Spanish side teaches math which with Eureka this year has been amazing as all of the materials that all of the students are doing are in Spanish and then also Spanish literacy so that students can learn how to read and write in Spanish as well and then we use a roller coaster model so what that means is every day the students switch halfway throughout their day and then within two weeks they'll have equal minutes um so so if you look at the little Pi uh graph that hopefully over the two weeks time is equal minutes for all of that instruction and a lot of this was gathered from Utah um which is
013a dual language immersion state so they do a lot of different things with DLI uh Statewide and so that's kind of the model that we're following so our student population is very much the Waterford student population we want it to be um all of the students and representative of our school population so it includes El Learners special education students and then a wide range of academic levels 50% of the students that start in kindergarten speak only English and then the other 50% speak Spanish and so that's the 50/50 model so that they have uh that integration and are able to hear both languages uh each part of the day and then parents can sign up for this it's just part of our normal kindergarten registration um and we're already almost full for this year so
014we're excited for that um we do allow other students to move in especially if they come from a DLI program or if they've already had academic instruction in Spanish um so that they could move in into whatever grade they would be just like any other of our kiddos that move in so I thought instead of me telling you about what I love about it I would let our students tell you so this is Laurel [Music] and Laurel is a fourth grader this is Ezra also a fourth grader [Music] and our last one here is [Music] Taylor so we love our dual language program it is thriving and we expect that to continue for years to come thank you thank you any question board members any questions for you can't run away that easy get back
015up there so what do we see with our numbers from a stu a population that starts in kindergarten what is the attrition rate is it some percent and then we are filling that in with new students do it always stay in full classes every year um kinder through about second grade is pretty full we do lose a couple in second grade um our biggest drop happens in third grade because many of our students qualify for the high ability program and so then that's when um they choose to enroll in that at Chamberlain so number-wise I would say we lose maybe 20 at that third grade Mark um from starting with 56 so they're at about 36 any other questions from board thank you guys you're awesome appreciate all you do uh next up is our
016oper a Excellence commitment and uh Dr medcafe has Vape sensor update to start with so The Vape sensors have been at the high school for about a month now we have and they're in all the bathrooms now so we have seen an uptick in the number of of of alarms that have been triggered um the the uh assistant principles are not always available to go right then and there to get it luckily we have cameras outside the the hall and even though um by the time we get to a student it's it might be difficult to prove that they were the ones in there vaping uh the assistant principles have have contacted families and parents and just talked to them basically saying this happened we don't know that it was your student but just give
017you a heads up that while they were in there that they so it sensor has gone off so it has given them an opportunity to talk to their to families and really kind of Start Spreading that message about hey Vapes are are an issue and we we we really don't want them here at school so please please uh please talk to your student about that if you would um so we're pretty pleased with that and then also website I have a question oh yeah go ahead sorry let's say there's multiple students in that restroom how are we contacting all three families or we are we are so so families are yes I I talked to Mr holapp at the at the um high school this morning and we were asking about that um we do
018have we do um once the videotape is is reviewed at some point during that day those students are then brought down to the office and ask to please um do you have anything on you if not please let us check your bag um and then if nothing we still contact the parents when that happens so add add a potential we are maybe false contacting families add a potential but we always we always AG with that and say we we don't know for sure what was going on inside the bathroom but while your student was in there now there have been times where it's only been one student in there and so right that's why I Ed the example of but yes more than one we do contact it but we do always put that clarifier
019in there that um while we don't know what was happening while they were in there the sensor went off so you might want to and and I I you know only two of us sitting at this table have students in high school right now but I know if I would receive a call I would be concerning yeah um so yeah so we would always also encourage students that if if if the sensor goes off and you're in there and it's not you please report please report that to to a a teacher or administrator thanks any other questions for the board Dr mchf you get to update everybody on the website so we have undertaken uh website update um we are working with a compy company Apache um I believe no it's not AP SM sites
020smart sites thank you um and we have started with the preliminary part of looking at the sitemap of our current we uh website determining what really needs to be on the website what doesn't need to be on the website how do we how do we make it so the information is um what parents want to see uh without all the visual clutter and also the all just the number of different things that don't have to be on our website that are so we're really hoping to by the end of this year by the end of this school year be able to have um our website updated and up and running thank you Dr MF any questions for Dr MF okay um ask one yes um I know I've heard several people been think about some
021useful this on the current website are you engaging with the public at all to kind of determine what types of things they Fu are missing no okay we we haven't but I think what we what we've done is what we'll probably what we'll do is we'll probably what once the new website is up there get some feedback there are some things that are legally required to be up there um we also make sure that uh access to calendars things that we do have we are able to tell what people are mostly interested in because that's what hey I can't find the calendar I can't find the I can't find the athletic department so we have in some in some aspects have used some of the feedback we've gotten from complaints but we have until we
022get something out there um Miss Shriner has a parent um engagement group they'll probably be the first ones to see it um and at that point they would be the ones that would offer feedback and Lori haven't they given some feedback too yeah some general feedback um but also when we are sitting there we're continue to ask ourselves thinking through the lens of a parent and the website um and instead of you know us as in the educator role so we're trying to be really strategic and thinking through the lens of so that it's friendly um and I'm excited about um how it's going to look we've been able to kind of preview um what it will look when it's look like when it's complete and it looks so much improved um but we will
023have time like we might be ready to get some feedback exactly we know so many problems with it just obviously yeah and we've talked like pulled um some feedback from from our administrators too um in different ways uh but we still have time to get a little bit more feedback from parents and yeah other important stakeholders I think until we until we actually have like a new version um we'd hear a lot about what it isn't um so we want to we want to be able to present them with something and say what does it need instead of what you know how bad is this um because I would I would be one of the first to agree our website is not the most user friendly um and and is not necessarily updated as much
024as it should be any other questions okay uh ball complex update from Bob there's things moving as we speak board members so interesting way to put it because they they moved more in the past two hours so I'm I'm to the positive might be an update for me too I think it is uh so we started the day with three uh issues with baseball softball um one of of them was there was a concern that we needed to have epoxy painted surfaces in the bathroom rather than a standard way we painted the bathrooms and all of our other restrooms and so uh that's been resolved uh and we can we can move forward with the paint that's currently on there uh poble water at the at the concessions and restrooms was a concern there was
025um with the company that drilled the wells they were supposed to file a form that then required a 30-day weight period and they didn't file that timely so being not being able to have water obviously for restrooms is a problem um and then the other problem was the fire hydrant uh testing they um thought there might be a leak and so as the day progressed uh they tested the fire hydrogen more and they deemed that it does have sufficient pressure so less than what they would like but still they the city has signed off on it um with concern to the P painted surfaces they have switched their positions so the city's help us out here also and they are letting us move forward with the current situation and the last one is a pable
026water we are using a tank behind the concessions and that will uh be able to be pumped into the restrooms and that'll get us through to the 30 days uh that we need so uh the latest news from wend is that we should be good to go for Monday or maybe before so that's positive so the first is coming up rather quickly yes and potentially we're going to dial back uh a little bit about our opening day ceremonies and that kind of thing but if we don't do it now I think the the uh double header time would put us back until late April we didn't really want to wait so we may be going ahead with a you know first pitch ribbon cutting uh on April 1st so but we're going to just so
027Terry who is the magic magician no kid around on that what's it April 1st no kidding sorry as long as we think it's going to be okay we're going to be we're going to go ahead with it um and just have some people throw out the first pitch and unless something comes this is a moving Target as of today we even considered potential moving it up a little bit right Bob Bob's been working magic all day so thank you so April 1st is the baseball isn't there softball double header on B baseball softball night there's both teams play on the first right Terry yes okay I'm making sure okay that was the first game that both softball's playing on Wednesday that's why I'm saying but the first actual game out there is actually this Wednesday
028y porta potties no I'm just yeah I'm just okay so the field will be in use Wednesday for the first game for softball yes I I would like to say my appreciation to the city because I think they did uh pull things together really quick for us and helped us s so appreciate their efforts yeah so there's our update kind quick question if I can there's a I just happen to have an email from a constituent uh they're in the housing uh Edition on the east side and they were told it's going to when that's all finished that big pile is gone it's already coming down it's already coming down they'll be left with a four foot gently sloping BM yes and most of that dirt I believe is going to be placed on the
029BM back between that and the and the new addition so they're going to be moving that soil back to someplace on the same site but it'll be as you said more of a gentle it's already a third less than it was last week they've started moving it I just I got this email Saturday so yeah well next up is our people commitments and we have a couple updates for the board there uh jav or did you have a couple things and then the the second one the Saturday event are you going to do that or is Lori yeah I think my name's there but yeah it is that's what I thought you should go for it yeah so go ahead uh so the first one is uh continuing the work with uh Mazi we've said
030Mazi and maisi uh it's a Greek word we were explained uh that means together and so our work together to improve outcomes for all students uh it's a lot of vision work now we're trying to oper operationalize what we're doing we want to you know the vision is to ensure that we have scheduling that is conducive to collaboration so that we can share expertise between gened teachers special ed teachers and El teachers um and then also we're looking to identify curriculum to ensure alignment when it comes to tier 2 and tier three uh for all student groups so um we have another session on Thursday and that's ongoing and as we progress we'll start engaging our schools and principles with the work in um big big piece of the puzzle is going to be the
031Schedule Master schedules at elementaries uh to make sure that we have collaborative time there so um any questions about comments and then Saturday uh we we had a a family event at GIS uh thanks to Mo for opening uh Mr tro for opening the building for us uh we have uh educational talks Chas educativas uh we had two presentations uh Mr sheets presented on attendance and then we had a lady from the elcar county health department I believe on vaping uh it was it was it was an awesome event um Dolores and her team Sandra and the parently aisans put it together and they invited the guest uh very timely topics around attendance and we talked about you know how we're our intent is not to get anybody in trouble but just to follow procedures
032to ensure that our kids are coming to school every day and on time and then uh a lot of the presentation on vaping received really good responses um it was it was really awesome to see uh how families um their comments on how they own the kids and how it's their responsibility to support schools with both of these efforts of attendance and vaping so uh really nice event we had um um Mr Tre and and Mrs deer there and Mr sheets and like I said so it was awesome any questions that concludes our reports then Mr President all right thank you so we will move on to board committee reports uh board members anything to share this evening we had a uh Building Trades uh board meeting uh last Thursday and they are wrapping up
033the the major project for this year the remodel project that they've taken on that'll probably be done by the end of April for sure uh then in that neighborhood they will also be building two sheds and a fence uh for some uh former teachers uh to wrap up their year so it's going well it's been a big it's a bigger project than what than what you would think for a remodel uh legislative update uh two bills HP 1498 School accountability so along with the letter grade that's being discussed uh there would be a high school graduation on track uh rubric component um and an attendance tracker so that's being discussed now um and then SB 249 so many numbers um basically it allows uh High need Staffing areas to to be funded um in lie
034of the the bargain contract allow School corporations to provide a supplemental payment to teachers and excess of salary um and high needs area whatever those may be so those are just two bills I wanted to highlight that are currently in committee or being close to being passed so six weeks to go six weeks to go okay other updates it was uh successful rcky D two weeks so that's over uh there's a concert tonight um I think they're uh there with some people that afterwards they will get some instructions for professionals about and then I think they be the learner on Sunday Sunday so I don't know there's a 50% chance I'm wrong about all those details if you're going to go you're going to want to check but uh still busy end the year before
035break so okay if you're not doing Sunday anything Sunday afternoon how you're uh playing with the uh Elkart chamber or anyway yeah yeah at the learner theater okay um and then for the Redevelopment commission um I kind of mentioned a little bit but so the Redevelopment approved um an agreement for Town Homes along the Mill Race south of the Hawks building um the intent is is that the first building of six units will be constructed roughly within probably 15 months of now with a model unit completed so prospective buyers can take a look at it um that is being developed by local business view rail in town so the intent is that there would be uh up to 18 uh Town Homes there south of the Hawks building so that uh was approved um and
036then a just a supplementary agreement was put in place for aerial Cycle Works which is the large uh apartment complex here just south of our campus you drive past that you will see a lot of little Flags they are actively getting ready to break ground on that here officially um in the coming weeks uh so that is uh positive and then there was just a a lot of talk on road projects and I always like to listen about road projects because it just will eventually impact our busing so there will be tremendous road projects in the coming five years I mean that's the thing they look out that far ahead but it's important that we start looking at those as well because major stretches of Road get closed for like a year so that really
037impacts us so okay Foundation I'm going to talk about the next okay I was G to ask about it so I'm going to give one more chance on Foundation um if not I will I will do it um they meet the third they meet the 2 Tuesday at 7:30 in the morning so CU I've been looking at my schedule trying to see if I can move some stuff I wanted to give it a try and see if I can make it work out okay and so they do it both virtually and in person so it gives a lot more F where here they made here yep okay I can put you in touch with Michelle crer I think she's still heading it up time so okay okay Bob attend for our team thank you Ryan
038okay all right that will wrap up our committee reports tonight item five is our consent agenda items 5.1 approval of accounts payable dated March 24th 20125 and payroll dated March 7th 2025 5.2 music in the Parks out of state field trip 5.3 Personnel anything to highlight from the consent agenda items hearing none they are approved as presented moving on to item six our action items 6.1 memorandum of understanding Boys and Girls Club summer learning Lab Dr MF uh so I've been talking about this over the past couple months um and we everything is finally a go the the funding has been given by the state in the form of a grant um which will allow our students grades K that are are currently in grades K1 uh 4 5 6 7 8 um to attend
039summer school for about a a 5we period um the memorandum of understanding just kind of outlines what the Boys and Girls Club will be responsible for they will be responsible for hiring and overseeing our teachers um then our responsibility really falls into providing them in place and transportation um and then some of the other things that we normally would do such as the summer Foods program uh that we provide um for summer school we usually provide breakfast through that anyways and then lunch so that would be provided we are looking at holding it at Chamberlain so that once it's done students who go to the Boys and Girls Club can just walk back there and then we would transport the rest of them home okay thank you may I have a motion in a second
040for item 6.1 move for the passage of item 6.1 the memorandum of understanding for the Boys and Girls Club summer morning lab second move by Mr Glick second by Mr Goodman questions for that agreement comments from the board I noticed in the agreement it um there was a section about identifying that risk students is that separate from the summer school required for the reading Pro you know if they don't pass I read so second and third grade we're going to continue to do our own and so we will be doing that and identifying those yes they are asking for us in those remaining grades to identify about 45 students at each grade level who who um have uh a need or a a significant or a a lesser need than than than a student that
041is on track and so we will be working with them to provide them we already have a data uh exchange memorandum with the boys and girls club so that they can see some of our our information we will sh teachers will be and administrators will be picking who those kids are based upon uh what they see in the data that we have then one other question I had was about the teachers with them hiring is that teachers that already hired by go Community Schools or do they have to hire all nuk since it starts in June if there's a teacher shortage I mean I realize it's summer but do people want to work well that's that's an interesting question that's one of the reasons we peeled back our summer school to some extent is um
042pre postco we were having hard time filling um the amount of money that they're offering is roughly about what we would pay also an hourly for our summer school that we're doing for our second and third graders um it's just a longer longer period we usually only do about 12 to 15 days um so this would be provide an opportunity for teachers to to um earn substantially more um and it can be teachers and actually we're sending information out to our teachers this week um it can be teachers who are currently teaching um in our school system and it does not necessarily have to be just Elementary or nth nth grade if we there are some high school teachers that would also like to try their handed 8th grade if there are we have retired
043teachers um that have a current license um they might also be eligible um but the Boys and Girls Club will be handling all the hiring they will not be our employees during that time so um they will be handling all that hiring piece and they're being funded by a grant it's funded by a grant um from the Department of Ed with uh mind trust is the company that is kind of um providing the curriculum and the training for those teachers and that Grant would also cover our expenses as well in conjunction with it does not cover our does not cover our expenses it's kind of an in-kind it's kind of our in Kind part to be part of the grant for to to um allow our students to access it um we would normally be
044be doing transportation for some summer school anyways um our custodians are usually there I think um the part that the part that's probably more than what we would normally do is that transportation is longer so um we would need um some those bus drivers for a longer period of time over the summer there questions from the board on item 6.1 ready to vote or anything else okay we have a motion and a second on the floor for I have 6.1 all in favor uh please raise your hand and you say I I opposed passes UH 60 thank you item 6.2 resolution 828 a resolution to elect Angela M mcke as director of Goan Community School Corp School building Corp one Mr Devo yes Mr President uh we ask that you approve resolution 828 uh to
045approve Angela mcke as a director uh for the school building Corp she's currently uh serving in that capacity her term just came up and it's time for us to approve her again she's done a nice job we really appreciate her okay I have a motion and a second for item 6.2 a motion uh we approve resolution 828a resolution direct Angela mck director of ghs school building Corp one I'll second that moveed by Mr Goodman seconded by Mr Glick would you Mr Deo just tell people the public what building Corp one does just so we're all on the same page I think I get this question a lot but yes so technically School Corporation cannot borrow money directly so we have a building Corporation that's formed that actually uh holds the Deeds to the to certain
046properties of ours and then um because we uh uh then what we they do is they borrow the money on our behalf and we pay actually a lease payment to them so a lot of times you'll call it a leasehold uh organization and it's not the school board directly that makes decisions it's that uh it's that building Corp this is governed by the law that we yeah it's correct the state of Indiana school districts are not allowed to uh have direct debt right and this is what all the school districts do because all the school districts have debt have debt okay consistent with our constitution in Indiana and it is made up of three members and the the three members nominated Angie to continue to hold this role so okay guess questions Kai wanted to
047clarify that so everyone knows often people we only do it every couple years but it's good to remind us all what building Corp one is comments questions on item 6.2 all right hearing none all in favor please raise your hand and you say I I post same sign passes 60 thank you all right uh we will come to to uh the closing items here we'll start with 7.1 any miscellaneous items this evening I think guess that's my responsibility so let me let me go spring break is April 7th through the 11th and our next meeting will be uh here Monday April 14th and immediately following this meeting just a remind the board we're going to use this room we'll clear the room as soon as possible and then we're going to do some board education
048in regard to learning more about property taxes and some of the rules around that for us on tax rates Etc okay and board members any uh items from us this evening okay so with that I will take a motion in a second for adjournment second move by Glick seconded by Goodman all in favor please say I I we areour