March 13, 2023 School Board Meeting

001foreign somewhere um all right uh Mr Dobson will be here uh shortly he was called for jury duty so we are getting started here uh and then we will uh conduct our business until he does arrive so just a few opening remarks this evening sorry okay now we are going to problems just a few but in remarks uh this is a meeting in the school Court School Board of the public for the purpose of conducting the school corporation's business and if not to be considered a public community meeting but we time for public participation as indicated by agenda item number three the mission of ghost Community Schools is to inspire Innovation empowering potential enriching our world and our vision Goshen Community Schools NES Premier Global school district of choice item 1.4 approval of tonight's agenda

002do we have any revisions to tonight's agenda no changes very none change or the agenda is approved as presented and item 1.5 approval of the minutes from the February 6 2023 regular school board meeting and February 6 2023 executive session do we have any revisions to those Mets foreign so in the executive session says that the meeting was conducted for slant Indiana's open meetings law and you have code 514 1.56.1 10 to trans school board members in an outside consultant about the performance of everyone else public officials and uh that was not the purpose of the meeting it was to discuss the same thing that was done during the regular session which was the complexity index and it was not training us now also included a large number of school administrative staff not board members

003which would be unnecessary if it was traded or anyone else here in their role as public officials as a board member the objections to the events as I represented as presented not infection into the meeting itself but within the minutes as presented or entered I guess I will ask but we do have our one of our school attorneys present tonight can you provide a ruling on that or do we need to look into that Randy acknowledge the the objectives others agree with it or you vote on them on the lenses presented thank you so would you like to make a I guess a motion to amend the executive session I would make a motion to amend but I don't know what to amend it to because um the complexity index is not a topic the

004legal underneath the door alone you discuss executives so if since we're discussing what it specifically says that the minutes must stay according to the video well um specifically that the Menace must identify the subject matter considered by specific reference to the enumerated instance or instances where the public notice was given and the governing body Shall Serve excuse me shall certified by a statement in the memoranda and midst of the governing body that no subject matter was discussed in the executive session other than the subject matter specified in the public notice so you're contesting what we received in your opinion was not being trained to us even though we were being trained maybe in another question I'm just going to try to make a point here I'm not saying one way or the other maybe the

005reference was that the board members were being trained on how the complexity index is calculated allowed us to ask questions but from your Vantage Point you do not believe that was training for the board correct because the the law is to train in the performance of their role as public officials so that would maybe be how to conduct the proper meetings how to uh deal with issues of public significance whether it's complaints or things like that so training them in the performance over the world the complexity index is a reality that's in a state it does not we need to understand it but it could lose since the same exact presentation was given in the public meeting that it was not necessary to do an executive session with that same presentation Mr President um vice

006president okay acting president it's obviously we're not going to have four votes to approve minutes and we'd have to have four votes to pass so I'm going to make the motion of a table of minutes until we get in the city from the uh we have a quorum of four so the majority would pass okay passing an item okay all right but we can I mean there is an option too to amend or to table the minutes to that community that that is the Bible I mean that is animal can do so we can further research this item well I guess I would like to hear the objection to the regular meeting also he said he's going to object to the regular did you say you have an objection to that one too oh I'm

007sorry for the executive study yeah the regular meeting has the winnipes for that particular one and it goes through exactly what he presented um for the sake of that since it is again questions um that was under almost 4.1 reports says Mr Marco works with the Indiana Urban schools Association which is an obvious organization he is a registered heaviest and brought information regarding the complexity index the association Works within the most northern area of Indiana he shared the complexity index has gone down and stated the need to contact legislators for additional monetary support and school funding that's technically lobbying training us in our role as public officials I I would make a motion that we do amend and table the executive session so that we can provide legal counsel and get a resolution on that

008second then we have a discussion on tabling the minutes for that all right so we will take a vote first on the amended um calls a favor of amending the minutes to bring those back into future session please say aye I'm sorry thank you the table of the minutes to another meeting please say aye by raising your hand post all right and then to move on the minutes just the February 6 2000 way through regular school board being minutes do we have any revisions to those we have a second to approve those the minutes from February 6th all right all in favor please raise your hand by saying aye aye oppose this passes four zero all right we will move on to item two uh recognition uh 2.1 student staff recognition Dr lion thank you

009um we just have some sweaters we're going to recognize this evening and I would first like to call up their coach Laura root she was selected as the boys sectional coach of the year for the second year you think your certificates are going to be signed by um and we are going to now have her stay up here because we have some swimmers below a lot of them here Max yeagera did I say that next come on up Max Levi Moser Jeremy stutzman and skies 30. they qualified for the state swim meet in the 200 freestyle relay and they broke the previous School record [Music] Levi qualified for the 200 and 500 freestyle races in the states swim and dive meetings congratulations to Levi he qualified to put 100 backstroke in the state swim and

010dive knee so congratulations before you go back to seeds with each of you and we was going to be careful with you here tonight sure let's guide you want to start I have my dad Paul story here and my mom Michelle pamper started an infography [Music] and I have my mom and dad David and Stephen Aaron thanks so much for your support and thank you for all your hard work okay we'll get your certificates to it okay all right thank you okay we would like to um pull up our wrestler leish Detweiler he qualified for the state wrestling tournament thank you in his class and we want to recognize questions [Music] I want to thank you very much congratulations I am going to call um Jen Yoder up um notion High School Technology Association participated

011in the state competition and they earned third place for their chapter um in that competition she's going to tell you a little bit about what they did at that competition and then introduce a lot of her students that were going to be here are working or they are in other events so they can't be here but she's gonna tell you who they are yeah so in February we went to Purdue spent two days of premiere for the state competition um I'd like to practice all of this insane Goshen High School is the only one that operates TSA as a club and is not part of a class curriculum so for us to place the way we did I'm extremely proud of all the students um Manny Puentes and Alberto Diaz Macias they placed first in

012architectural design so they had to design a community center they had to make the construction documents and they had a physical model and all the competitions involve students submitting a portfolio and going through an interview with the judges we kind of defend their design Tyra and Lawrence of Phil Warren Mr stand up retail prior Toby and Lauren Grant they earned third place and children's stories so yes sure so do you want to tell them what your children's story was about yeah definitely spider and I work fun like this little it was aim for like personal third graders and it was called teaching Tova and essentially like she came over to my house and we made everything out of construction paper and like everything Rhymes it was really great we had like some pop-ups pretty cool

013what was the engineering concept we had to teach you guys oh yeah um so I think a lot of it like in-person technicalities went to the portfolio because um we had to like construct like a long portfolio about it and then we had to teach about book binding and like how we actually instructed the book physically and yeah fulfilling like previously set requirements in like a creative way is a good way to stretch our minds and compare ourselves to others and it was cool they had to read their book to the Panama judges so they've placed third and then Tyra and Lauren and Javier placed fourth in on-demand video so we spend the night at a hotel when we're down there on demand video they get their prompt um usually it's at opening ceremonies which

014is at four in the afternoon and it's due by the next morning so that means the on-demand video teams don't sleep they spend the whole night doing their video and what were the props that you had to include in your video yeah so we had to include a laptop a door knob a chrome and in some way the TSA logo so it normally like explain our video kind of just a little so we ended up doing like it was the process I'm going to be with humor so immediately you have your however like you have to do something related to horror obviously so um it basically pronounce it in US running through the hotel rooms with Javier wearing this serial killer mask that we made out of cardboard at like 2 am I was in

015case I think I was actually running out of Primal Fear at one point I would not recommend it but no I think from what we were given I really like I actually I think it was a little funny personally it was all over a lost wallet yeah yeah yeah and they were running through the hotel but they didn't but I got in trouble um let's see here and then oh you're still talking Lauren and then Karen Velasquez Valdez and Javier Reyes they placed third in the technology Bowl which is set up like Jeopardy it's all technology questions and speech thing and then the last step was cure Ortiz and Zoe iston they also did on-demand video and Facebook so for being a club I think we've had a pretty strong showing at the state level

016all right if you pay for a student staff recognition now if you can't believe you may need to save the rest of the breaking news today foreign I apologize for being late um I've lived in Elkhart County for almost 50 years it is the first day that I was selected to serve on a jury so I just came from Superior Court three and it starts in tomorrow morning at eight o'clock I have a privilege of serving another jury so that I'm necessarily looking forward to that I apologize for being late we are up to item 3.1 public comment on agenda or and or non-agenda items and we have four people that signed in to speak um first up Mr Glenn Nall division actually West Goshen the kids went there went there when it was a

017single section school and I tell you how long the old days quite a while back there used to be a plaque with my name on it in there that plaque and it's disappeared I don't know why when they rededicated the building and did some other Renovations that disappeared but it was someplace so um a couple of things um been trying to stay away from the school board meetings for a while I had enough of it 30 years ago but recent decisions or non-decisions of the board s members there's beckoned me to come back and give you my two cents worth so recently there was a parents only meeting at an elementary school which I was told there was four board members there if if the four board members had students there I could see where

018they could actually be there if they didn't have them there they didn't have any students in that building were they there on official business if they were there on official business then poor cannot be at a closed meeting that breaks the rules the law the board has certain duties I think they've given them duties up to other people they need to pull back what their responsibilities are straight out and out I want to remind every board member you sworn out the uphold the law if it's the open door law or any other law it is your responsibility to uphold it or leave it is that simple when you do not do that and it is called out then you are still teaching you are teaching by your actions if you tell somebody you have to

019do it this way because that's the way it is and you do it differently you are still teaching and the people you are teaching is the students the next Generations that will come up to replace you eventually and we want them to be taught correctly what the law says and it comes down to I'm I personally am tired of do as I say not as I do because I can get away with it because of who I am or what my my the body I serve on so I question the legitimacy of four board members being at the parent only Elementary meeting if they were there officially then there should only been three there you can't have four together this isn't a football game and this isn't a basketball game where track meet or anything

020else where that's allowed to my time is up thank you uh next uh Mr John Glick 65841 County Road 31 Goshen good evening Mr President members of the board I'd intended to only address the issue of a referendum but in light of recent events I believe I need to change my focus I do however want to publicly thank Mr Garber and realize he's not here tonight but the publicly thank him for his openness and honesty with the community about the plans and discuss the referendum my primary concern this evening is the lack of transparency and openness of this award as evidenced by the public announcements of the decision to close Chandler Elementary without any public discussion as you know I see 5-14-1.5 the open door locks requires that the official action of public agencies be

021conducted and taken openly unless otherwise it's freshly provided by Statute in order that the people may be fully informed it then expressly provides for certain topics to be allowed to be discussed in executive sessions in ic5-14-1.5-6.1 [Music] British topic to discussed Republic notice must be good including the specific sub code authorizing that topic you're born policy under code 0123 philosophy of the board says that you declare your intents to quote maintain two-way Communications with citizens of the corporation the board shall keep them informed of the progress and problems of the school corporation and the citizens shall be urged to bring their aspirations and concerns about the corporation and its school for the intention of this body or vote so my question to the board is are you earning the support and respect of the community

022Through openness transparency and honesty or are you causing distrust and frustration through closed room discussions and surprise announcements Mr Garber has a meeting that West Goshen back in October requested public input on our referendum before the board considers another referendum I would like to know whether the goals of the previous referendum were met the purpose listed on the ballot was funding academic and educationally related programs managing class sizes and retaining features I believe the board should give a public accounting of how that money was used before asking the taxpayers for more I also look forward to hearing the board's open the liberation of the mutual referendums as opposed to possible alternatives especially since it is not one of the expressly authorized topics of an executive session under the open door law and therefore cannot legally

023be deliberated behind closed doors thank you for your consideration thanks uh Mr Ron prayer it was uh pretty surprised to hear of the repurposing of Chandler Elementary not so much because of the different uh constraints or or the reasoning but I was shocked that I learned of this from the media and the quote was this decision is final as a taxpayer to find that just amazing because I think that there's some good input that could be had and for all my years I think I should be electricity I don't see how that can be a final decision but recently within the past four weeks the County election board found one of your board members guilty of 10 different counts so guilty in fact but they forwarded his transgressions on to the Elkhart County prosecutor to

024see if there were criminal charges connected to his actions yet he remains here a member of good standing and so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised but it goes against decency and and transparency and a willingness to work with this community that I've lived here virtually all my life I was really hit and hard pornography for several months when the New York County Commissioners were elected they put forth the resolution saying the patient closed the loophole and allows schools to to have access student access to pornography in effect I thought that they Justified what I was saying I thought that was amazing I feel like I was right about pronography pornography is an evil and you guys maligned my character and had political uh motivations other than finding the truth and and doing what is

025best for the kids so they'll go that goes back to point number two your seats were bought at a pretty decent price while all this political Meandering is going on my children suffered I have questions about the repurposing of Chandler but apparently it doesn't matter because that decision has been made much to my regret I might in this lifetime see the most corrupt insincere board to my sad regret all right um and uh Renee h president Ash my name is Renee Dash and I live at 205 Timberwood Drive apartment B M what I wanted to say was that I was really disappointed and and angry about the way the Chandler repurposing was done because I didn't see that there was any previous notification to parents that you weren't even considering that and then when it

026was um when the word came out I don't know if it was just the newspaper or it was on the radio but I saw it in the newspaper and I was shocked that that wasn't previous discussion with the community that was with all the school districts that would be effect or the school tools that would be affected and the parents and children and not only prior notification you know a little bit earlier because this is only what four months away from when school starts doesn't school start in August um so that's a pretty short notice for um for them to make different Arrangements in all their scheduling Etc and not only prior notification but also that there wouldn't be any public comment or um discussion or input from the parents the families that are affected

027so I I was just very disappointed all right that's all we had signed in um any questions or comments from anyone I agree with some of those things and reference to the first one I would say I was there an official business I wasn't with the other board members I didn't know that they were there I simply showed up I want to know what was being said so I wasn't officially invited I think that means it wasn't official Forum if I'm wrong in that my apologies and I'd be happy to acknowledge to commit mistake on that but as far as I know I was not their officially official business to the Border right I would agree with that um none of us I don't think any of us were invited to the meeting I knew

028there was I didn't know it was a parent only meeting for a star but I went to see what was going to happen in the meeting and it happened is that four people showed up in fact I didn't know if Mario was going to come and so it happened and I think that law says if you if you happen to be there or not if you're there to take an action if you're there to discuss some some business of the school corporation I think you're right Glenn but if you happen to show up and there happens to four people that were interested in what was going to happen at the meeting I don't think it's a violation of the um and I asked a question of that then so if if you were interested on

029what was going to be said then why couldn't I had the same interest and the other people that were turned away because they weren't on the guest list so you used your position as a board member of privilege to get into a meeting that was closed to the rep so someplace in there the Herring ain't smelling real good you know what I mean something stinks in Denmark so I think that maybe something's going on here it it may not be but it certainly does look like it for whoever was told no you cannot come in because you're not fair not a parent not a parent not a parent so why were they allowed in the building that's my question about us all right okay I want an answer please do it you can answer them

030to me or you can make a press release or both because I don't read what the paper says I don't you know and the other people wouldn't know what you said to me all right we'll get back to you all right I will put it out thank you all right moving on next on the agendas item four superintendance reports first 10 scale report hi good evening I am Dustin newcomer area director for Kids Care Division of the Boys and Girls Clubs in Elkhart County I'm here tonight to share about our partnership with Goshen Community Schools kind of who Kids Care is and a little bit about our program foreign expensive well I look forward to hanging with my friends if you're playing with my friends are really nice and they help me out when I

031eat yeah people um what I love about that video is uh we love hearing from our parents but we had probably a line of kids waiting to share what they loved about our program they wanted to be in front of the camera and kind of give to their opinion so um talk a little bit about our mission how they align it so uh we inspired Empower you to reach their full potential um you know Goshen has that similar value of inspiring and empowering and enriching uh the students lives so I challenge my staff to build relationships with every child that's no program uh we have almost 700 kids throughout our 11 different sites in Elkhart County and uh the staff at those sites know kids by name knows Mom Dad Grandma Grandpa whoever's coming to

032pick up that day and so we do that um by having no it's not one to work for me okay thank you uh one staff member to every 20 students so uh trying to keep a low staffed child ratio is really important for us to build those relations you need to make that impact of those kids and supportive uh we have dedicated homework in Reading time uh we have a tutoring program for Jewish Community Schools that we've been able to have in place the last two years through a grant that's been really uh influential and really helping on the academic side and just enriching uh that whole experience and then promoting successful habits for and after school I think this is the one that I really kind of like to key in on is making

033sure our kids are developing those social skills we've seen a lot of kids that are you know lagging behind in that through the pandemic it's sort of virtual learning so trying to build those successful habits as we kind of get back into the daily lives and those sorts of things so a few highlights of our program we are before and after school care uh grades K through six we have three locations in Goshen Community Schools who serve all seven elementaries we have a few intermediate students as well we are at Chandler model and Waterford uh don is human Transportation help kind of follow those kids use those sites depending on what schools they go to so we've got almost 45 at each location we'll kind of go through numbers here in a second as well

034uh and then we are open early in the morning so we do have parents that already drop off at 5 30 before they head to work um if we work by six you know some of the kids are there for long days with us on the uh opposite ends in the book ends at school there and also open after school they get a stack near gosh Community Schools as well in the afternoon program which is really nice uh so they go to a meal with us and also a chance to kind of build on homework time and also just building those connections with kids and affordable kind like we saw the video uh 55 per week if you're on morning or afternoon and then full-time rate you can see there is 75 actually the last

035two years to the grant it was free for for all uh members of our program for that Grand Prix afternoon so uh next year I'll go back to being a fee based program with those rates are super affordable compared to a lot of their options in the area and at 146 students enroll in the program we do have a wait list and have student staff ratios so the need is there serving Lots in this family then we still have people wanting to join the program as well and then kind of a highlight for me is the mental health specialist we have on staff we just brought this person on board in January uh really trying to look at the uh the mental health side with our kids and so we've seen a lot of this

036over the last few years and trying to kind of uh be preventative grow active and get in front of some of the stuff before they get into middle school and high school and so we're safe space for kids before and after school we have dedicated homework and reading time uh they get to go outside uh we have the opportunity to go to the gym so like to be active like to get kids move in and encourage that that free time that free play and then we also are doing arts and crafts so that's kind of the third bullet point there trying to get kids creative they love spending that time making things for Mom and Dad thinking things home uh we have weekly programming that we do basically different different areas of interest and then

037just games activities so some of the social kind of Replay it's really cool to see some of the kids make connections with kids from different schools and build those relationships as they get older and so we want to partner we want to continue to partner uh working towards trying to get some Curriculum maps from our districts uh looking at how can we support uh what we're doing in the classroom throughout the years up we build our programming around this to really kind of have a whole circle approach with child uh supporting teachers I love hearing from principals administrators what can we do to help Provide support to the teacher in the classroom I think that's really important that we are kind of that place to help if we can provide something that maybe they're not

038able to experience and then involved in our staff and training uh you know sometimes we're we're the only staff in building 5 30 in the morning making sure we're using the right language making sure we're trained on safety protocol uh things like that I think it's important to move forward and in community events we were at the end of our roundups back to school nights love to be part of those and continue to be out here at the community and kind of promoting what Kids Care actually does so uh thank you to to Dr hope Dr Metcalf allowing me to speak tonight in the board um if you have any questions I'd love to answer questions so you mentioned you know Staffing constraints I mean if you were Staffing would increase I mean what would

039be the capacity potentially we could get to yeah really good based on cafeteria size yeah I mean we just have to stick to that one to 20 as the boys and girls because of America commercial I mean we're kind of struggling across the county with Staffing and with this well everybody else but yeah it's really yeah period size we have the good staff it's a fantastic program appreciate it yeah thank you Mr newcomer thank you for being here tonight uh student handbooks hey uh in the board in the report pack you should have received a board memo um outlining the changes also said some of the highlights here um and go through some of the the more the larger changes besides just China title changes um and and page numbers um and on the first

040page really it's just title changes um the removal of Chandler as an elementary school is a has a TBD have to be determined uh model principle update um moving to page moving really to um about the bullying uh we have had a paragraph in there that really talked about conflict trying to differentiate between what bullying and just conflict is we added that last year but found it um some of our parents um it actually did not clarify as much as we had hoped and so we would we were just going to stick with what the what the Indiana code talked about with bullying and so that has been that we're at we're looking to remove that also on page five um attendance is an issue that we've been that we've been struggling with um and

041that goes to the Elkhart the Elkhart County attendance program is defunct it was a program where all the schools in Elkhart County came together to come up with the the guidelines and some of the consequential consequences and steps in order to address truancy within the in the um within the schools that has kind of broken apart and has been for probably about five years so what we have done is we have continued to use these steps that were created um but just we lack some of the supports that we had when we were county-wide Institute so we did include we did include the the Indiana code for truancy which says habitual truancy is an absence of 10 school days um or more within the school year without being excused and chronic sex and chronic absenteeism

042is is 10 or 18 days or more and So within that Saturday school and level four we've kind of eliminated that it's been something we haven't done for for a long time and then the level five really talks about once it's referred to probation or Google or um DCS would be taken to a juvenile court um we have not had that relationship with the um court system for quite a while and they've not been able to do that just because of just time constraints on their part um really down CMR when we go down toward the CMR um and lunch prices a lot of that as you know are determined later in the spring once curriculum is decided and amendments determine what the cost of that curriculum is uh Kramer the lunch programs also later

043in the summer once we get guidelines from the federal government that will determine increases to increases to those so those are just to be determined the large the majority of changes really goes into the transportation part of the handbook which is some addition to the general rules I'm just talking about some some bus rider expectations and the safety of our main concern we also talk about um we added the consistent one location schedule that you learned we heard about at the last board meeting and expectations like that that mirrors a number of the districts around us such as guanine middleware or North Ridge about having parents determine that one stop in the morning one stop in the afternoon versus consistency um also that would mean the removal of page 35 which was really how the

044old request system worked and also you know option one is one it's just some of the options we were given parents at that point um and then the 72-hour guideline um or any changes can be made we just ask them to give us time to make sure that they're implemented before uh you expect your child because calling it two o'clock in the afternoon for a a change does not it does take a little bit of time to get students scheduled and rounded onto a new bus um and the last thing really is the um in discipline the the handbook used to say was determine about this one was determined by the principal we also want the director of transportation to have some uh conversation with the principal to determine maybe it does not need to

045be a suspension from school maybe it is just a suspension for the bus or vice versa and so uh until now it was really the the behest of the principle to determine that and so we just want to make that a collaborative effort and then attendance zones can be determined and that's the elementary Network in a nutshell any questions about that I'm just CMR jumps again uh curriculum curriculum material yeah and it's um how certain is it that that's going to be included from there there are a couple legislative action or um items those bills have moved to address them sure hey secondary changes so a lot of what Dr Metcalf has already highlighted um curriculum rentals Transportation attendance changes you'll see some of those um addition Provisions in the secondary handbooks as well um

046there's just a few things for each level that I would like to highlight for the junior high they've added some language that is related to safety during after school activities and during parent pick-up and delivery just making sure that parents and students are very clear about what the expectations are so we keep everyone safe you'll also see the addition of the explanation of this docket app which I think was presented by Mrs Baker um see something say something do something so just explaining that in the handbook you'll also see that as in the high school um and then our Transportation uh handbook used to be separate from the junior high and now we just integrated that in again all those changes that Dr Metcalf highlighted are there for the high school there are some other

047changes not similar to the junior high as much as we love delivery services the high school administrators do not and so they're requesting that parent students do not have food delivered to the school it will be denied um and the same is true for flowers balloons gifts we love that our students care about each other but we don't see deliberation um also some additional language when it comes to discipline of the recording and posting fights insta getting fights there will be um trust via social media there will be consequences for that um uh issuing tickets for nicotine and arrests for teachers saying you can see our additions to the language and then finally some exciting additions to the high school handbook just more specificity in the language of the technical diploma in addition to the

048academic honors diploma which is very exciting in addition to the CTE Pathways of coursework the lines with those Pathways and then just our increased dual credit options there's just a lot more language there that outlines that we want to make sure our parents understand the options that our students have for advanced coursework so that's really exciting and then you'll get to hear from Mrs Noe I'm telling you a little bit more about a lot more about what those and that's it for secondary okay any questions for either one all right thanks well good we'll come back as a comeback is discussion item and then all right staggered opening Dr Metcalf tell us about it okay does anybody realize what happened three uh three years ago today yes three years ago today we uh we were

049um we dismissed for the weekend on Friday the 13th not to come back until August because of the closure by the by the governor of the school um and as we were getting ready to come back and as things were happening and we were trying to think that we were trying to figure out the Department of Health are they letting us come back were they not letting us come back one thing that happened was um because of the late notice of whether we could have school in person or not was we had we had the first day or two as a virtual day so that um parents could pick up the devices but also meet the meet the teachers um give teachers an opportunity to learn about their students before the school year started so

050that was a silver lining that happened to be positive with that was just the start of that school year especially for students who were new to Goshen either new to a building such as kindergarten at that time the junior high or the high school um it allowed them to have a smooth transition so we started thinking about and talking talking to principals and teachers about what made that nursing so uh so beneficial and it was that ability to meet those new students in the school and so one of the things we're looking at we're coaching is that in an effort to make this school year more more um successful for students and parents especially those that are transitioning in grades of K as they go to uh our elementaries grades five as they go from

051four or five if they go to intermediate seven as they go to the junior high and grade nine as they go to the high school how do we make sure that those students are given the attention and the orientation they need in order to be successful so one of the things what we're proposing is that on August 16th which is our first day of school uh the students that we would we are would like to come would be students in those grade levels um and the remainder the remaining students would start the next day um we really feel like by having K5 7 and 9 attend school that day it helps with transitioning those students especially some of our kindergarten students who have never been to school before and don't have have not had a

052school experience even preschool um will also help with some of our some of our high school students as they as they start to learn to navigate the world of high school um provides the opportunity for teachers who are not whose students are not there that contact parents of an immigrant parents of the students who who are will be coming the next day in order to learn more about this to learn more about their students but also then to talk to parents about expectations of the school um another benefit we had was students with special needs who are new to our building or just new to a grade level would also be able to parents could call and have that student come in maybe walk their schedule with their teacher meet their teacher meet their meet

053their special ed teacher and really build some supports in place for those for those students um and then of course it allows us to take a more all hands on deck for those students who are who are there and who are learning how to go through a cafeteria line how to go how we go to the bathroom how we line up how we know how we go to the buses um at all grade levels and so we think that this could be a benefit to to our students and our parents and one of the ways we're able to do this because we are part of the Innovative school network which does allow some flexibility when it comes to some of the state requirements to create these opportunities that that schools who aren't part of the

054Innovative schools Network might not have not really yeah do any I mean other schools in the vicinity of us they've tried this previously not in our vicinity um School the school that I talked to who's done it ever since the pandemic is Batesville is they actually do a transition grades come one day then they stay home the next day and everybody else comes the next day we just didn't feel like that was neces really necessary for our students and our families who who are familiar with our schools and could also leave some confusion to a kindergarten student who I go to school one day that I don't go to school so we'd like those students when they come just to start at the start movement through the school year that makes sense yeah this too

055is just superintendent's report tonight thing snowing my ability report pleasure if I can get this thing for work and I can't save something completely done Megan's Park let's see all right um tonight I'm going to present to you uh annual report we do for our high ability for the board just to get their eyes inside of one of our programs for our students and we're going to talk about four things tonight identification the service options that we offer we're going to take a glimpse into one of those service options which is our self-contained service option and then we're going to get from a parent uh what they're experiencing with high ability and then I got it on but uh I'll just okay so Indiana code defines students with high ability as two parts they either

056are performing at a very outstanding high level or they've showed the potential to perform at a very high level and they are also characterized characterized by exceptional gifts talents motivation or interest so every year we do a very intense identification practice um and you will see this on the next slide with a variety of pieces of assessment to determine which students are identified for high ability so we have teacher and parent referral we have our summited and formative assessments that students take throughout the year we have our covad assessment which is an assessment for that potential piece of the definition we also have our classroom performance piece and then we have a characteristic inventory of what we call a six piece so those identification pieces combine allow us to identify students that are identified as

057high ability in this particular slide right now we are servicing 580 students that are identified in K-12 if you look at the arrow down we have 368 of those students that are identified in both Elam 97 students to the left there identified just an Ela and then 115 students identified in math those students are identified and then we offer them service options to go along with that identification according to the iboe coordinator's handbook you can serve your students in a variety of ways viability grouping by just daily challenging them by acceleration by differentiating and independent work the key is that you recognize there's not just one specific type of programming that will meet the needs of these students they come with lots of variety of talents and abilities and they do have a different approach

058to learning than ours that some students do in our other student populations so one of the keys we have worked really hard is on a variety of service options so I'm going to walk you through those service options as we have them now we identify in kindergarten but we don't really offer that service option until first grade once those students are identified there is some differentiation done in our classrooms for kindergarten so we do have the service options just not as clearly defined and it depends upon when we finish identification in the spring every year in our first and second grade we have cluster groupings at each Elementary School that means whatever the student has identified in they are put in a cluster group with other students that are identified in that same area so

059students are identified in both at a particular building there might be five or six students in that same classroom that are identified in both they're identified in math then they're kept with the students that might also be identified in math at that grade level in our third to fourth grade our sorry third to sixth grade we then open up that option so we have our cluster groupings at each elementary school but then we also offer our self-contained High ability classrooms those start at third grade so we have third and fourth at Chamberlain Elementary and then fifth and sixth at our Goshen intermediate school so we're going to take a look at the self-contained classroom model tonight with me is Daniel longcrower who's our sixth grade self-contained classroom teacher and Shannon Smith who's our third grade

060self-contained classroom so they're going to walk you through a little bit of what happens in that particular service option okay um at the elementary level um we have three main goals we work on obviously strong academics um we work on um being able to develop our passions and follow our interests and with stem and steam type projects and we also work on the soft skills such as collaboration learning how to make mistakes being brave enough to try new things a lot of that is happening in our third grade classroom um my students are there on the left they have come from all seven of the Goshen Elementary schools and we spend a good chunk at the beginning just getting to know each other as friends as Learners and then we jump right into the academics

061um our main job is to make sure that they have mastered those third grade standards according to the state and goshen's curriculum and then we get to jump off and accelerate of a few students right now in sixth grade math skills we are reading at Middle School level it's really great to see uh the growth that they can make in in that year we also as I said do a lot of stem and steam type projects some Hands-On a lot of science a lot of Fine Arts and a lot of Explorations at that age so it's still age-appropriate but it's designed to their academic needs since we like all the other classrooms in Goshen schools up to sixth grade are using the Whit and wisdom curriculum right now we are tying our largest projects into

062that curriculum to extend and to go deeper um for example our first group our first module is on the ocean and we went to the Shedd Aquarium this year did some independent study there our second module on Space we uh you can see a little guy with the rocket we've tied that into force and Science and they've also done projects on things such as nebulae and the International Space Station so they can take their interest and learn what we are still learning about space our third module is on coming to America as an immigrant experience historically and they will be um going through different periods of integration in American history and what those immigrants might have come gone through coming here and finally our last module is on the Fine Arts and you can see

063a group there um for the past several years um our students have been able to explore different types of art choose artists to research to recreate and really to find out what they are interested in in a way that supports their learning really funny thing is that left group those are my current sixth graders second you can go to the next one um so once I found out I was going to be stepping into this role this year I immediately talked to Shannon said we got to do some stuff so here's just some of the things that I have been doing particularly Math and Science um we have to explore the Engineering Process so we build bridges that we added on what if we wanted to 3D design and then 3D print a model of

064your bridge to scale um the one in the middle is not a very successful bridge in and of itself but I like their accurate model that they've made and then the boy on the far right was the first one to have this design and printed and he's excited for that um some of the extensions we've been playing around this year we're looking at percents and percent increase in change and so the natural I thought hey we should get on the stock market so that last picture um we've actually been Trading on the stock market for a couple months now and once they're finished with whatever work we're doing they can get in and check to see how their stuff are doing and they've done what government regulations can do to the stock market and what

065that does to your stock some of them are doing quite well I'm not giving any money to in real life uh in the middle we're calculating surface area apartment costs and what that means our most recent project is on the far right in fifth grade they did some robotics work with stem um and I decided to take that and then bump it a little bit so they're actually coding anonymously in this um where the robot would deliver the the scenarios a robot can deliver medical supplies to a specific thing within a hospital so they are coding so that they are not in control of it the robot is naturally figuring out where it needs to go on its own and this has been a huge shock to them because it has not been very easy

066like Shannon said just working on that um ability to be wrong and what you do when you're wrong is a really hard lesson to learn even next month so one way we really worked on um just like how do you fail is we in December got together sixth grade and third grade and my intervention group for my original group of sixth graders designed breakout lock box challenges for third graders so all the things are designed around third grade standards third grade math and it was hard I know there was kids in tears and there were some struggles but it was really good to see the two um not only Branch together but then come alongside and like help each other out they also did some designing ornaments that were then we got with the globe

067Gorge and and we also did some 3D modeling where the kid Drew their idea my kid coded their idea and then we printed out a couple so we've been really focusing on how can we make the high ability World connected together and how can we also accelerate it up a little bit more this is evident in Shannon's grandchild it's the next slide um so as Mrs Nelly said we have kids that are in that the self-contained program but we also have kids there ability groups in the classrooms or um we thought it would give one to get some of them together have a good time socialize a little bit so we had a high ability game night um a few weeks ago and invited every identified student from grades two to six across all of

068the buildings whether they were in the self-contained classrooms or not and you can see the Statics we had 62 students come and at least 50 parents and our tiny Chamberlain cafeteria so you can imagine the sound um got staff and high school volunteers they went through the food like crazy because that's what happens um it was really great to see the older kids and the younger kids getting together and doing Jenga there were some more complicated games but just having a good time getting to know each other and connecting with other people who are on the same wavelength so hopefully that's going to be an annual event Shannon and Daniel um the best part about them is their energy with these students and so one of the goals we have is first for teachers of

069high ability to be licensed in high ability so once you take this role on you do have some responsibilities to trying to get license so it's a continual goal of us alone tonight is a parent perspective about the self-contained service option would be tonight with Lisa Jordan Leeson had the I think the best world option here she filled in for our fourth grade self-contained teacher who was on a paternity leave um so she got to see it not only from a parent perspective but also a teacher in the trenches so I asked her tonight to just reflect with us on the parent perspective So Lisa hi thank you hello again my name is Lisa Jordan I'm a mother of three and a former Elementary School teacher my oldest daughter is currently in fourth grade at

070Chamberlain and high Billy program and as Tracy said last fall I had the unique opportunity of being a long-term sub in her classroom for 12 weeks um this was the highlight of my teaching career thus far not only did I get to be at school with my daughter each day I also had a classroom full of quirky smart and Creative Kids as my children have become identified as high ability Learners I have sought out more information on what this actually means through my research I have become more convinced than ever that high ability education is a critical component of our schools and of our society as a whole higher ability does not equate with Higher Achievement gifted Learners need a different approach to learning not only do these programs help individual students develop their high

071potential it will also provide Society with educated professionals who are creative leaders and problem solvers harnessing these talents is crucial to forming a high functioning Society last as a parent I'd like to talk about grocery school's High ability program my husband and I are committed to giving our children the best educational opportunities we can and the high ability program and advanced courses that will follow are what are keeping us in the school system I assume that these programs are retaining other families like ours as well we want to see these programs continually developed and improved upon not only as a retention tool for Goshen Community Schools but also as a draw for other families in the county every child deserves to reach their highest academic potential and for some students these programs are critical in

072order for them to do just that thank you so that is just one service option so we're going to show you a little bit more about the surface options available um you saw the first and second grade you saw glimpse into the self-contained even though we have cluster groupings around the district for other students in in our other Elementary buildings let's take a look at sevens and eight in seventh and 8th we have our high ability honors courses and our high school credit courses so students that are identified in high ability have those courses and then they can also go and get high school credit that happens regardless of whether you're in cluster groupings or self-contained classrooms so once you merge to seventh and eighth those options are available to our students the offerings are

073in math and Ela but our high school credit courses are Algebra 1 geometry and foreign language so they can actually start to build their their high school transcripts as seventh and 8th graders um this is also the time where we find our high ability students on that second part of the definition with talents and just leadership skills some of those things so you see some pictures back on that other slide of different places where our high ability students are engaged in different leadership roles and different um Talent Outreach processes let's talk High School this is probably where I'm most excited about but some changes that are coming in at the high school our high school service model basically is self-selection so our students at our high ability are self-selecting the course in the academic pathway

074Pathways that they would want to take um we are highly highly encouraging and prodding and pushing our high ability students to be academic honors diplomas because these are our students with the highest potential to do so um that would mean we want them to take those AP courses we want them to take those dual credit and or IV selections that are available let's talk about dual credit this is probably the best place we have been in a while um Broadway's planning committee is a committee that is required by highability from the state of Indiana um that group works with me we meet about three times a year but we are advocates for high ability um and they have been pressing like we have not offered enough of those higher level courses um and that that's

075been known I didn't take over for highability for this District until about three years ago and that was one of the first things I noticed like we don't have enough of those those courses that can carry our students to those higher levels so now that we are opening that dual credit um and AP courses we've just opened up a whole new window for our students and you can see this on these two slides this is not new this has been happening across Indiana Across the Nation um we have just been slow to get on board with it and um it was something I've been pressing for for a while so I'm really excited that we've moved in that direction so let's take a look at what happens here's our current English courses we have English

076nine honors for our hability we have English 10 and currently they would go to an IB um English course if that's what they chose to do now that we're offering dual Credit in AP you watch those gray boxes we've just opened up the opportunity for our highest our students with the highest potential to now take some dual credit with them to whatever College they've had so those students can now gain some of those classes that they won't have to take as freshmen in college which means they get to their major a lot faster and that's where their interest lies so if we look at map this is what we currently offer in math and as we look what dual credit and AP is offering all those gray boxes now so our kids can take that

077trajectory so eighth grade they're taking algebra one ninth grade geometry 10th grade algebra two and now we've just opened up populist courses for dual credit AP Statistics if we have kids going to any type of engineering any type of higher degree places in their careers like finite math statistics those are places our kids will struggle if they don't have those so this is just a wide open arena for them if you look at history now up at the top is where our current history course is down the bottom will be our new offerings in history so now that's even just broadening even more dual credit AP courses for our students science this is the big one currently we have biology honors chemistry honors IV biology and then an elective of sports exercise IB now if

078our new courses in science we have the the IB but look if they take chemistry honors they can get physics I was a pretty amazed that we didn't have kids taking build credit physics earlier especially if they're doing any type of competitive applications in in other colleges so this lens itself there's two more Clips Megan on this um that lends itself to that Physics course that chemistry AP environmental science which is huge right now to offer that dual Credit in that so we just we just are can blossom these service options for our students so why why does this matter it matters because we have students now that can come out of our high school with advanced placement credits dual credit um they can get right to their coursework that's a student right now in

079our science like we had two-thirds of Hoosiers we're earning college credit before graduating from high school we didn't have that happening here so now you're talking we can we can say we are part of this movement to get students ready for college with college courses happening right in our high school um here's just some more information dual credit they have a submit they can come out with a semester of college under their belts meaning they they don't they don't have to pay for those who are very minimal as high school um Indiana college core just the statistics for that and we weren't a part of it and so this is just this is just awesome for our kids um the next one that bottom one is huge dual credit earners are less likely to stop

080out of college and more likely to complete on time or early the statistically if we can get students to recognize what they have to do in a college course they're going to stick with it and especially for our highest or our Highest Potential Learners because now they can get right to those Majors that they care about so they are going to be a doctor they can start to take some of those medical courses early if they're going to engineering they can start to get to those engineering courses rather than taking all those Bachelor courses that you have to take as a beginning freshman so that's exciting for us okay stunning is the state data on what it saves okay what the recent report out with dual credit it saves the state taxpayers nearly 78 jobs

08178 million annually so by offering dual credit we are actually saving taxpayer money especially in in our low-income student or any students that are able to take dual credit so even though I'm excited for highability this actually opens up the door for more than just our high ability students so we just talked about the four things identification service option we took a glimpse into one we listened to a parent perspective all this doesn't come without a cost um it's not a cheap cheap program we get about fifty thousand dollars a year out of the high ability Grant um close to half of that goes to pay for one teacher of our self-containing classroom um then the rest there's a certain allotment that has to go for identification so all our cogat tests that we give

082students for identification so it doesn't come without a cost yet I think um we still have to be cognizant of one service model doesn't fit all and these are the students that if we can offer them options they will they will save the taxpayers even money later as we do now offering those little credit courses purpose let's get our kids graduated and get in onto the career path that that led themselves for our highest stable students questions in the high school we're not offering new courses we're just they have the ability to offer the Dual credit now some of them will be new because we didn't offer until credit before so we have teachers right now going to get trained um some of them work horses but they weren't necessarily college courses so some of

083them were there but now we're adding that college that college credit is that's a good I mean I think a lot of people think we're also we have all new curriculum I don't think that's the case we have most of these courses we're just adding another level um you're correct there will be some new resources because they are college students but for the most part my understanding is um they're fully prepared um to present these possible what's even better is that is all coming from a grant so um you know we're opening doors for so many students rather than just highability students by by offering this person thank you foreign I sit on the park department and um really no report there other than to say the maintenance building is moving along well in the

084street here along the railroad just so that's exciting um but no other report from Parks Board anything from the committees or groups here on you know the music Community Matt if you have the minutes with you I just want to highlight the musical at the high school if you went to see it I saw Mr Weddle there on Saturday night it was an amazing performance I've been going to musicals in the high school for the past seven years and I'm always super impressed and delighted to see so many uh talented students doing an amazing work so yeah we were there yesterday just just what a delightful show and definitely like you said just a lot of talent not only on this page but also in the bin it's really cool what I was in high

085school can can do yeah Roger I'll just say that regard to legislative committee yeah um it's a very very confusing and busy time in the legislature everything that passed the house is now over on the Senate side and vice versa things that you thought were did may not be dead they can be put into some other bill um watching the legislature is like watching sausage being paid it doesn't look very appetizing and you hope that it comes up with something that will okay um Dr hope said that we got more money for special education and pl but the money for complexity proposals for both propulsions but it's not for um I was at the third house meeting uh Friday in the morning and Melissa Mitchell was there and I was there talking to the legislators

086about complexity index um not Houston over in the Senate has some misgivings about expanding the voucher program it may get expanded maybe not as much as somebody wants it they expanded we did talk about whether the money that was going to go to vouchers could go to complexity index but there's another indication that it will about 30 percent of the increased funds for public education for education is going to vouchers and non-public schools so when I talk about what's going to education it's not all yeah for public education now I I read one time it's been in the house budget the house is proposing is about an eight and a half percent increase to K-12 but actually less than half of them would be the Republic an um so we had our quarterly meeting for

087the Building Trades Advisory Board uh in February uh the house to get is on uh pay Parkway 1510 hay Parkway uh the corporate Trails neighborhood across from black squirrel uh house is progressing quite nicely it is sold they are a track to have it completed by the end of the school year we have an open house set for Saturday May the 20th from 3 to 6 p.m so it gives us the community a great opportunity to go out and see what these students have have made throughout the year and they started with a hole in the ground and they will have completed a full house so it's a fantastic program it's one of the Hallmarks of Goshen High School that allows people to learn a trade that will they can use for the rest of

088their life um action was taken to buy a lot of next year's house again in the same neighborhood we've been fortunate to be I believe the fourth year in a row we've been in that neighborhood um so they're moving forward and as we will probably hear more a little bit later on we keep having increased interest in this class from our high school students so we're aside from future anything else in committee awards that were on all right thank you item number six on our agenda is our consent agenda items again these are items that we don't vote on what we rather concept and their approval after going through them and all the board members will have looked through these before the before the meeting 6.1 is approval of checks numbered 58 22 to 16

08916 19. and 60455-60457 and eft's numbered 606-620. um in Goshen Junior High School Colorado field trip um the item 6.3 is the state J Career Development conference um for an overnight field trip 6.4 is a memorandum of understanding between motion Community Schools and the Goshen Community Schools foundation for the alumni Plaza fundraising campaign yeah 6.5 Crossroads United Way community partner Grant 6.6 obsolete vehicles we have vehicles that are no longer in service or are needed and we actually need to approve their disposal same with technology equipment which is 6.7 obsolete technology equipment and finally 6.8 is personnel folks that are coming and going and we have a few retirements to acknowledge and the Personnel report tonight Melody Knutson a devil party hard of hearing teacher through exact will be retired after 33 and a half

090years of service Kaylene Miller our first grade teacher at Prairie View will be retired after 18 years of service or a pedophoric school psychologist classified section with Daryl mitchler evening the custodian junior high will be retiring now for 11 years and Deborah Ott School of nutrition staff at Chamberlain Elementary School will be retiring after 15 years of service we thank all of these people for their service to Goshen students and Families all right any comments or questions on consent agenda items 6.4 is the memorandum of understanding between Washington Community Schools and the school's Foundation regarding him online States events ocean Community School of appraisal front and costs for the instructions over the cost for social destruction I know we've discussed a little bit about potential and not being able to raise enough but I maybe

091I misunderstood and that though I didn't realize that we're out fronting the cost and Mr hopes replied to me he says that the bulk of the payments are received in the next five years from the uh schools Foundation to Goshen Community Schools and that will be pandas through the bonding process um you describe that a little bit more to me as in according to what was presented they've already got a million dollars almost raised by uh is that not used to start it or is it going to use to start it wide five years so the money that the foundation has gained at this point will be used to start that project however that will not cover the full cost so this whole project will be done by next fall next August and so Goshen

092Community School Forefront the cost for this entire project of letting me paid at that time the foundation then will pay uh Goshen continuing school back as people buy benches people buy signs as people buy the different things available in the alumni Plaza they pay for that over five years not all at once foreign fundraising campaign um most donors that make a a major gift commitment will do that and say they'll pay that over a period of years so when when you mentioned that a million has already been raised that doesn't mean they have a million at hand that means they have commitments for that but that money will come in from the donors and from their commitments over the next five years is there any motivation um like the way this is written since it

093basically said that you don't have to pay if you don't raise the money and what's the motivation for improved to not get lazy just got from those I think we have a very committed group um the alumni committee uh leaders of this community they want to do well by traditional English and Community Schools I think there's enough motivation memorandum um maybe specify I think it said I'm sharing this correctly they will the parties will establish and fundraisal for the project um yeah some of that need to be more explicit by like a timeline for that other than just the five years and you know if you don't get to the end it's we're paying for it like to encourage that to be fundraised as quickly as possible can that be added to them yeah I

094guess you can make a motion to Amendment if you would like to right that that's your option as a board member is to make that motion that you would like to amend what is here and then we can have discussion about that to encourage a more speed fundraising and to not make it so open-ended that if it's not raised it's just we're going to pay for it out of debt okay is there a second to the motion uh seeing none um the motion dies um certainly understand your concern um I I do believe that um given our own history with the foundation and with the people that have lent their support and with The Campaign Committee I like Dr hope and very comfortable that they they are not going to leave us an alert [Music]

095um any other comments from um so um I'm trying to think here if they're we passed at the last meeting yes and so at that point and within that passage we said the mou would be finalized yes at that point in time yes it has been worked out by our school attorney yes and and recognizing recognizing Mr Cook's concerns um but also recognizing that there wasn't a second of emotion then the consent agendas stands approved engagement and as presented make sense all right I want to make sure we're doing things right here uh next we come to action items we have one action item tonight and that is repurposing Chandler School of that girl yes you're asking for your approval this evening for the purposing of Chandler and the new attendance Zone Zone elementary students

096the repurposing of Chandler makes better use of the resources we have to meet the needs of our current students we have increase in student requests for classes in both construction and Manufacturing the current classrooms at Goshen High School are in submission to handle this demand will be an immediate Savings of about 200 000 through increased efficiencies in Staffing in addition Goshen Community Schools will save about four to five million dollars by not building a new construction classroom or a new manufacturing classroom there will also be the ongoing cost Savings of Staffing in six elementaries rather than buying so seven six rather than that thanks the cost over four thousand dollars to send this due to the Elkhart area career center with similar price tag for the pathways as well see while we will continue to

097use the Elkhart area career center and the pathways there's more student demand for construction and Manufacturing classes that we have available at either the other commission or what happens having our own construction and Manufacturing classes will also save thousands of dollars we have about 100 students attending the career center right now we have about 25 attending the pathways at home and see many of our students just choose not to go to either Career Center or the pathways of yoc because of the distance or because of the time it takes out of their school schedule having these classes here in Goshen will be a convenience for them if more students will take those classes we will therefore have more students that were ready to enter the Goshen area Workforce high school students who are attending Chandler

098will park if the existing parking lots around the ocean High School they will then walk or shuttle to Chandler current Chandler students will attend West Ocean Parkside or Chamberlain whose parents have been made aware of those choices we talked to many of those parents last week we plan to keep the playground at Chandler for that neighborhood Becky and I also take our grandson to the gym playground often Chandler could also be turned back into an elementary school at any time if our population shifts and the leads for the school corporation change then it could be turned back into an elementary school we'd have to find another solution for manufacturing and construction of course so we're asking for your approval yeah given that this is an action item I would ask for a motion and a

099second to put it on the floor and we'll discuss make a motion put it on the floor it's been moved and seconded that we approved the plan that been presented to um by Dr hope um discussion no question about the lower enrollment and shareholder of students at the elementary school to increase in the future likelihood of the Chandler neighborhood increasing you know population in general so we saw from the Democracy report at our recent City School line meeting that we will actually see a drop in enrollment um we're all elementary students so again the repurposing of the elementary school is not easy it's a change um if you went to Chandler and your children go to Chandler it's a big change however I don't think ocean Community Schools can see a contraction of the student

100population we've seen without maintenance machines I was a Chandler Horner my kids were Chandler Hornets okay so um the guy made comments in the past that makes emotions about it but the school board the school corporation has taken some arrows for building the new intermediate school but at the time the projection I mean the elementary schools were both and using portable classrooms and rejections where it was going to continue to grow and things have changed since then and I was just listening to something on NPR that actually wasn't on MBR that a lot of parents are choosing not to have kids because they can't afford to have kids in these days you know a certain population some of us don't worry yeah I know I know some of us maybe should worry about him don't

101but anyway um so yeah I I agree that it's not Rosy right now and hopefully when mayor Scotsman and the Redevelopment commission and everybody gets more housing available in the ocean and people who want to come to Ocean Community Schools and move into the history then it will turn around again so you know will Chandler reopen is an elementary school I don't know that it will but I certainly see the need to expand the technology side of the school corporation too yeah so Mr Scott and I appreciate you bringing that up to one of the main concerns that we shared with me from different people in the community was why did we build this new Intermediate School like a reverse in the elementary now and again as you stated the population at the time will

102be planned the Intermediate School our population was increasing then covet happens and that shifted a lot of things we just don't see that population increase but we were saying that we're actually seeing a decrease six and I was on the board when that decision was made and six six of our seven elementaries are overcrowded our classes were meeting on the Parkside stage um the middle school was was um very overcrowded um had almost almost 1500 students um almost 1600 thank you Miss Baker um and and and I we made the decision the best decision we could at the time and things that really changed in the last seven seven years especially since the pandemic I was not on the board when that decision was made but but I did certainly read enough about it too

103to know that when studies were made in the weather building new school or not it was going to be more expensive to expand all the elementary schools absolutely and and the legislature doesn't help you know I want to expand vouchers and make it easy for kids to the public schools and go somewhere else so you know there's some courses working that it's not as relative as it won and so on yeah I think that we've seen a great report from Mrs de Meyer from high school though the power numbers have increased exponentially with our CTE planning we've seen it in the things we're seeing we see what the eighth graders coming in that this should be another large year and decisions that were made in the 90s and that's when decisions were made and we

104started to pull back some of this education it was just kind of the national Trend and many schools in this area did that and that was decisions that were made by many others but I think it's good to see that we're talking again about expanding what we can offer individuals that want to learn a trade you may not want to go into a four-year or a two-year College and support the industry we have so I think it's we need to keep figure out how we expand these CTE types of classes so this is like good Avenue I think it's worthy of the discussion the majority of our students do enter the workforce after graduating from high school so they need to enter that Workforce prepared for those careers and preparing to a good skills I

105think yeah when you're looking at repurposing building um I know extended part of the reason is the cost of operating the schools in the future is not going down the number of students are downstairs that cost analysis going on there what is the cost to repurpose the school so we are just starting that process now um I don't know Mr Edmonton put a guess on that at this point it'll be minimal compared to the description oh my goodness yes I I would uh that's the first step I'm not sure which construction classes are going to be over there there'll be a difference between manufacturing and actual construction costs I think if we had to put in some doors and a new uh dust collection system uh new electricity for that area is probably close to

106a hundred thousand dollars but if you did it for manufacturing you'd be less than half of that so so you can compare that 50 to 60 000 compared to four or five million neighboring school just built a new new facility for it and it said that kind of a price tag well we I guess we're fortunate um every year we do receive a grant from our local Redevelopment commission um it's right around a hundred thousand dollars and committed to 500 000 over five years that was their second commitment um that has gone into allowing us to buy new equipment it's allowed us to repurpose so I think that's a good partnership that the community has seen because we're training students to enter the workforce when they do graduate so that that is revenue I guess

107a gift that we do see I will say it's a gift that you receive every year it's an investment I think into this community and the community Workforce a good partnership between the development Commission in schools providing skilled labor to go into job market that's what area employers have asked for years so you have a projected number of students who think we're actually going soon use the classes in that repurposing 100. and then that includes all of the programs that person and all the programs yeah um how much does that actually I mean you said it was 4 000 bucks in together so different programs have different price tags and careers that are um that was about four thousand dollars in the student that includes transportation and attending it or is that just Transportation that's

108just the money we send the nurse on our first group you mentioned culinary arts I mean while I've seen that Olympic program and again we discover culinary arts apparently on Fairfield escology there are things that can be added that aren't ready yet and I was going to ask them if there are other things that can be put in that if there will be room or other things to be put into that ability right our goal would be to expand CTE offerings and programming across the world the more we can offer here in Goshen the more convenient that is for our graduates so we don't have to pick up larger portion of their schedules great offerings that they're just not convenient for all of our students again the bulk of our students enter the workforce so

109be able to concentrate on helping them uh get a leg up and be ready for that workbooks you made the comment earlier that change is difficult and I've certainly not listened to some people since the announcement was made and and there are some good comments I mean I know it's going to be difficult for our kids to leave their friends and go to different schools with split up or teachers having to move to another school so I understand that that's part of pain um but we've had to make changes already that have been painful in order to ride the ship and and if we don't make these changes and you have cut down and administrative costs also so we don't make these changes we can't afford to continue to give teachers raises the foundation for

110them so you know I I understand the need though it's equally using buildings and and yeah I guess the reason I'm asking similar Expressions is if you look at the number of students that go to Chandler program I think it's 200 so yeah um that are going to be affected by the change of course whether they're taking the bus or agreements of Drive potentially to bias is another advice have a little bit more flexibility so you're you're disrupting several hundred elementary students who don't have those types of abilities and who are going to be more dependent potential on parents for the bus system issue as I understand currently has some major shortages so I'm curious like we currently don't have any shortage of transportation we have all responsible and Dr make after I mean but

111I believe this will actually ease their transportation it will it will a little bit um the buses that are currently going to Chandler um will again take those students to Parkside Chamberlain and West Goshen um what we can do is we can actually integrate because there are parts of the uh the new um attendance zones that have traditionally been in the past West Ocean length behind the post office in Queen Street things like that so they can actually pick up those students in addition to the students they pick up onto the west of of um Pike or no Chicago um and actually will allow us to be a little more efficient with some of our buses now some of those buses [Music] I don't want to say they're not cool but we have 40 40

11245 kids on it which on an 88 passenger bus um and so this will actually be a little more efficient by digging and putting allow us to put more kids on off of us and I believe you said you're doing this without increasing no off zones we are we are actually not going to make any student who currently goes to Chandler if you look at the the on the attendance zones they will all be provided bus service um so even those that north of Plymouth um between Plymouth and Madison um that are Chandler we will provide we will provide bus hubs that they can they can then instead of having to walk and cross Plymouth and walk that almost a mile to Madison we will provide would be able to provide buses for that Mrs

113de Meyer being the good administrator she is and actually watching this board meeting right now and she adds that we will have over 200 students high school students that you have there next year and then projected to have over 300. so they'll surpass the current population thank you Mrs Meyer that's helpful but I think we're think when you look at schools that we're going to potentially funneling students towards this will make them at a more reasonable capacity so that we will be better utilizing the facilities that we have as well again West Goshen Chamberlain Parkside will not surpass their capacity wrong we'll just better utilize the space we already know so and um sayings again I'm just trying to make sure I understand what exactly is the position here uh the savings of 200 000

114if we don't know what classes are being offered what's that thing is going to necessarily be needed for it and even estimates in China on some of these these figures I guess I'm having a hard time figuring out how do we know how much it's going to save us 200 000 isn't very much um so what's the likelihood that during August ends up with lining us out of money back at the referendum door because we don't have funds so I'd say there's zero percent chance of that that's just because we will not increase Staffing of these programs we might have to ship some staff you know over the last few years so we won't answer them when you have a shrinking student population can't shifts that we current needs so if we're currently hold the

115budget because the referendum dollars will run out how does this play into that I mean if the argument is we need to do this because of who finances with homestead of money um I guess I'm I'm struggling to see how this is actually going to necessarily save money and and not increase it if you end up with 300 students going to Chandler like do we know how much that's going to cost us do we have the funds for it well I think I think what we're looking at we're trying to figure out what's the right curriculum for our student body I think that there's there's two different discussions we're trying to have here we're trying to figure out how we serve the student body that we have um and and this is a part of

116the curriculum that we have not invested in and just even purposing the space board I think is the investment in it it's not adding the staff but it's again you know if Cuts have to be made at some point in time we have to look at the curriculum that needs to be trimmed or tightened at that point in time um but the factors that I've seen in this community this is the curriculum we should be investing in right now I mean this is we live in a very blue collar counting area you know giving the people the ability to learn things with their hands if it's through you know carpentry or through Metals uh or learning how to do manufacturing I mean this is important for our community um you know this is the curriculum

117that I think is important for all of us that I'm encouraged that we were talking about but at that series is only going to grow exponentially year after year after year just the efficiency of having six on memories rather than seven will just pay off every single year that we do that makes the staff being that much more efficient foreign [Music] all right thank you very much for a good discussion uh the closing items um miscellaneous board items anything from the board I guess one request I'd like to make is we just kind of look forward a little bit I mean it's kind of ironic I think this discussion came up with it already you know just as we kind of move forward you know I hear a lot about a referendum discussion uh for

118people in the public I know that's still a long time away if that actually would have to be determined uh because the current operator reference that was passed through us through 2025 but just continue to look at the curriculum we do have um the cost that goes into it and just you know understanding what two years from now three years from now even five years now how are we could be projecting it a little bit with you and maybe Dr Evans and this team could just you know come back to us if it's a month or two and give us Financial update yes glad to do that I don't have a board item but I want to say something before you close yep go for it oh okay well I debated whether to say anything

119or not in response to around the Raiders comments um number one um this interpretation that has been convicted not correctly discussion to the prosecutor's office to do the investigation and decide what lines I've crossed and what I haven't crossed right so hopefully it's not going to get in the newspaper that have been convicted and it's not common is in the newspaper I hope that they will print a comment that says not been convicted okay election board yeah someone I may have crossed the line or two I don't Zelda prosecutor determination so anyway okay the other thing I want to say is Mr Raider stood up at that meeting and made a couple comments in a public meeting that I want to assure you aren't true and one is well he said on his number one

120suspect for stealing all of the art signs and that may be true that I'm his number one suspect but it's not true that I took a one-yard sign okay I wanted to know that okay and then he also stated that I said that he's not fit to be a board member I never said that audio said he believes certain things that I don't believe that a public school or member should we use for public schools but I did not call them I did not say he's Univision okay misunderstanding what I said thank you um yes and I'm glad you mentioned that about the election because I thought the same thing and thought about saying something but again we don't want to get into a lot of um back and forth with public comments but but

121it absolutely is true that the election board did some investigation they did not make a determination and pass it on to the Prosecuting Office for further investigation other comments or questions or items from the board see none uh Dr Holt administrative Idols so a few items this evening uh first of thanks to Gea Co president Melissa Mitchell for attending on the third house sessions and just lobbying for Goshen Community Schools for an increase in both ell funding and special and funding are pretty big forward a shout out also to Marilyn Torres GA member for attending the third house doing the same congratulations to cast and crew of The Adams Family and Schoolhouse Rock Junior High two great musicals I've been attending High School Musicals for over 30 years there is nothing better than a billion

122High School Musical I I have to have one comment here real quick when my grandkids were there one of my grandkids went out the hallway and met with me with the the players after after Adam's family yesterday and um Libby Eichorn was asked how could you play a role like or dish out could you be kind of kind of like that and it wasn't it hard to play that role her response was I don't know it wasn't that hard because that's kind of how I am did not say ing uh spring break will be March 29th through April 7th this will be the 37th trip for Marine Bio a special thanks to Carl and Chris Weaver for that ongoing leadership for that event um this would have been the 50th birthday club right there uh

123the next regular school board meeting will be Monday April 10th right here all right publishing for a tournament um