Board of School Trustees - Regular Meeting - January 27, 2025

001e good afternoon I like to bring the meeting to order for the uh what the board of finances for this evening so all right new business we have election of officers for the board of Finance can I get a motion for the election of officers for the year what do you need uh we can either elect officers or I think what we've done in the past is we've just voted to just mirror the standing board uh as it stands now we can do it either way you guys okay all right can I get a motion either way motion to keep same off okay now second my motion in the second any discussion hearing none all those in favor I I any oppos that motion will carry all right moving on to the review of the

002green cast community School Corporation Investments Mr y so this this report will be relatively brief because we're obviously limited as school district on how we can choose to invest our dollar so all of our earnings on investments are from interest uh from our bank accounts um and you might recall past couple years at the end of the year we always review um which banks and which banks are going to give us the most interest on our dollars and the interest rates have been uh pretty good in our bank account um so we earned just under $360,000 um for the last calendar year which is um Lighty years more than the P the past couple of years um so that's been a positive positive thing for us so you can see on the right hand side

003when it came to budgeting season we're conservative with our estimates and we estimated 60,000 and obviously we brought in just under 36 so overall very very positive we'll have to monitor that as uh economics fluctuate or change that's just an information I have no action anything then see if I have any further with that any questions okay yep moving on thank you and then uh as required by Statute I have to provide the board uh with a copy of the fiscal indicators report from the distressed uh unit appeals board and in your packet you will see um that slide deck uh the first page um next slide please um is just some general uh general information um about our school district um our 2023 24 uh student count so one of the things that it's

004important to remember uh with this entire forth report is is a year in the re so it's not uh not our current current year data um but our fall 2324 student count um our net assessed value and then um also our uh population and then um again thank you Jimmy you shared that link with the other board members but in case you wanted to access will record the links um on the bottom of that page next slide please um this is just a report of our average daily membership going from 1516 to 2324 um and you look at it it shows uh the blue is the Fallen person and the green is the springing person because we know that right now we have two different account base tied to uh finances and um you can

005see see that it's uh slowly declined there from 156 today's date and it's somewhat kind of plateaued off uh the past couple of years and that's not too different than uh just Trend in uh in the state with declining declining enrollment next slide please and then this slide is a bar graph um that shows um our uh fund balances for uh many different funds and as you can see uh normally when um I share a lot of reports with you I'm talking about our local dollars which are primarily funded through property tax or state tuition support um but these graphs also include um some of our federal funds um and so it's just a again it's a year in the rear and um shows those um balances with that next slide please um this next

006uh graph shows annual deficit Surplus um bear in mind this is for all funds so it's not just our uh local funds this is also the uh the federal funds um and you can see that over time obviously uh expenditures uh have increased um but revenues also uh tag along as well well in 2023 uh we show a slight uh slight deficit um again that's uh we have some federal funds um but overall very uh very positive um monitoring our cash flows next slide please and I think it's very kind of telling on on this one and you can look um and you can see fund balance as a% of expenditures um again it's never our intent to to um become a bank uh as a school district right we have certain expenditures or excuse

007me certain funds designated for uh specific expenditures but at the same time we know that we can't predict year toe and occasionally you may have a lean year um we may be looking at a couple of those uh moving forward so you do want some cash Reserve um to kind of help you through uh any tough any tough times with that so overall uh very positive uh with where we're at right now next slide please um this graph is just a revenue by type um so as I mentioned earlier um this covers uh federal funds uh State funds any other local revenue and it just kind of helps to show kind of the spread or where uh we receive uh most of our funding from and in looking at that you can see um that

008our our state funds obviously make up the largest percentage um of Revenue types as they as they should the next slide please and this is operating referendum Revenue so if we had an operating referendum to where we uh charge a rate in a levy or generated a levy uh to bring in some additional additional dollars this is where that uh information would be record but obviously that's not something thats to us so again this uh information that's uh a year in the rear and something by law that we have to uh to share with you at our Board of Finance absolutely anybody has any questions what current value is you have an idea what that yeah we grew we grew 99 just under 100 million so um we're like 623 something like that I will

009actually share that number later tonight oh wonderful thank you yep anyone else have any questions comments okay oh thank you very much thank you Jeff for all that hard work I appreciate that all right if I we have no other comments or questions can I get a motion to adjourn this meeting of Finance second I have a motion to Second any discussion all those in favor I any opposed motion carries thank you so we have a few minutes here before six next nice and smooth I like that e e e if you're good you have six I have six good evening like to call the meeting to order with the Pledge of Allegiance Mr Gib thank you we have a student there we go I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of

010America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you well done thank you good evening everyone and welcome to the January 20125 meeting of the school board all right we have any adjustments to the agenda no there are no adjustments to the agenda I [Music] like cool uh Mr gimy do we have any recognitions this evening yes we do uh Mr Roberts right well I have Mr Colton Buskirk here he's a first grader at redpath um and our character trade of the month was empathy and so he was actually nominated by two of our staff members his first grade teacher Mrs White it and our counselor Mrs Ward so Colton is a caring classmate and friend he's kind and thoughtful towards others he's

011understanding and sensitive to how others feel he will try to cheer up a friend when they are feeling sad by using kind words encouragement and a pat on the back or a hug I've even heard him say I bet that makes them sad with an empathetic look on his face Colton has a tender heart toward others and I can always count on him to be caring kind and helpful to his classmates and then another example um one of our staff members had was carrying a bunch of things and she acally dropped some of it in the hallway and he got another friend to help him pick things up and he even made the comment and said with so many items she must be very busy so he certainly understands how to care for others um

012so give it up for Colton buser all right I have Kiko here and Kiko is a first grader at Deer Meadow and she uh you know shows a lot of empathy in the classroom and so Mrs Hill her teacher is here here tonight and she's going to share some of the wonderful things about Kiko Kiko shows excellent empathy every day she always notices when her friends are feeling sad or upset and tries to help them feel better whether it's offering a kind word or sharing a toy she knows that she care she shows that she cares about others feelings when someone needs help she is quick to lend a hand and always makes sure no one feels left out her kind heart and understanding makes our classroom a happy place for every everyone I'm so

013proud of her for being such a great friend to others [Applause] he's so excited to be here so this is Lincoln WS Lincoln is our T student of the month for the character of empathy character trait of empathy um he is from Mrs Mitchell's fifth grade class and she said she wasn't able to be here tonight but she did say um that this is something that he showcases daily among his peers he's always is kind respectful and helpful to all of his classmates regardless of the situation and I will also say um in addition to this Lincoln is also our student council treasurer which is not a position that's a lot of fun sometimes he does a great job of keeping track of that with our um treasur of the office and he is also

014a member of our TV flag team that put out every day and races and black so we are so proud of thaning [Applause] I have the pleasure of introducing Amelia pridemore she did a wonderful job at Pledge of Allegiance many years of experience right um You were nominated by Mr Sherk for your um kindness that you of it at all times so empathy is our trait but what he recognized about you is you are always looking out for others always there to help anyone that needs help um other teachers chimed in that they've seen you hold doors always ask if everybody's okay checking on not only your friends that you're super close with but other students as well um if they're having a good day and always saying hi and making sure everyone feels safe

015and welcome in our building so we appreciate you for that very much so Emelia pron [Applause] hi our student um was nominated by Mrs lanam and she had to um be absent today for her son being ill um so she nominated Adeline she said she's known Adeline since middle school and there's so many wonderful qualities that she can mentioned as she's such a wonderful young lady but she wants to limit and focus on being nominated for empathy her concern for others daily no matter how she's feeling or what's going on in her personal life it's an honor to know her um was said by Mr Hawk and then Mrs Lam said Addie is one of the most caring and kindest young ladies that she's ever had the pleasure of meeting she puts others before herself

016and if she's a friend she's a true friend she's always there and listening and telling her friends that she's there to listen she is always there for anything that they need and if they just want to talk she is followed by huge hugs I've gotten some of those hugs um she works hard to do her very best of herself and not only blessed to know Addie but also be honored as well and this is Addie [Applause] congratulations to our students of the month it's always nice to see their bright smiling faces when they come in here it's exciting so congratulations to one and all all right moving on to public comments looks like I do have someone wants to come up and speak Megan Hi Megan hi welcome thank you appreciate it thank you for

017letting me take just a few minutes great to see these kids too I think that's kind of a highlight sure um so my name is Megan Meadows um I am a resident of the Green Castle Community School Corporation and I'm also um a volunteer with a 501c3 called defense of democracy focuses on on public education issues that sort of thing um I I just this may have already been brought up and you know I apologize if if I'm bringing up something that's already been discussed but I just want to make sure that we at least have the conversation um I've been pretty concerned about some things Hearing in the news over the last week and longer um you know about the reversal policy that now allows ice officers to come to schools and so I

018was wondering if that's been discussed if there's been training provided for faculty and staff um what the plan is here in Green Castle and um I know we all want our students to be safe I know we all want our families to be safe so absolutely um yeah just asking that question and happy to uh continue this discussion however that normally happens sure absolutely okay yeah I'll be happy to answer any questions you have if you want to contact us along through Mr gibney's office and also I'm always free if you want to catch me on the side any osr we'll be happy to answer any questions you have as regard to that so got all kinds of answers I'm sure and thank you for coming in we appreciate you thank you okay anyone else

019okay seeing none we'll move on to the approval of the consent agenda which consist of meeting minutes the regular board meeting December 16 2024 excuse me just posted on the door allowance a claim financial report Personnel reports part one and two M Roman yes hello um first in your Finance packet you'll have the payrolls that we had for December the first one was dated the 6th for a total payroll of 545 941 92 and as usual we've got some um benefits and retirement with that um taxes total was 161 45694 the second regular payroll was Data the 20th total payroll of 529 800 49 and along with that came the taxes and the benefits of 147 and 35 next in your package you're going to see a list of um prepays dated for December 2024

020as you took a look at that list did anyone have any questions in anything particular um you'll see we had the um we had Debt Service payments that's why it's exceptionally High we had a couple Debt Service payments so you'll see that in there if you had no questions I'll go ahead and move on to the next list okay we had um if you recall we our board me uh meeting was early in December it was the 16th I believe so I asked if we could get some last minute um claims in to kind of close out the uh year a little more soundly and calmly without and that without any carryover makes things a lot easier all the way around so there was a list of claims that was dated December 30th as you

021took a look at that did anyone have any questions no okay we'll go ahead and U move on to the list of claims that are dated today January 27th as you look through that list did you have any questions about anything in particular no no okay all right we'll go ahead and move on to the fund report um fund report um as of uh December 31st 2024 balance and all funds you'll see there on to the right in the balance and education fund was 4,407 42977 operations three lines down from there it's going to be fund 300 the balance in that fund was 1,136 9957 if you go ahead and go to the very last page you're going to see that balance in all funds as 11,830 97838 as you look through that list did

022you have any questions about any fund balances no okay next in your package you're going to see the depository statement and basically what that is is showing what our our inhouse funds should balance with our bank statement and as you can see there those are in balance at 11,839 7838 and then we've got the transfer report and those um just are the transfers that I do every month as far as the education to Ops we've got some uh we've got a an 8,400 for school lunch that we do a transfer to the 800 fund and then we've got some things at the end of the year that I need to do some transfers as far as like have to do with property taxes our circuit breaker there's a lot of boring stuff in there if

023you have all kinds of time I would be happy to explain all that to you but as you'll see on here we've got quite a list of transfers that I did for December did anyone have any questions surface questions about any of those I look pretty pretty coetic okay so then we'll go ahead and we'll move on to the bond expenditures report um we did have some expenditures in bond 2021 as of December 2024 total expenditures out of bond 2024 34 m797 18144 we did not have any expenditures in bond 2022 so our total expenditures thus far is 4,327 21012 did anyone have any questions about anything a question I noticed so there were some issues like right there's a pipe that busted behind the high school um that caused freezing and then some of

024the sign stuff I'm just on terms of our sewage pump piping yeah yeah that should all be that should all all being covered yeah we shouldn't have to pay additional Prost for those things the graphics wall is going to be repaired at no cost us things like that but we do have that the new sewage pump pit that um helps as we pump uphill from the stadium all the way up to Washington Street uh we had to essentially add another like lift station so to speak there to handle the new Lo rooms in the oxygen and bathrooms and so there were a couple elbows that busted out on that during when we have the heavy freeze and so those have been fixed on that yep okay anyone else okay can I get a motion to

025approve motion second I have a motion to Second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor I any opposed a motion will carry thank you Mr you're welcome all right moving on to reports with the assistant superintendent Mrs MC yes so um actually the principles and I are going to share with um you our middle of the Year data um we have worked really hard uh the first semester and we want to share all of the good things that are happening um next slide please um so I'm just going to um go over our district and school printed in your I apologize read on the screen yes small on the screens um our district and school goals that we set um in the late summer once we got all of our assessment data back

026from the state um and how we determined those goals is we collaborated as an admin team and we looked at at our end of the year scores we also looked at the Pass rates of our neighboring schools and the Indiana State average um to kind of see where we fell within all of that um and we determined that an increase of 10% of an overall proficiency for our assessments was decided because it was a substantial increase um but we do feel it's a realistic goal that our teachers and students can obtain um also this goal of 10% will set us apart um as academic leaders in our County and state because if we are able to add that 10% to what we did last year we will be um ahead of our our neighbors and

027above the state average in our state assessments so I'm going to just give a really quick example of how our principal set grade level goals I'm going to use first grade as an example so uh last year um at the end of the year our kindergarten they earned or were at a 64% pass rate on their end of the year dibles so when we were looking at what we want them to do as first graders our principles um and teams decided we're going to add that 10% so that same group of kindergarteners who are 64% in the spring our goal for them is to be 74% this spring so we're going to hold those kids at that 64 we're not going to lose them right and we're going to add 10% or more um by

028that end of the year to reach that goal um as you will see um in the slideshow as we go through each building tracks their data on a consistent basis um using not only um our assessment data but they use classroom data things that they're doing um one-on-one with the students um to make the best instructional decisions possible so that our students are growing academically if the end of the year goal is met already which we actually have that happen so that's exciting um the principal will work with that grade level team to set a new goal for those students um and so that's kind of how that will work as we move forward questions about the elementary piece of that with the goal setting so I'm going to transition a little bit from elementary

029to high school because it is a little bit different um Mrs good pastor and her team set a goal of a 95% of students in each grade level will be on track with their credits for graduation and so what they're doing is um the the office staff and then a few of their PLC teams are really focusing in on tracking student credits earned I'm tracking students who are earning their credits the first time in a course and who aren't earning the credits the first time and then those who aren't they're using some targeted intervention time that zero hour working with them to figure out okay how can we help the student get back on track so that they're they don't get too deficient in credits um where it feels like they can't they can't make

030it out we want to get them there to that senior year for graduation does that makes sense any questions about that piece for the high school okay you can do next slide please um so this is our middle of the Year reading I ready data so I ready is our formative assessment that we take um we take it K8 I don't have sixth through eth on there um because they did the I learn checkpoints in December and they're doing the I ready now so their data is not ready yet for the for the I ready there's lots of ready words in here but um you'll notice also that we don't have a district end of the year goal for I ready that's because we have a lot of Assessments happening right now and we really

031wanted our teachers and admin team and students to focus on those specific ones Dibbles and then our state assessments of I learn and Irene that's not to say I ready is not important um actually our teachers use it quite a lot when they're forming their wi groups using um it provides a lot of instructional resources for them to use um and it's a good predictor of how the students will perform on iearn um so even though we don't have that district end of the year goal it's really important that they're G that they're taking that and as you can see for our reading we did have a substantial increase in all of our grade levels from the beginning of the year um proficiency to our middle of the Year proficiency um so I'm really really

032excited that how hard our teachers are working and doing those targeted interventions that we can see that that is progressing and that's working you can do the next slide for now I have a question sure so you um can you explain dibles yes I I will I have that been up on the next slide is that okay I was just asking in general like what dibles o overseas for everybody to to know what dibles is used for as in general and then I'm going to tie it to a question that I have perfect so Dibbles is our reading foundational skills assessment it's primarily in K3 so it's testing our students on their awareness letter naming um decoding and then fluency in that too so you said that 64% of the kindergarteners at the end of

033the year were passing it on dibl as where you just said but at first grade they're at 11% on the beginning of the year for I ready for I ready different so I is a different assessment I understand that but how what how can it be that big of a difference from an end of a year assessment albe it it's still based off of reading that big of a drop over some so Dibbles is given on a one-on-one basis and their quick one minute um like progress monitoring tests with the student and the teacher I already is a longer assessment and just a lot of more like comprehension type questions so it's a completely compl different assessment it's hard to compare the two um with those I'm not sure why we had the drop at

034the beginning of the year in first grade um it could be different reasons we took it at the very beginning of the year in August when we first started school um there's always a little bit of a summer slump with that um so there's just different factors on there I can find out more information though and you get with you and figure out a little bit why there's a difference in that that'd be great they take it at beginning of the year is that their first exposure to a standardized test yes so in kindergarten we don't take the I ready until midt to give them a chance to learn how to be in school um and then in first grade through eighth grade we take it usually like this second week full week of school

035any questions on the I ready for the reading okay uh for math um you can see we had a big increase in our Ma as well we don't have a separate assessment for math like we do for dibles um we just have the I ready and again our teachers utilize this data to form their wi groups and determine the skills that the students need to be retaught as well as predictors for I learn um and so we're really excited about that movement with our kiddos any questions on the math for the I ready okay next slide please so here's our overview of our our K2 dibles um again Dibbles is a foundational reading skills assessment and it tests the students on femic awareness letter sounds decoding and fluency it is a one-on-one assessment so our

036teacher pulls the students um out either in the hallway or into a small like their um office it's usually our title teachers or special education teachers and they give it's a one minute assessment for each one of them and so it's really quick um it's taken on computer and they go about their day um our kindergarten and first grade students a middle of the Year data this year is equivalent to what they were at the end of the year last year so like we're at 64 and 65% for kindergarten in first grade so we are on track to hits and we're we're thinking we're going to be surpassing that into of the year goal so we're really excited about that um with those grade levels and then our second grade team um we had almost

037a 30% increase from the beginning of the year for diples to our middle of the year so our data is tracking really really well um and it really is due to what our educators are doing in the classroom with our teachers or with our students we're very proud of them any questions on the dibles data no but I would like to see that end of the year in the beginning of the year seems like we start the year awfully low across the board we do curious to see what drink you can identify that I will get that to you um and now I'm going to invite Mrs Cooper from dear Meadow to come on up she's going to share with you a little bit of a deeper dive into what they're doing at dear Meadow

038this is something USS to reference it's hard when it's on there it's really tiny [Music] this is an example of our live data sheet and one of the things that we spent a lot of time on at dear Meadow this year is talking about you know what what does data mean what do grades mean and so we really come to this consensus that that grades are a reflection of Mastery toward of progress towards Mastery of identified state standards and how are grades different are the same from the data points and really understanding that we are moving towards um those being standards based and really identifying if a kiddo can can do this set identified standard and if they're not how are we going to continue to progress monitor them so that we make sure that

039they do learn that standard at some point because we we know that those are important so off to the side which it's in white so you can't see it is all of the kiddos names and then we have their exceptionalities um identified and then different um areas and different data points are listed I'm sorry got it um so you'll see I ready on there for reading and math you'll see Dibbles um and then what we've been working really hard on is this is a live active data sheet that we pulled up every single week during DLC and so there are options to sort it up at the top and so we'll look at it from lots of different angles we'll look at it by class we'll look at it by specific measures and what's most

040important to me is that we recognize that these kiddos are more than just one data point and so like Jimmy you were saying you know there's definitely a discrepancy between what we're seeing in DBL and what we're see in I ready because they are different measures and they're measuring different things and so we look we like to look at it and compare how are they doing here how are they doing there the other thing that is really important to us at the middle of the year is we're pulling growth rates and so for example and I ready we're not only going to get that um academic performance level we're going to get a growth level and so we're able to see okay this kid grew a whole Year's worth of growth in one semester what

041are we doing that is working for this kid and maybe this kiddo over here is at a 0% then they they didn't make any growth what do we need to do differently for this kid um so we're really like dissecting the data um the other thing that is so important to me is off to the side which you can't see it is we include all of the things that you can't read in a number so it's things like this kiddo is in foster care uh this kiddo was just removed from their home this kiddo um has a medical condition and just had surgery or all of these different kinds of intricacies of what's happening in in the whole life of these kiddos that isn't going to register on the data sheets and so we're looking

042at these every week and then um especially after like the beginning of the year the middle of the Year data and we're making informed curricular decisions about where we're going to put those kiddos for um like their wi groups um their OG groups um and and a lot of the conversations this year has been like hey we need to get the parents to the table and we really need to talk about you know this issue or we need to follow up with our Commons Mental Health Partnership and ask them about this um and so there's a lot of time spent in that narrative note section of what we're doing over there um so as I mentioned this is something that we review and adjust weekly during PLC um each week the PLC teachers um continue

043to monitor their student performance and make adjust ments to those intervention groups and things as needed so if you go to the next page so this is an overview of our data um so at the beginning of the year we had 25% and this is as measured by Dibbles um since this is the one um piece that was our goal um so 25% at the beginning of the year in kindergarten um that was 22 students and then middle of the year we are at 66% so that's 55 of our 83 students and so that was a growth of 41% and again that's by dibles yeah does this include special ed yes the number includes special yes and we have a huge inclusive of the special right yes I just want yeah and it also includes

044we have a fairly large e population U we've got several kiddos in that kindergarten class and the second grade class that do not speak any English um and so we've we've seen a lot of growth with them um one of the things that we're really proud of is that um and this is why I included this this sheet so you'll see on here that we break it up by grade level and anybody in blue is considered above gray level anybody in green is considered on grade level anybody in yellow is um one grade level below and anybody in BR is two or more grade levels below and so for example you'll notice like when we get to second grade we didn't as much but what we did see with second grade is a lot of

045movement among those levels and so you see the kids in the in the red moved up to the yellow the yellow moved to the green and so forth so in first grade um actually back to kindergarden we only have seven students um away from meeting our goal so that's something else that we do um during our PLC time is really kind of drill it down to that you know actionable piece of data it's one thing if I say hey kindergarten teachers we want to have 74% you know pass rate it's another thing when we say okay well that's three kids in your room and two kids in your room and who are they and what are we doing with them what do those Services look like so in first grade um we've had some movein

046some move outs and so we've been trying to keep up with um all of the you know accurate data um we are at 57% this is just a 1% um gain and while we're you know glad that we maintained and we showed a little bit of growth this is not as much growth as we definitely wanted to see one thing to keep in mind with Dibbles is that it's a moving Target so the assessment they had at the beginning of the year is not the same as the assessment they had at the middle of the year and it's not the same as the one they'll have at the end of the year that gets progressively harder um and second grade um similar to first grade we saw some some gains but not as much as

047we'd want to see so 24 students away from our goal there we had seven fewer students um you know in in that red which was encouraging um some of the things that we talked about at our middle of the year uh meeting when we came back in January is looking at in first and second grades we spent a lot of time um with our lowest of the low populations and in title especially and so we really shifted our Focus from there to looking at some more of those bubble kids uh We've adjusted some of our Aid schedules we've had um because we have a a really large and and growing e population our teacher has received some new professional development and trainings um and then we've also been talking about how can we make some

048changes um to the master schedule and things looking towards next year and so we we are excited we think that we've got a lot of really good um adjustments made um to hopefully see some more growth within first and second grade by the end of the year any questions I did put uh on your first page uh I would argue that the section is probably the most important piece of getting the relationships and understanding how to reach the kid but this is phenomenal on it to have that available to it absolutely and I I just I can't even tell you how important it is to what we do I mean we have this up every day we have it up every week I'm constantly taking notes in it the teachers are my counselor is and

049so it's it's very fundamental to the growth that we're seeing good awesome thank you thank than Mrs Cooper Mr Roberts hello hello hello all right well um on this first slide you will see um something very similar to what Mrs Cooper was just talking about this is our um our Master data sheet where we keep um all sorts of things from our beginning of year testing to middle of year testing um the picture on the right there um we have also had each of our grade levels create their own um individual data sheets um because we do a lot of assessing besides just the beginning middle and end of year and so um I've been really proud of our teachers this year throughout our PLC process of not waiting until that next middle of year

050assessment because if you wait from the beginning to the middle that's that's too much time without making adjustments without changing up groups without tweaking interventions um and so we are really updating our uh you know live data sheets on a weekly basis and so this year our PLC process has been um a new Initiative for the corporation um but that's something that we've been working really hard with at rid path is what are we doing um in our instruction on a weekly basis what do our assessments look like um our the assessments that we've been giving in the past is it giving us the information we want to know um if not let's look at what tweaks do we need to make to that assessment to give us the data that we really need and

051so our teachers have worked really hard on forward thinking not only looking at our Curriculum maps but um when we get to this point we know that we need to assess our students and see if our instruction has worked um we give that assessment and then that's what we're talking about in our PLC meetings um looking at how many of our students did Master that skill and what are we going to do for the kids that didn't and that's really where our when time comes in um we have worked really hard about taking um it's our teachers have had to step out of their comfort zone because um it's not just the four walls of our classroom it is it's a team approach and so how can we work smarter um by sharing our kids

052sharing the load as a grade level as a building to where if I'm a classroom teacher and I have three kids that are really struggling in a skill the other two classrooms are probably going to have kids that are struggling with that skill too so let me take them I'll work with those kids during my one time and you can have a couple of my kids and work on a different skill and so our teachers have really embraced that um and and I'm confident that it's making um a big difference Cory if you could go to the next slide please um so I talked about when time a little bit another thing that's different is we're doing differentiated OG this year OG stands for Orton Gillingham um and that's our phonics instruction and so um

053this year is our first year of doing differentiated OG um in years past it was a whole group phonics instruction as you all know our kids come to us with so many different needs Mrs Cooper um mentioned that there there's all sorts of different needs that are kids have and so um we decided to to take a dive into differentiating our OG instruction this year we've worked really hard on training some of our instructional assistants that have been with us for several years um they've been able to see OG for a couple of years but now we've sent them to training to get OG trained themselves and what that allows us to do is get our groups smaller and more targeted so that we can um provide individualized instruction to all of our kids so

054if you were to observe our OG groups some of them have six students um if they're a lower group that needs um more intentional instruction um some of our groups with some of our higher performing kids might have 12 to 15 um but those groups are fluid and changing um as our students needs change so between those two things are our wi time our differenti I OG um I'm very confident that that is what has led to some of our really good growth in kindergarten in first grade so this slide is very similar to what you saw with Mrs Cooper um kindergarten or for each of our grade levels we determine our goals at the beginning of the school year um you'll see our goal listed um as that first bullet point on the goal

055update colum um so in kindergarten we set our goal for 74% proficiency and dibles by the end of the school year um and that's based on composite score so uh Mrs mcferson mentioned dibles is a series of subtests that we give when once you have given all of those assessments it gives you a composite score that kind of summarizes everything to give you an overall picture of how the students are performing and so that's what our goals were based on so kindergarten our endof year goal is 74% of students on or above grade level based on composite score at the beginning of the school year we had 21 of our students um or 34% that were onor above grade level um we have increased that to 66% um at middle of the year and so

056incredibly proud of our kindergarten teachers um every year our kindergarteners come to us with more needs um and so to accomplish this um it really just kind of gives you chills um and our our teachers are very proud of their students and they're proud of the work that that we're doing um so we are only five students away from reaching our end ofe goal of kindergarten first grade um again we had our goal at 74% proficiency by the end of the school year um at the beginning of the school year 16 of our kids or 39% were at that and um at middle of year we actually met our end ofe goal um with 30 out of our 41 students and so um very proud of that um but you know that's it's it's it's

057a moving Target and so we're gonna have to to keep working to keep all those kids there and then continue um moving the rest of the kids that are not there yet um second grade obviously um based on composite score um not something that we're happy to see um so we're we're at 45% at middle of year um but again that's based on composite scor um that does not mean that our second graders have not made any growth um looking at a couple of those um sub subtests within Dibbles um we had 19% growth in something called nonsense word fluency that's one of those subtests um so really good growth there and then um oral reading fluency is a piece that has been a struggle for our kids um but we we made 18% um

058growth there um in addition to that if you look at I ready um we were able to reduce our students in the red category or two or more grade levels below um we reduced that by 10% um and we increased our students in the green category by 20% um so so good growth there with our second graders so um the job's not done um we still have work to do and by no means are we um accepting the the the 45% we're still there we are um we're making tweaks We are continuing to have those PLC conversations um we're continuing to look at individual kids and um having conversations and sharing that load between all of us classroom teachers Title One teachers special education teachers instructional assistants um to put things in place to help

059our students grow um that's all I have for you unless you have questions for so what's next for the first grade for the end of year goal where do you see that pushing to you like see it I I mean I would like to at minimum increase that by five% um you know it's it's it's one of those things that you get super excited about but also nervous because you know that um if kids were supposed to read 82 words per minute they're now going to be expected to read 95 words per minute and so um I would really like to see an additional 5% increase there um and and I I think we can do it and our our teachers each week are are trying to um we're we're never satisfied I guess um

060there's always a way that we can increase even if that number were 84% how can we how can we continue doing that and with all the changes that have happened with the science of reading over the last couple of years um we've made some really good changes curriculum wise and so I think that the the progress that we've made now in the short time that we've made these adjustments I am very encouraged as to what this could look like two or three years down the road what's the historical data of your second grade as far as they been low performing in the previous grades it it is a bit of a lower performing another thing to think about is when these kids were in kindergarten there was no wi time in our master schedule um

061there was no differentiated OG and so um by Nature we we were not getting kids were as as far as they needed to compared to this kindergarten class that from day one um we gave our beginning of year Assessments in um August and within two weeks we had analyzed that data and we were rolling with our differentiated o G groups and our when time so um again we're not done um we're going to continue to um monitor the progress of those second graders and continue to to see how we can move that needle and I can get you that comparative data from when they were in kindergarten in first grade wonderful a thank you thank you thank you Mr Roberts um Mrs El um TZ so we are the bridge between the primaries and the

062middle school and so we get to take students who are learning to read in second grade and somehow sort of shift them into reading to learn so we do still have a lot of students who come to us without those foundational skills so what we're working with is tracking a number of different data points so our students and third grade will be tested on IR 3 which is a high stakes test for the state of Indiana and that's where a lot of that dibles testing information feeds into so we pull in um our wi groups for that extra support we also have Title One support at TZ in the afternoon so our data sheet this is just a snip of one of our data sheets for third grade we have a data sheet for each

063grade level similar to the other schools and we are tracking for fourth and fifth graders we also have their third and fourth grade data as well so we can see data across time from the the time that we get them until they leave us and I forward that data on to Selena um and I'm sure we'll get Brandon Britney's data next year as those kids move up to us as well so we're really looking at a complete picture of students data across their education with us we pull this data sheet up in our PLC meetings at grade level teams every week as well and look at where we see especially after a a benchmark assessment where do we see weaknesses where do we see trends that aren't strong how are we going to shift support

064for those students um again pulling in all of our resources thanks to Mrs Merson we do have a lot of additional staff trained in OG now we had some fifth grade teachers attend the science of reading over the summer um our Librarian Is Now trained we have some IAS that are are also trained and that just gives us the ability to respond to the data in the best way that we can to Target where students need support and to make sure that we have the folks that can take care of them so you can kind of see across we have um our checkpoints that you'll see there that's new this year we are piloting it for I for I learn and those those are Silo data points so the state is also Al changing the

065way that they are handling things so those checkpoints are specific to standards that are taught at a certain time of the year so it is basically a snapshot of how are these students doing on these standards and the state has been better they are kind of building the plane as they fly it um but they are getting it together to share with the teachers the blueprints for this is exactly what we're going to be testing this is how the question might look on the test and so that that's an additional piece those checkpoints will then lead to the summit of of I learn at the end of the year so again they're not building on each other but they are okay in the in the first quarter teachers should have taught these standards the checkpoint

066is going to assess how students are doing on those standards and then checkpoint to so on the state has also offered an opportunity to for students so if they take checkpoint one during the window that's offered and we talk a lot about this at our PLC grade level team meetings as well we are starting to have those conversations with students um this this is how you did um we have a lot of especially fourth grade students um fourth grade is an interesting year in our building there's a lot going on in your life when you're a fourth grader and they will sometimes say you know I didn't I didn't do my best on that assessment I want would like another chance so teachers are having those data conversations with students and then after some reteaching

067giving them another opportunity to take that checkpoint and so that gives us a little bit different data point so you can kind of see of those students who took opportunity to how those scores may have changed and that gives us another piece of information on how to support that student um so yeah Blues greens yellows Reds that's kind of how the I learn scores are set up the nice thing about I learn is it is a consistent scoring pattern so they the state has standardized that so we can see that solid growth from year to year on the I learn assessment I will say one more thing about the plc's um it's been a great addition to our staff just having that designated time every Wednesday to come together review the data look at what

068students need bring in counselor pieces cins um if they're U if DCS is involved in the student um and then deciding is this a student who would benefit from an additional monitoring through the mtss process which is mult multi-tiered systems of support which we provide for every student through win but then there are some students when we start to see that downward Trend we pull in the parent we see um what we can change or add to make an additional tier of support for the student in the area of need so then the next slide so this is our I ready data which aligns more closely with I learn summative at the end of the year so you can kind of see we have made an increase one of the reasons that you see that

06951% for every grade level across the board our students are responsible for passing I learn in language arts and math so the state breaks those numbers down for us as a school they'll say you have this many kids who passed language arts this many kids who passed math but then they also like to put that number together to talk about you have this many students who passed both and so that's the number that we need to be at 51% because last year I don't have that number off the top of my head but it was it was pretty low um in fact our end of the year I learned scores for third graders it was 27% at the end of the year so we want to make sure that that continues to increase 51% is

070in no way a ceiling for us and as you can see we've already busted through that ceiling in third grade through our middle of the year I ready but that is all to try to make sure that those students have all the skills that they need to be able to demonstrate them on the I learn test at the end of the year for third grade one of the things that we've done we have that additional data point of dibles so we're looking at their reading score and I ready and their Trends with their skills there and then also looking at their Dibbles foundational scores and so this year at the at the middle of the Year Benchmark after Christmas we looked at those students who are at risk to not pass the I3 test and

071we've developed an after school tutoring plan that started last week we have eight groups now eight small groups of after school tutoring they're between three and five students they're from 3: to 4 pm they may come um they may come one day they may come two it depends on the need and the availability of the parents to come pick them up so we have a number of students we we aimed for 30 and I think right now we've got a little bit over 30 so um we actually added a teacher today to that so we'll continue to hone in on this the needs there and invite more students as we can um but that is going to be an additional support that we can provide for students as we look to increase those reading foundational

072skills so same with the fourth grade I'd like to see historical data especially with the sun in the fourth grade and yeah there thank you Mrs eldrid Mrs Clemens for Middle School um look at this we do it instead of having all students on one sheet as you had seen on prior we we divide it by um teacher and subject level um on this so you'll see on the left hand column Our advice time that we use in the same way as win time in the primary and um grades we um have our teachers look at our data points which we have listed here and we um devise who needs um math advisory time so we have like our Math teachers but then we have another teacher typically science that will help with the math

073um parts that our Math teachers will um give them activities to do create um plans for them to work with some of our science teachers will say hey I have I can connect this to science in some way that um bring in math skills and so they'll kind of go on their tangent and like stay within the standards that they're working on this would be the exact same for language arts as well and in language arts we use our social studies teachers to kind of help uh facilitate that as well so when time is advisory time for the middle school would be a good way to kind of see that where we we are hitting our um students on our mtss and those groups are data points plus our teacher input on which students they've

074seen progress in the classroom and they want to move them in and out so those groups are fluid currently they're fluid within a nine weeks time however um some students are moved within a nine weeks if they've made substantial growth um or in the reverse a decline and they're moved into other advisories so you can see our I ready um as Mrs mcferson said our teachers asked for I ready to be given in second semester and kind of flip-flop with the checkpoints um and so we are doing I ready currently and trying to get that completed as well so you'll see the 24 I learn progress um from that cut score I ready and then our checkpoints and Eldridge went into a little detail on the checkpoints um those typically in checkpoint one were about

075six to eight standards that were focused in language arts and about the same in language arts was a little bit lower I think they were about five to six standards that they focused on and in math it was more six to eight during that time frame um the state has done a really nice job of kind of laying out the time frames of what standards will be in checkpoint one checkpoint two checkpoint three and then the summative but currently since this is a pilot year the summative will be all the standards kind of together but we're getting a really good snapshot along the way of how our students are progressing so if a student does um get a green which is on level or a blue then they will they do not have to take

076opportunity to those are for students that were yellow or red so um um did not pass would be another way that you're kind of looking at that and we don't give that backtack we provide time in between those opportunities so that teachers can go back and retach uh maybe pull in small group put that into bell ringer work where we Cy Circle back and do Spiral Review during that time um that gives the teachers some time to kind of breathe and say okay these kids are passed these have not what did I how did I teach it and what can I change to teach it differently to maybe um grab some more into a higher level whether they're moving from red to yellow or yellow into green um they're just looking for that progress to

077proficiency so this is a just a simple snapshot of kind of the extensive data that our primary teachers keep we also have other um data sheets within this um file that kind of put in all the other subcategories such that U Mrs Cooper was talking about maybe um home life how their situations and things like that we also use PLC time to pull this up talk about our students um this is when we work on advisory time switching up groups and kind of pacing ourselves um for the next four weeks we're trying to get them into that fluidness of about four weeks so it's real time data coming in and then we're using it and changing instruction and then testing again so if you can go to the next slide for me please just real

078yes the Snapchat is all math or is it that's for one teacher one teacher okay I just want to make sure I was yes my eyes are bad so I thought I'd do the biggest phone I could yeah so we have them for all of them but yeah that's kind of how it looks um this would be um similar to the other um data points that you have seen um previously these we just focused on the checkpoints our teachers find a lot of um comfort in seeing what standards they are expected to kind of lead their students to Mastery on and this is a stair step is the way we kind of approach it you know we have to start somewhere and then help our students um move forward in the direction we know that

079they can achieve in sixth grade on um for Ela in checkpoint one we were at 31% um when they took that opportunity to so of those same standards um we they our teachers moved 17 students during that time frame and seventh grade was 28% and they moved um 10 students 8th grade 33 and they moved 13 so we're seeing that forward progress language arts um has a just larger broader standards and so those are take a lot of time to develop and so the checkpoints are kind of a little bit harder to navigate through because those skills build upon each other because they're so indepth on there you can see our goal where we are going we like to tie it into how many students just like our our other um schools are doing looking

080at moving you know 17 students seems more reasonable than trying to move a whole pile of students at one time our math progress as well um looking at moving 16 students um sixth grade eight students in seventh and eight um six students in eth grade and so as we are compiling checkpoint two data we'll have that as well to see how many students we were able to move from opportunity one to two and that data again for checkpoint three and then the sumita of grand finale at the end of the year will'll be um looking at all of those standards together and kind of um seeing how our students are progressing at that time any questions on checkpoints in the Middle School all right thank you thank you mman finally we have Mrs good pastor

081um she's going to talk to us um about high school and especially talking about like our redesign and how we're attacking that so the beautiful thing about all of them is regardless of where they end up on the data we get them and we've got to graduate him in four years so um we are actually really excited about the new graduation changes and the new diploma changes so you'll hear me say a lot of personalized um because when a student comes to us we have four years to get them through um or less um and be productive members of our society so the fact that we've got these new diploma um design the redesign for us that's that's a big thing for us so down at the bottom um you'll see that there are three

082different current areas of focus of employment enlistment and enrollment um for today I'm just going to show and use enrollment so everything that you're going to see today is the exact same thing in enlistment and the exact same thing in employment um so the top part of it um The Freshman is going to be a big Focus for us so everything that I'm going to talk about if you have a prior or a current nine through 12th grade they're not going to fit into the criteria that we're talking about this is just going to be current freshman um starting in 29 so we started with um our nth grade you'll see in the white is everything that um the high school offers and it's going to stay consistent for ninth grade depending on which track

083um with a little bit of additions you'll see that here in a minute um freshman year we um have things set and then we've got a few family choices um we decided to call these selectives family choices because we want um our families to hear that we want them to be part of the decision Mak with their students they're the best ones to help to decide is this really the choice um because a lot of students they take um they take an assessment and they find out oh the assessment says they're supposed to be a pilot and that may or may not ever be something that that family can help the child to obtain so we want families to be involved um we met with all of our departments um on the teacher day um

084for them to know and for them to learn the new diploma and are goals were that for that were were Beyond The Years where you know a kid needs 40 um credits for graduation and this is what they have to take everyone is going to be individualized so we wanted them to be a master of their um of their content um area science to know the science criteria English to know the English criteria um so part of that feedback for being an inquire were what happens if I have a band inquire how does that fit in so you are going to see B inquire be the actual FOC Focus because we realize we have a lot of students in band in choir so we wanted the families to see that so um if you go

085on to the next one the other option um that students will have a choice of is um the honor seal and the honor seal is really more or less like our honors um diploma that we have now um with some other additional criteria and you're going to see that in purple so now you start seeing a little bit more color freshman again is where we're going to start with so think about the 10 11 and 12th that's as they go through their four years not our current 10 11 and 12 so the Freshman continues um still the same year whether they're in um the general um content up above or whether they're honors um 10th grade year is where they'll start taking some of those um college courses and that's in red which is our

086ICC um which stands for Indiana um colon core that is um our college credit dual credit coures so you'll see those in red everything in purple is that additional seal um and again we have this for the other seals as well um bring the last one thank you so then the last one is um our enrollment plus um honors plus so this is above and beyond this is where our students really take the academic route um and as you see there they still can be ban in choir and still take a complete full load of academics um this is also where our students will fulfill the ICC requirement um and end up with um an associates degree or certifications um we're proud uh to have Partners um with IU for our ICC partner um but

087we also still have other colleges um involved um with our idtech and our depal outfit and vincon um and ISU so we'll have a lot of different um options for students um but this is as we start with freshman we're also during all of our parent meetings and all of our um conversations with our guidance counselors I've told them I want um students preparing for two because what we're finding before with diplomas if kids set their selves up for something and they fell short of it um life happens Life Changes we didn't want them to get to 10th or 11th grade and freak out of now what um so they will um in their meetings they will decide what two areas do you want to focus on on a lot of them go hand inand

088with just a little bit of adjustments but they'll either be enrollment and employment or they'll be enlistment employment um so they have a backup plan if something fails within um the next four years thank you um so this is just a quick snippet of our master schedule um because of the new requirements we're looking at things differently so everything in light blue is showing um new courses that we're creating everything is standards based everything is still um following all the state standards that we've done before but some of our subjects um are going to be reworked to give again uh personal preference for students and see courses that are going to apply to the choices that they um are choosing moving forward so we have more applicable courses um instead of you're just taking English

08911 um now they have um some additional um um expertise in their areas if we have a student like I had said um we get them and they weren't up to par and they're going to be an employment or they're going to be an enlistment and college was never on the radar these are courses that we are tailoring um towards kids interest so that way a kid still is not um it's not just jumping through the hips of school for then what um these courses will apply and allow them flexibility to apply if they're more of a Hands-On student um or they're more an academic student um courses in Black are the same subject so um those are just the Dual credits you can see that we we're adding dual credit and um adding additional

090so this is basically kind of the timeline of how we came through that um we are because we will see a freshman um we'll have a lot of time as you saw on previous slides Junior and Senior year to do internships to do um more um fully focused instead of hopping period class schedule they may be with one teacher um in a programming Department um for three hours they may be in internships um outside of our community um we also want to have internships within our school um because we have a lot of things that the kids can have access to and in talking with the mayor they don't have a lot of jobs for our kids so um she has reiterated you know the more we can um give opportunities to our students in

091house and the more things we can do with them in house house we're pairing with businesses businesses are telling us the things that they need they come into the classroom with our with our students we teach those students those skills they hire them in the summer they'll hire them post um graduation so we are taking a handful of kids um we have seven Mr kindall and Mrs shuy have that were doing these internships um using these new requirements so that way we can see um where the short files are what do we need to tweak what do we need to change prior to getting the whole class of um 2029 um knowing that we still had a few years January 3rd just again we took um say from all of our um teachers um one

092of our things you're going to see us history is jumping down to freshman because 8th grade they have um the the curriculum matches right back up it didn't make sense for us to have a junior year when it can go right um and then allow that flexibility their junior year to do more internships um in and outside of our school um we will be having um counseling um meetings um and one of the things that we thought would be really important with Mrs Clemens and I speaking um is that our guiters and counselors set on to um the middle school and so they're going to talk with the middle school and again not get into all the little leads but give the overall arches that kids can have choice and kids can have um a

093different steal um option um and what does that mean and how can we do things within our classroom how can we do field trips that match up um how can they add those opportunities and then um we always have a parent meeting um with freshmen for scheduling but this time we're going to turn it into an open house because we know that although freshman year it's pretty specific what they need to take um after that there's a whole big guidance so our foreign language departments coming our Fab Lab our um our class our um business teachers um our science labs to be open for our parents to see that no longer is it like when we went to school we choose two science classes a kid could choose a whole path of science um and

094still get that and so we want them to see our spaces um indust re iterating with parents and with kids every time we speak we're personalizing it so we're going to have some options we want you always having two skills focused um so we have a backup fing in and we'll still continue um the scheduling meeting with our high school students um but what we're constantly reiterating with erance is our freshman through 12th grade they're still going on with um current guidelines as we would go through the news so that would be a different um juggling that with parents of no this applies to this kid and office kid so we're trying to get everything personalized so our guidance counselors came to me and they said all right we got a whole bunch of SK

095um we got a whole bunch of changes we get a whole bunch of things uh how about we rearrange how we do the guidance and so I heard them out um I talked with Mr Gib no longer with a through l and m through Z we are looking um that it's going to be a good idea for us to do 9 and 10 11 and 12 so we'll have a guidance counselor stays within nine and 10 and then we'll have a guidance counselor that moves with them 11 and 12 um but they're both involved in each other's are so know um her n and 10 Miss shuy she's doing the testing for Junior and senior so she sees what is to come and why um Mr Kendall is doing all our Junior and senior internships

096invested with um the n and 10 to see what are their interest and what opportunities do we need to have available um for them when they're 11 and 12 um so our model motto basically is going into personalization and make us tell you know um we've had the graduation uh requir or our goal of 95% um we've had that because the state's always been so low um 88% was the state highed in 2023 last year everyone was ecstatic you're at 9% what I think a lot of people fail to realize at the high school level is graduation is based on four years so if the kid passes away if the kid moves out and we don't get documentation properly back those de if a kid um moves out of state and that state doesn't share

097this that kid is a Dean for us um we're happy to say everyone that fulfills 9 or 12 graduates um so that is our good thing it's the kids that I already know I'm gonna take a hit on right now in ninth and 10th because they've been MIA um and I can see them on the Tex report so internally um we're about 99.3% graduation but what the state records um we are not so that's going to be the focus for us is instead of getting them all pushed out senior year and everybody focusing on senior it's like okay we need to rethink we got to get them really involved ninth grade year 10th grade year so they have that passion that drive for what is going to help them be successful um Junior and Senior

098year and then hopefully they stay and then our 18-year- olds when they turn 18 don't um get an argument with their parents and Bounds that they'll still stay because too so so one thing you touch on was I know we've been working on expanding our dual credit opportun did you kind of make sure that that there we started out with two um teachers that were dual credit three could have been but two um I'm happy to say for this next school year we have 10 um and then we have three more in the waiting for the following school year so we partnered with IU for the simple fact that IU um offered all of our programing so teachers the minute they say um they qualify they say they want to teach a dual credit they

099instantly teach a dual credit they pay them for training they pay them to get their masters they pay them get their certification um and our teachers can teach it the other programs we love our other college Partners but they just didn't have that flexibility right now so you will see a few of our start IU and then maybe bouncing over to I Tech or ISU um long term but IU is allowing us uh to be able to get that window in so up to 10 um by the following 2526 we should have 13 um but we also know too EV flow right at any given moment someone else outbids a dual credit teacher and they go to another school system so we know that's really important that we keep the culture in our school that

100we keep um their opinions and and their thought um thought processes and their input um for our students that also realizing that have halfs so we are our goal for 25 26 is to be on ICC Journal requirement so if we do lose someone we don't lose ICC also any other questions how we looking on licensing overall I mean are we the new requirements are we good yeah we are we are um all of my emergency license have all switched over now everybody has um their licenses and um all of our dual credit is all in and then we've got our plan that will jump in in 256 Wonder thank you thank you I know that that was a lot of information thank you um for taking the time to listen to all the good

101things that are happening and our action plans helping our students grow I will be sure to get um historical data for you and then the two assessment information be great I think um for data driven with a whole lot of relationship and rigor be successful so I would love to see what that number looks like for the high school in terms of how many we got on target for graduation postgraduation in terms of who's enlisting who's going through education where they're in that process if they uh you know taken the asbab and sworn in for the military and then also um that gain for employment what is that game see just kind of see where we're at maybe some special ed input too to see where we're at as a district a special ed and

102I count us with what I did the numbers today we said at 51% in reading and 44% in math so if we can get some top down too um from Jeff and Becky in terms of a goal too to to tie as a district as a whole I think it's going to be better for us and that's that's just my thoughts on it thank you I like it thank you thank you Mr M and kudos to you and your team for all the hard work on all that stuff it's fantastic thank you okay is that all you had for us this evening Madam that is all I have for you okay all right moving on to Mr Gib about another hour and a half outstanding I don't want to rush through because I do have

103important information to share as well but just a few updates um our ADM count date uh is on February 3rd and so that's second count day uh type type of funding won't go into depth this month but with Bond 2024 our projects and some of those funds available um working on even though it's mostly complete finish up that middle SCH hallway uh flooring projects um working on planning for some additional painting to take place in the district at Middle School TZ um potentially over spring break and then working longer term uh you know contining to kind of build out some of those uh additional projects with floring and just a just a lot of just general maintenance that has been deferred time and time again so um excited excited about that um you know I

104do think it's kind of important to to mention you know well we didn't share a lot of specifics but um when it comes to uh some of our students it's important to remember that access to education is protected um and all children regardless um of immigration status um are entitled to a free public education and so we do have uh procedures and protocols in place for um working with governmental agencies so I just did want to State uh that piece as well question was kind of brought up um at the beginning of the weend um kind of Shifting years here um obviously we just wrapped up the 2024 uh budget and calendar year and we're working to shift boards into 2025 so Cory if you can pull that up um this information is obviously uh

105in your in your board packet so I'm not going to read it verba them but this is something that we've done year after year just to build greater understanding and just to have greater transparency um with our stakeholders I just feel like it's a good thing to show them uh that we are good stewards um of all of our funds next slide please so this is just a tracking spreadsheet that I use uh throughout the year um that Top Line there um that's highlighted in yellow those are um budgetary uh Revenue estimates that we use when we are doing our budget each year um and when it comes to our budget we're conservative because we don't want to plan to overspend when in essence we could get cut or student enrollment could drop um so

106we just want to protect ourselves with that so I track against our budgetary numbers and you can see specifically for our pension uh debt fund and the education fund um that bottom line those are all green so that's good that means that we took in uh more than expected um one of the big reasons with with that specifically for the education fund is something as simple as just that additional interest um from our bank accounts next slide please and then something similar here uh for The Debt Service fund and the operations fund um overall pretty well nothing too uh distinctly different from uh prior years um but you can see all the different buckets that we capture from there so we have our property tax funds then we have some of those miscellaneous tax funds

107excise commercial vehicle excise financial institution tax and the local in income tax and you can see again kind of where we stood um with budgeting in the yellow to kind of where uh we fell um at the bottom and those numbers are not too uh too different um from from prior years um and on the operations fund of course we have our transfer from the education fund to the operations fund and that's captured there next slide so overall 2024 uh was a fairly positive year you can see we took in roughly $957,000 in more Revenue um than than what we projected moving forward you know I don't want to paint a bleak picture um but it may get a little a little bit tighter with just um some of the potential property tax reforms um

108certainly uh we know uh the tuition support funding May look slightly different you know the governor's initial kind of estimate is looking at 2% um but we know that that may not be where where it falls and that 2% may not necessarily just come to come to specifically to Public Schools next slide please and then um then the next really the next two slides just kind of highlighting the year uh for the education fund um and our cash our cash balances um just kind of some high Lev notes for uh education fund um we're tracking where we should be um with our our transfer from education operations we were staying well below that 15% um our end ofe cash balance um increased by roughly $876,000 so um you can see we ended December sitting at

109roughly 4.4 um but it's important to note that um due to legislative change one of the things that school districts had to do was we had to eliminate our textbook and curricular materials fund and so now that is now baked into the education fund and so roughly 645,000 of that is strictly for curricular material so we're up but obviously not not that much so we're we're we're trending well um there as well year-to date expenditures increased by just over $1 million compared to uh previous year we know that um we we've been very successful at moving the needle um with just compensating our staff um and specifically our teachers moving to you know lower a first year teacher pay of $46,800 uh for a bachelor degree and then uh 478 for master's degree and just

110continue to kind of move the needle with some of those items um so overall uh continuing the trend uh very positively uh with that we obviously moving forward want to make sure that we're uh cautious with our our spending so that we don't take you know the proverbial One Step board and and two steps back next slide please um the next slide deals specifically uh with the operations fund um our end of year cash balance decreased um by $5,000 um so we open to think about it in terms of Revenue versus expenditures we over spent by $5,000 um we had some kind of unplanned expenditures like pool repairs and things of that nature that we had to had to pay for um so again we want to be cautious of that um as we move

111forward um year-to date expenditures increased by just over $550,000 uh year-to dat Revenue increased by just over just under $300,000 so just some kind of high level thoughts on that again we just want to make sure that um you know as we look to uh contract with um law enforcement agency and add S as some SRO we just want to be again just good stewards of of how we're spending and we might have a fewer dollars available in our operations fund for uh preventive maintenance projects things of that nature but that's where Bond 24 uh comes in to kind of help us offset uh some of those expenditures next slide please and so uh as we move as we close 2024 and move into 2025 um in I don't know if it was I think

112it was the end of November we actually received our budget order um from the Department of local government Finance you can see overall so remember where we start is where we're advertised or where we advertise we use a lower AV right and we know that a lower AV that inflates our rates and and as you can see in the right hand side that after those numbers come back certified those rates drop right um we know that some of those levies um are subject to a maximum Levy um with our operations fund and so you can see that for uh budget year 2025 you can see that we expect to have an overall tax rate of a1ar 2762 and you look right above it yep we had A1 3710 um another item I would really like

113to uh to note is for Debt Service fund you can see 6199 that's identical to what it was in 2024 and that was identical to what it was when we decided to move forwards with Bond 21 and 22 we promised our taxpayers that we would work within that rat um and and not increase that rate um just actually when we got our budget order back um the dgf had approved 672 W and so we actually had to tell them to cut it down to that 6199 so we cut off just about you know five just about a nickel um off of that rate so again overall things um turned to fairly uh positively with that it's anyone's guess what's going to happen uh at the state house um with funding I think we can I

114think it's you know well known that we're going to see some type of hoers are going to see some type of relief when it comes to property taxes um but we also know that less revenue is also going to potentially have an impact on us as well so we'll just have to U you know we're in a good spot with our cash balances so we'll just have to uh do the best we can to prepare to tackle that as it C that's all I have for my report this month I like seeing the 1.7 that's awesome very good thank you Jeff for all your work on that I that fantastic okay all right we have no old business moving on to new business look like we have several approval requests yep so again as this

115customary uh this time of year um we work to kind of clean up our books and one of those items is permission to cancel outstanding checks two years and older specifically uh in your packet you have some items from middle school high school PCA treasure then you also have some things from Mrs Roman it' be my recommendation the board permit us to uh clean up our books cancel those checks right can I get a motion motion second have a motion to Second any discussion hearing none all in favor I I any opposed that motion will carry particularly thankful my name's not on that all right moving on check we have an approval request for permission to pay late arriving invoices yep um so Mrs room will be uh leaving leaving town here uh in February

116similar to do last year this an annual annual trip and we just want to uh seek permission to continue to kind of pay our bills um and um she will provide the board an updated report of uh those late arriving invoices it's essentially what we do in December yep I hope you're going somewhere warm I am as I do every year good for you and I'm not telling you where it is I don't tell anybody where I go it's the only week out of the year that I am not accessible that's not fair okay can I get a motion to approve I I second I have a motion on a second do I have any discussion hearing none all those in favor I I any opposed motion will Carri all right we have an approval

117request for overnight ghs wrestling to Rochester Indiana yep so this is the uh the trip that I had emailed uh each of you about M uh we had some wrestlers qualify to move on in the the to the regional tournament which is a nice uh honor and um essentially since it was overnight it requires uh or approval we had some inclement weather at that time yes we did they chose to leave earlier up in the morning and thankfully they they did because it would have been a little bit rougher had they not yep yes yep yep safety first okay can I get a motion to approve so moved second have a motion a second any discussion hearing none all those in favor I any oppos motion will carry I think it's important to note that

118we had one of the one of those wrestlers move on uh to the state and uh we're going to invite her and some of our other uh other students that we have to honor um next month excellent yep those were our lady wrestlers correct correct and they are I watched the I watched them wrestle I hope they'll never snatch me up because they are mean they mean business that's for sure yeah they worked they worked really hard and it's just meant enjoy just to kind of see the increase in interest sure okay outstanding all right I approval request for D proposal for the Chromebooks at Green Castle Middle School yep so it's uh it's time to uh work towards replacing our Middle School devices for next uh school year and so any more packet um

119was quotes for three items um they're similar as you can be although each from different manufacturers and uh these will actually be paid for um out of the education fund because remember we moved curricular materials to the education fund so those expenditures are now going to come out of the education fund fund and we have to plan for that with our education fund balance um but we have a recommendation for uh total of to cost of $138,100 uh to replace our Middle School devices and we're seeking to move forwards with that before there are any additional increases in cost and we'd like to get those well ahead of time so we can plan for a smooth distribution it out can I get a motion to approve motion second a motion a second any further discussion

120hearing none all those in favor I any opposed and motion will carry thank you thank you for working hard on that I have approval request for the 2026 2027 school calendar yep so with our school calendar excuse me we always attempt to say excuse me attempt to stay two years out so this is for 26 uh and 27 um obviously we know that we have we always are mandated to have 180 student days also within that uh that same time frame we have to have 184 teacher uh contract work days and we also know that all the various different holidays that fall with uh within uh the school year in a week at fall break a week at Spring break so what you have in front of you um is pretty much a corresponding dates

121calendar uh for for the most part because we're not looking to uh significantly move um move anything um probably one of the major major differences and it's just sometimes how the calendar works out the holidays and things like that is um you can just see that we have one built-in snow makeup day um for next year um we just we didn't have uh the capability with kind of all the goals um for the calendar to build a second one in because we're already running up to to uh the Thursday um before graduation um and you know we listened to the teachers they didn't want to start you know if at all possible they didn't necessarily want students to start on a Monday they prefer them to kind of start midweek and so you can't accomplish

122all of your goals if you can accomplish most of them um you know that's pretty nice so we had a had a calendar kind of again kind of hits those things the best we can and I'm just uh seeking approval um of our calendar for 26 27 does this pretty much align with other schools or give or take a day or two here okay or like a built-in um like PD day or something there but yeah our brakes are aligned we want to keep them aligned for for area 30 and you know it's never our goal to get um you know completely off track you know beginning or end of the year either okay but there are some settle differences of times but with that being said that we are two years out they just

123approve they're not two years out they approve exter so they don't have got it if that makes sense yes but that's why we're looking to for the most part using corresponding dates we've agreed to like okay can I get a motion to approve move to approve the motion is second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor I any opposed that motion will carry all right approval request for a preschool program at Rass yeah so I don't think it's uh a big secret um I'm a big supporter of preschool um Community Preschool our district has been you know I think you know even you know prior to the start of this school year we listen to our community um and so we want to continue to grow out our preschool uh program so our

124Our Community Preschool uh program so right now it's parent funded um we're still working on um being able to take uh vouchers um sorry there are so many different acon acronyms we have to have to remember I not able to speak to the specific one um but at the same time in in addition to expanding preschool we also want to be able offer preschool at both elementary schools um so we are looking to start a full day or year old program uh at rid path beginning next school year uh there are a lot of logistics still yet to be worked out um but while we continue to kind of work on those we are seeking approval because we want to we want the work to continue to to trickle out so I think this has

125been a good thing I think you know everybody sees value in it we know that our students that complete a year of pre a year or two years of preschool they are that much more ready uh when they're kindergarteners um so we want to stay ahead of the curve uh with that and I do say preschool because preschool and child care are two distinct different things and we know that we still have some work yet to do that with that in our community uh but we want to specifically focus on expanding our preschool so just seeking approval uh to move forward with that Becky's been working with with Brandon and Britney um we have a classroom identified um at Red path they're working on you know what kinds of materials we might need obviously at

126some point we're going to have to have to work on what kind of Staff we might need there as well and so this just kind of helps to put the wheels in motion okay any of my travels throughout the schools so see at with Britney's prechool program she has it looks like it's an outstanding program it's doing very well so I think uh I think we're on the right track and I think we have the ability to do the program yeah we may even look to expand there again we're here to serve a need and if we can serve it or or fill it um you know within reason and and not you know set ourselves backwards like we're going to do that that's what we're here for I agree I like it I like

127it okay can I get a motion to approve motion second have motion and a second do we have any other discussion hearing none all those in favor I I any opposed that motion will carry thank you thank you and I have approval request for it looks like several donations where we at here uh we have the putam County Community Foundation the Green Castle School Corporation for $1,000 professional data analyst to Green Castle High School for a youth tobacco survey for $500 North Salem State Bank to Green Castle High School Middle School FFA for $500 Keystone Cooperative to Green Castle High School Middle School FFA for $11,000 and Deborah King to Green Castle High School Middle School FFA for $500 very nice taking care of the FFA all right can I get a motion to approve

128move to approve a motion the second any discussion hearing none all those in favor all all right any opposed that MO Carri thank you very much all right moving on to the first reading of the ne policies policies volume 37 number one yep so again of as customary periodically we have some additional um updates and there's no board action uh being taken uh at this meeting this is just for first reading and for your review and obviously we know that most of these changes are due to uh changes in state okay very good any questions on that anybody very good all right I'm moving on to other business I want to take the opportunity right now to thank Mr Gib and your crew uh for the recent snowfall that we've had handling that quite well

129that was a lot of snow at one time um so your crew handled cleaning that up and taking care of the kiddos and make sure they were safe with the first one and the second one as well as the bitter cold that we had calling some some late start days to keep everybody safe on that so that was a lot of decisions to be made at the last minute and thank you for handling that quite well I'm glad they last if we get it out or you know I never want to just sit on something and get up early in M we try to get out as quick as we can I was proud of how our work snowfall that's not easy we certainly have new facilities and New Uses like we're all we're all

130working to continue to get better to do even better with that um but yeah definitely appreciate everyone's uh support to there's a lot of snow and it took a lot of places to findun to put that snow I think was the problem yeah yeah we found out out in the city as well we were able to push it just not get it very far yes yeah very good do we have any other business before we close hearing none can I get a motion to adjourn so move I'll second have a motion and a second any discussions on that hearing none all those in favor I any opposed that motion will carry thank you everyone for being here have a safe evening couple hundred boys out there I'm guess probably