001alright [Music] okay i'd like to call this meeting in order at 6 pm on monday july 26 2021 please stand beside the pledge of allegiance i pledge of the allegiance states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all i'd like to welcome everyone to uh goshen intermediate school um about an hour ago we dedicated this beautiful new building it's been a labor of love for us here over the last couple of years and in two weeks we will be introducing our first student body here to this wonderful school two weeks from today so just a few opening remarks this media is a meeting of the school board and public for the purpose of conducting the school corporation's business and is not to
002be considered considered a public community meeting there will be time for public participation as indicated by agenda item number seven uh the mission of gosh community schools is to inspire innovation empowering potential enriching our world and our vision negotiating community schools indiana's premier global school district of choice item 1.4 approval of tonight's agenda do we have any revisions we do have one change tonight on the personnel roster is brittany isaac it was a new hire for us this year she has since taken a job with another district so we'll admit her name from that personnel report right with that one revision the agenda is approved as noted and item 1.5 approval of the minutes from our july 12 2021 regular meeting any revisions or comments to those minutes hearing another minutes are approved as presented
003uh superintendents reports i have 2.1 student and staff recognition [Music] are being recognized tonight for their leadership and organization and planning the awesome outdoor ghs graduation ceremony that we had this year lots of planning lots of stress i know went into this and jenny did all the spearheading for this to make sure that it was pulled off without a hitch so we wanted to recognize it commencement received many many compliments from students community members parents just went off really well and it was a huge departure from what we've done in the past so when was the last time we had an outdoor commencement thank you so much thanks and we'll get tim beckham also as a part of that whole planning tool thank you thank you uh we'll go to item 2.2 which is the
004ocean community schools foundation we have lots going on right now but two of the major things that are happening we would like everyone to be aware of the trivia night which will be happening tuesday october 26th uh from 6 30 to 9 00 at peddler's event center i think that's still the name of it i'm going to sign the contracts tomorrow to officially get everything underway dj sticky boots will be back providing us with a fun trivia night as well as food drinks being provided please let people know that we will be contacting them about sponsorships and registrations within the next month or so if they don't hear from us middle to end about august please let us know contact me at my email we are reworking some of the uh invitations and things like
005that to make them a little more flashy maybe so that will be done soon and then the other thing that we are working on is forming an alumni association we held two meetings on the 13th and the 22nd of july and it was held to explore the possibilities of forming an alumni association we had some great turnout especially for the 1960s classes allen's well represent his classes and um so they we had some really good discussions about what they wanted to see from an alumni association what how best to reach people and then the branding of the association and it was kind of agreed upon unofficially i think but officially to call it the goshen community schools alumni association the reasoning for that was a lot of the 1960s and 70s and 80s uh found
006that they had classmates that went all the way through school with them and then maybe attended bethany or uh had left like we know that there are people who left the district after they've been in elementary or junior high middle school here in this in the school system who still keep in touch with their classes so we want to open it to anybody that wants to be a part of it that has been an alumni in some shape or form we will be sending out our hope is to start pushing out information to get a database started that database would be kept private i would be one of the contact people and we're working on forming a group who would also be part of that that is part of either the foundation or maybe even
007a separate group of people or a board that would hold that position and they would be able to re like connect people but do it in a way that keeps things private so that is one of our next goals so that's where we're at right now but i'm really excited we had some really great information shared i think at the meetings and i think we're getting some traction and then we would also like people to let me know if they're having a reunion coming up or if they are willing to push stuff out for their class in school and they have not been in touch with me they can get in touch with me as well mrs kircher has already done a really great job in just her short venue here of just bringing people
008together anyone who has connection to the ocean schools and bringing them together fantastic thank you how many teams can you accommodate now you're catching me off guard i think they said 40 tables at our last meeting it's 300 um for either a team or if you want to sponsor a school team and then at 600 dollars if you're catching me up i don't have all the information for me sorry uh i should have printed off uh it goes to six hundred dollars for another um sponsorship and then i think it's fifteen hundred and twenty five hundred big scout for a big sponsorship that's right six on a team yes six on a team and we're still working out um goshen brewing is definitely back on board for providing uh beverages and then we are still
009working out who will be offering the food service it's a fun night i think the school board still is retained as the current champion exactly appreciate it thank you michelle all right uh item 2.3 an update on our construction projects mr bush and we are sitting at the biggest update yes we are yes my portion starts getting smaller now yes all right so intermediate school at this point turn it over we got cbo uh we'll finish up punches here in the next hopefully a week you will probably not see us as much unless something goes wrong middle school that is hot heavy right now merit at this point uh ceiling grid's in tiles dropped we're actually laying carpet right now so that's done by the end of the day tomorrow um and then merit section
010will be in good shape uh prep kitchen area uh as far as a new addition portion goes when they look through their installed metal soffits which they are currently on to the site as far as the interior portion of the newer prep area all the way tile was installed today so that's ready to go the efficient equipment uh the essex area uh we are currently painting and assuming they will start right next week or two so uh tools for school sewing grid was installed this weekend we are currently dropping lights all the energies in the ceiling grid border trails are getting cut tomorrow and we'll follow as mirror gets done into that quarter uh clank and parking uh we started hanging drywall yesterday so that was on and going and that corridor at this point
011uh all powers will drop the daylights are on and if he's in carpet we'll start down the hallway tomorrow or the other day if not on wednesday and then that will be done so that's kind of basically the middle school so a lot going on so as always we appreciate what you and your team have done represented as well and beautiful soldiers thank you very much uh item 2.4 opening day as mrs victrowski and mr pickard come down to make their presentation i want to start with the ocean community schools will start the year with the same pandemic plan that we had last year served us well throughout the pandemic it will serve us well again this year the great thing about our plan is that we can change depending on the changes in the
012community changes in the pandemic if we need to strengthen our mitigation efforts we will do that if we can lose them up we will do that so many people i think are aware the positivity rate is climbing we are going to watch that very closely we will always do our best to ensure the safety of everyone staff and students so to start the year we plan to have um basically typical day at the elementary level back to a full schedule last year we had the early release times um this year we will be in school all day monday through friday with the exception of the wednesday early release because that's for professional development um we are starting the year where students will be going out of their classrooms into the related arts classes last year
013we had the related arts the art museum the teacher came to the classroom and this year students will be going out of the classroom to related arts as as normal so we our goal is for the students to experience school as pretty typical day while underneath still doing things to um the mitigating risk those would be things like avoiding large crowds whenever possible like the way we did arrival and dismissal last year in every elementary was different from how we did it this year previously so there weren't so many people gathered in one place that's something we can continue to do something we learned is you know when you make a lot of effort washing hands and uh washing tables and things like that it just even keeps spreading you know from spreading the common
014cold so those are kind of things that we went through way less tissue way less kleenex last year than we than we ever have before and so that is something that we want to continue as we keep kids healthy even from things that are not related to it's just um helpful because so we want to keep kids in school kids will continue to bring their own water bottles we will continue to distance as we can we will continue potting students so that they are with a smaller number of students throughout the day that just helps the nurse in case they need to contact trace or anything like that but because again that doesn't impact the way the students are experiencing um their education we'll still be limiting the number of adults who come into the
015building limiting outside volunteers and things like that one grade level at a time we'll be using the playground instead of you know multiple grade levels just things that we can do to avoid too much contact with each other but more at the same time having students experience a typical day and a lot of what donna just said um go back to five days a week we are moving as you mentioned our late start from mondays to wednesdays um so mass will be optional for all students and staff this year it's recommended if you are unvaccinated that you are a masculine uh they'll be required on buses though for federal guidelines for now that may change or not but right now the federal government say on the bus on any type of plus public transportation water
016mass and physical distances again we're going to do that all levels as much as possible hand washing will be done we will continue to wash down surfaces as much as possible water fountains will be turned off throughout the buildings i will leave on bottle the bottle fillers in the buildings that have those a couple differences close contact so if you're a close contact and you've been vaccinated you will not have to miss school and then the big change is if you're close contact and you're not vaccinated the county health is telling us you can return to school but you have to wear a mask for 10 days so that'll be big the kids hopefully won't miss a lot of school and all these are obviously if you have any symptoms then rest stay home and
017then different hormones take place um and again the big thing is if you're sick please do not come to school don't send your kids to school and all that symptoms and of course like dr hope said all this could change at any time if the federal or cdc changes on you mr thank you very much we are looking for a return to a more normal year this year we're still keeping sensible mitigation efforts in place to make sure everyone's safe of course we'll update that week by week as we go throughout the year thank you both very much uh we'll move on to board committee reports i was on vacation so we missed the meeting last monday but the one thing i would mention is the adult triathlon coming up there's a lot of interest
018in that after missing it last year and people come from many states to participate in that partly because fiddler pond is such a cool uh place for the swimming portion as well as then for the run and then they bike out on the county road so so that's pretty exciting that that that's gearing up and we'll run here in a couple weeks thank you uh music council um 3.3 athletic council uh 3.4 billion trades uh just the committees they're ramping up for the start of the school year it's selected a lot and we'll be commencing here starting the year on the house uh 3.5 child care 3.6 goes to the school's foundation beyond what michelle kircher reported i don't have anything to report yeah 3.7 legislation okay i don't have anything recorded except uh senator
019doryo was here after the last word and he uh toured the uh what goshen high school is doing to prepare kids for the workforce uh who may not be going to college the of the of the high school and he was very impressed with what we're doing to prepare all kids for life beyond high school so we appreciate his attendance um and he was having some health issues it's hard to get around but he came to goshen high school and we appreciate that um and three-pointed redevelopment no report this evening uh moving on to item four consent agenda items item 4.1 approval checks number three nine two zero nine three three nine three zero six one four two zero three one four four seven three zero six five three eight three three zero six six
020six eight and eft's number 4792-4796-1679-1683-452-544-824-5457 and i had a personnel on the personnel agenda tonight i am thrilled to announce the return of dr robert evans who will be our new chief financial officer he was an assistant superintendent here in ocean before and i think he's returning home where he rightfully belongs he uh has been of course the superintendent at fairfield and then shelby county prior to returning here to goshen just thrilled to have his steady leadership mr congress appreciate your well i i confidence your consideration and i i do look forward to being back the ocean is a special place and it does feel like home so thank you we're gonna work together well it's gonna do a good year welcoming appreciating thanks and without the consent items are approved as presented out of
021five action items 5.1 student handles um just this is the third time this has been in front of you um handbook is the inclusion of the intermediate school to get into the elementary handbook minor tweets to the dress code [Music] and it just rolls off your tongue [Laughter] so hopefully that was accomplished as well any questions any additional comments from the board hearing that all those in favor please say aye all right passes before we move on i would like to invite anybody who's been here to be recognized or had a report this is an opportunity for you to exit yes i'm giving you um item six we have no discussion items this evening uh so we will go to item seven of public comment so everyone we have asked you to register which we
022have so i have that list here uh mr doctor will be our official timer we will have three minutes uh to please state your your name and what you would like to discuss and uh from there so we will start with mr robbery rob rader 908 south 10th street ocean indiana thank you for allowing me to speak um i had at the last meeting i had spoke a little bit about crt and i made some uh observations that it was anti-american and anti-family and anti-god and i was hoping to talk on this but this huge thing came up which probably all of you are aware of uh was this uh pride week highlighted by the youth drag ship now i had hoped that this was put to bed and mr was very kind in uh
023responding to me today that he thought if i'm putting in cracks to correct me if i'm incorrect i can equip unequivocally state this story is not true that's that's a at a glance a relief but but i did just today did the timeline and there's still some inconsistencies that will allow me out i'll share that um the whole pride week was seemed to be a surprise to i don't know anymore almost no one flyers were first advertised by my best estimate by local businesses on january july 6 tuesday for a pride week which was to run uh 7 12 through 7 17 on monday through saturday with the youth drag show being held in shankar clark at 7 17. now i found out about it on friday night and i contacted the the mayor and
024the city council uh that night and and followed up on saturday morning uh mr mayor was able to reply to me by monday he was out of town um and uh the story then broke of who organized the youth drag show um and uh it appeared that it the story said that what mr hope said was unequivocally true um how'd you say it it was unequivocally not true it appears that the report said that it was a teacher of all things i don't need to lecture anybody uh about how vile that is and how outraged i am by that fact what i found interesting and what doesn't reconcile is that the teachers signed the document for the pavilion 7 14 on wednesday so i called everybody seven nine and seven ten the mayor replied to
025me at 7 12 and the document sign was on 7 14. uh there's a there's a discrepancy here that unequivocally it doesn't doesn't make much sense to me um and that it was simply apparent becoming overzealous is the excuse now i i found out about this news story that broke on 7 16 i contacted dr hope and mr well on 7 17 the next day saturday morning let me use my goshen math here 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 9 days later i get a reply and it says that everything's all taken care of but there's something wrong here either mr hope was ingenuous look at him he didn't look like an ingenuous man or the mayor the last time i addressed the city council somebody said somebody said i hope you're mad
026at your word and he said i am or the teacher i don't know we may never get to the bottom of it but an apology or an explanation or something if it were just adults but these are children these are children and it's all fun and games and policy until some child gets hauled off in the shank of parkwoods we don't want that at all and and by golly i'll close up but we've got to have some sort of closure to this and so far it's not here thank you for letting me speak on such an important topic sir next is uh recently i attended my fifth and sixth grade reading many of us barely remembered each other we were there to see our beloved teacher mr dan smith we all have teachers along the
027way that impact our lives for the better teachers have the opportunity to teach and influence our youth this is not a light burden i do not blame teachers for the failures on on this chart we are in the bottom 50 of indiana schools this lays on your shoulder snowboard i've had the unique opportunity to experience goshen's youth this past year it was telling that the first person to attempt to assault me was a paraprofessional from goshen middle school and quickly followed by more threats and even more violence from the youth in these schools i have first firsthand seeing the social justice warriors being produced in our schools but i've also experienced beautiful moments with some young people from here one high school girl brought me flowers in danish banking because she and her military family
028were conservative this was something she felt she must hide at school she felt her future education and job availability was in danger this is a reoccurring concern raised to me by conservative kids here they don't feel safe in our schools some have already left potion community schools we must do better you must do last meeting someone mentioned the solution of having the elderly members read with kids while i was out in the town this week getting my nails done i met and talked to a greencroft resident she was excited and thought this was a really good idea to bring only seniors and kids struggling to read together this is just one simple solution this board has been given and that they can do immediately we need to get working on this as soon as possible
029it should take years and one more thing i'm done but because of what you said about code and stuff stop confusing our kids they can go to the movies we're all here we don't have masks on we're not keeping away from each other the pandemic is gone everywhere else my neighbor kids asked me to tell you when i told him i was gonna talk for the school board one one has asthma and she's forced to wear masks and she said both of them please tell them to take those masks off of us uh mister i don't want to get the gong so i'm going to hurry up and i and congrats to all the that have worked so hard but as where i just pointed out buildings don't educate kids reading math and writing do
030most 50 scores in indiana that is unacceptable i've talked to several of you i've talked to the superintendent he knows where i stand on that the board's responsibility is in a curriculum instruction and budget those are two things we have the essa every student succeeds money pouring in we have a willy endowment grant of 654 thousand 753 we have all these funds yet we're choosing to spend our resources in social justice programs i've gathered a lot of documents and memos you've been planning on the social justice plan since 2019 when the community relations council and gfgcs met community for an organized recruitment effort led by jess olson's fuller local expert in peace building and organizing in the world cafe model participates are encouraged to reflect on diversity and multiple dimensions such as political racial socioeconomic
031religious gender and orientation so 65 people this meeting decided for 6 000 students and many many parents this is more important than reading writing and math so we hired a consultant that happened to be selling what we claimed that we needed well there was no data to say that we needed it and after all aren't we data driven in education we paid him twelve thousand dollars plus 150 hours for extra services he sits on the council every student succeeds council where he influences is it just me or is that a conflict of interest he stood in the in the administration building room and told me that um that was just my opinion what was happening and i was at the last every student succeeds council meeting and he was there and he was involved i
032have members of these social justice initiatives we're in the pipelines in solar 2020. we can't say we don't have a political agenda when that's what social justice programs are about so my questions is where's the data what are the goals how do we know if we achieve them where are the studies that show that equity programs produce outcomes in k-12 learning is there information on the negative impact of the equity programs of children of color is money from cobit being or the asset being used for training have our counselors administrators been trained trained in the hatching for results program we all make decisions through data that's the job of the board it's not the job of the superintendent it's the job of the board he he works for you so get back to reading writing
033and math where the goals can be measured and we can get our students out of the bottom ratings of the state we're just asking you to fix thanks uh mr heart tomorrow's my birthday i get four minutes [Music] um it's obvious to me and uh and some others i've been talking to the goshen community schools is planning to teach social emotional learning and by the acceptance of this grant for almost 650 000 it's obvious that you have agreed to do this uh from the hawk talk uh spring of uh 2021 uh there's some clues in this and uh some of the other information online about what you're actually going to do although it's inclusion council was implemented to continue the work started by goshen's community relations commission well what work are they continuing according to
034the hawk talk again the ocean's community relations commission was organized to bring together residents of diverse backgrounds to discuss race relations and how the diverse community could work together to benefit everyone if the goshen community relations council was organized to discuss racism and every student succeeds council wasn't resulting from goshen's community relations commission does that mean that the new council will be discussing race relations if so why it's not good and also from hawk talk i read a quote that a teacher on the council said what our students learned from us go beyond the curriculum the first step in building a better future is to make sure we are each aware of our own biases and internalized racism and our concerns in addressing both from the goshen community school's website and the equity inclusion what
035used to be that would include that now every student succeeds tab i'm sure some of you are familiar with this every student succeeds the statement of purpose says this the council works to eliminate the systems in our school culture to sustain bias and discrimination so each student can reach their full potential and support all stakeholders as they engage fully in this vital world what systems are you going to eliminate what systems in our school are biased or discriminatory that just battles what systems you need to be much more descriptive and transparent the more i read about sel the more i'm along seo is ill-defined it's unproven and still connected to common core seo is specifically monitoring i'm sorry three minutes are up psychologically profile is used on the silver and it's rooted in critical race
036also notice one final comment i noticed a lot of uh committees and uh nobody's maybe half of them seem to have reports i've been on a lot communities in my lifetime somebody doesn't have report what are you doing i mean what what committees do you have reports so uh it's just an observation that's why uh black community would not have any reports thank you next is mr crawford everyone i am here tonight i'll get right to it last time i was here i discussed a little bit is concerned with lgbtq but i've addressed that already with city council and i'm going to leave that there for now i'm not going to deal with that but they please but tonight i want to address something that does directly affect our school system if we allow it
037to and um i want you to pay close attention so you don't take this the wrong way but what i'd like to talk about for a little bit is the subject of black lives matter now i want everybody to hear this i'm not here to disagree with that statement because i wholeheartedly believe that every person born and unborn in this entire world black white hispanic french whatever color under heaven there is their lives matter i'm here to openly say every single life matter it doesn't matter what sex they are it doesn't matter what race they are it doesn't matter their heritage where they've been their life matters and i hope we can all agree with that but what i'm here to discuss is not the black people and the idea that black lives matter because
038they absolutely do but it's the marxist [Music] group of black lives matter that seems to be trending and making its way through our country and that's what i'm here to discuss because there are a lot of schools surrounding schools that have adopted this idea of black lives matter and promoting it as the idea that now black people are now somehow deserve special attention as if they're an oppressed group which let's be honest in the united states of america our country was founded on the idea that all men were created equal in the image of god endowed by their creator who is god and last time i checked that means everybody no matter what race color or ethnic background has the same rights as long as they're willing to work hard put the effort in we
039can all achieve the same goals and unfortunately education systems they've adopted this and now we've got critical race theory going through schools teaching kids that because of their color their oppressed or because of their color their oppressors but what we need to do as school board members school board presidents really as citizens of the community is work together as the one race the human race to achieve those goals and that's why we're here in education so we can all go out after education and achieve our goals and i 100 believe that if we if the kids of these schools one second if the kids or these schools will put in the effort no matter what the race or what their color is if we will encourage them and not make them hate each other we'll
040just encourage them they can walk outside these schools come graduation day no matter what their color no matter what their background without hating each other they can achieve any goal and i believe that so school board i thank you for your time and i just encourage you promote all races all lives matter because they do they're very important thank you just a lot quicker hi thank you for letting me speak tonight my name is kendra i'm a parent here in the bush community i'm a 7th grader and a fourth grader um i'm here tonight just to express my gratitude to the school system for what they're doing for the lgbt community within the school system and promoting it without outside when i was going through school many years ago many many many years ago we
041didn't know who was gay who wasn't they didn't say and we didn't ask that's just how it was and that was how our community was we were in a very small community and you didn't know if anyone was gay they never told you i later found out that i did know kids who were part of that community but they never felt safe to speak out that was the 80s it was a really small community and now here we are times are changing today my middle school son talks freely about the kids who are in his classes that are bi trans and gay he knows these kids they're his friends they pay it he pays attention to what's happening in the school to support these kids and he comes to me and tells me what's going
042on when he thinks something's not right he also tells me these kids are so much more educated about this community than i ever was because i wasn't around anyone who was in this community or didn't know i was same goes for our teachers and staff back in the day there were rumors about teachers who might be gay like okay you didn't know they never said that was how it was until i was in college i was in my twenties before i even knew anyone was openly gay in my 20s today i'm thrilled to see that our students have teachers as role models who live their lives openly being proud of who they are many students don't have the support at home from their parents or their relatives but at school they have friends who accept
043them they have teachers who can advocate for them our schools need to be safe and supporting environment for our children to learn and for our teachers to educate this applies to our lgbtq students and teachers as much as it applies to anyone else in order to provide an environment for this community our school needs to be supportive in their policies advocate for those children who may not have that support at home and support our teachers when others choose to attack them ocean community schools has made great strides in providing a positive and supportive environment especially given the community we live in where many would seek to have them marginalized i am thankful to gcs that my children are able to see these changes happening be part of a school system that recognizes this community and
044all of our students whoever they are is valued there's still a lot of work to be done we've come a long way and i strongly believe that with the leadership of you dr hope we will only continue to make progress thank you with that we will close the public portion of our meet we appreciate everyone uh speaking this evening moving on to a few closing items 8.1 eddie miss lane adams report 8.2 miscellaneous administrative items doctor a couple of things start of school is upon us and this is our last school board meeting before school actually starts our next school board meeting will be the first day of school with the start of school come many questions about lunches and buses and everything else pandemic plan all of that information can be found on our
045website please look there if you still have questions please give us a call we want to make sure every goshen family gets off to a great start for the school year mr president can i make a comment about uh uh adults helping kids read okay that comment was made here this is not new in goshen michelle kircher sitting up there has beat herself up for years as a volunteer coordinator in those community schools to get adults to help kids read i remember when my son was my first son was in preschool and they had father's night and we came and one of the things that we did was find a place at the preschool and sit with our child and read to our child or read to our children and so i've got nick on
046one beat and i'm reading to him and another young boy comes along and says mister can i sit on your other knee and listen and i said sure he said he said my father can't read okay this community this school corporation is making sure that we have graduates that can read and that can read to their kids and we know that there are families in this community that their kids are behind because they don't get that support at home you do not have to be elderly to read to kids in the schools okay you don't have to be at green cross this is nothing new in this community you know it's been going on for years i've done the chamberlain school and when i when i was working i take a half an hour from
047the lunch hour and go help a kid read in chamberlain i've been at west ocean i'm in reading camps i've been at parkside it's in the newspaper if people get the newspaper and read what's going on there are all kinds of opportunities for you folks to help kids read you don't have to be old to do it okay so if you're concerned about that reading percentage and and there are explanations for if you're concerned about that why don't you do something about it and help kids ready uh eight point three german do i have a motion please pressure me yes second second therapy say hi hi hi we are adjourned