001talk to him he's just fine once he gets like in the group of here um i'm not sure [Music] the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay thank you and welcome to the green castle school board regular meeting of the month of march first item on the agenda is adjustments to the agenda mr kibbeny yeah so a late item to your board packet and what you'll find at the table or excuse me in the court packet is a builder's risk insurance proposal from epic insurance midwest and essentially this is the additional insurance coverage um required um while we complete the renovation addition to greencastle high school matt cannelly okay that'll be a number i okay all right can
002i get a motion to approve the adjustments to the agenda can i make connection second you have a motion in a second all in favor aye all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is public comments regarding tonight's agenda items do you have anyone wanting to speak on any of the agenda items tonight okay hearing no one um next item on legion is recognitions mr gibney mr i'm happy to present to you isla tyson isla is the second grader in angie woods classroom and miss wood had the has the pleasure of teaching isla and wrote on her nomination islet is a helpful student who is also a role model student for others her daily smiles are a cheerful reminder that students in second grade should enjoy their time while they learn either is a
003hard worker and always tries her best she is a friend to all and a pleasure to have in class isla tyson our dear medal student [Applause] mr mchugh and and all of our student among families we have the green castle backdrop and the lobby area so you can go out and round and back in okay all right what you can you go through the cut through this way okay let that open all right family so tazonicus is proud to have mia cochrane as our student of the month mia is a fourth grader in mrs aguirre's classroom and mrs aguirre notes that mia is an incredible leader in and out of the classroom she is always willing to help her peers whether it be with a math problem or just a marker for them to color
004with she will be there to help she walks in every morning with a contagious smile on her face and i love that this is a very a contagious smile and her laughter quickly fills the room mia works hard in every subject even when things get challenging watching her grow this year has been a joy mia cochrane good evening greencastle middle school we actually have two students we like to recognize tonight one from last month and one for this month so if i could have rachel hubbard please come up so be ready to sit and listen for a little bit because teachers have a lot of positive things to say about rachel i love this adjective that is used tremendous all right rachel is a tremendous student who demonstrates fairness she's currently on the science academic
005bowl team and is working on research for the competition with a fellow student she always makes sure that the workload is fair and even goes above and beyond and finishes research outside of her other duties rachel is also thoughtful she's a thoughtful student always willing to lend a hand and help other students rachel is a positive person even when she's having a bad day and it doesn't let her stop her from being the best student she can be and another teacher said rachel is always on task and works very hard she helps other students and ask questions readily rachel howard one more landon miller if you'll come up that was a long walk not to be outdone but landon also has quite a few things that teachers have made comments on landon always tells the
006truth he always completes tasks given to him he is one of the most honest students you could ask for landon is a student who not only is trustworthy but is very respectful in the classroom there isn't a day he doesn't hold the door until the last student leaves the room landon is always willing to lend a hand and help other students study when they need it he will help go over material with other students that they are not as prepared for as he is he's a great kid i love that landon has to be one of the most thoughtful students ever he is always willing to hold the door open for teachers there's a theme there very good he always gets his work done and puts forth great effort landon miller good evening our our
007high school student couldn't make it tonight but i'm still going to honor him anyway our high school student is brayden mann uh he's a junior at green castle high school and we were tremendously good word i just used it tonight we're so proud to recognize him because of the strides he's made really since his freshman year i could go on and on and on because i got to have lots of conversations with brandon his freshman year but our character trait this last month you guys got that our character trait this last month was kindness and uh to share a quick story about how he portrayed this without giving too much away we basically had a student that had returned to us uh he'd been basically out for for two years in other words virtually and
008not really been in our building it was really difficult for that student to come back and not only come back but then get on a bus and arrive to school and so braden reached out and said you know what i can give him a ride it's not a problem so he arranged to pick the student up and walk him into first period class and for that he was recognized really really amazing and again if you know this kid at all um to say that we could come here and honor him i'll give him that plaque later on um just brings joy to all of our hearts and it has everything to do with him and we just sit here and get to enjoy it so brighten man [Applause] okay okay thank you everyone and the
009next item on the agenda is the approval of the consent agenda which consists of meeting minutes from an executive session on february 28th in a regular board meeting on february 28th the allowance of claims the financial report report and personnel reports parts one and two which are on the website and on the door this is roman uh um i did not next in your package is the new expenditures highlighted for the month of march i do not have any questions okay can i get a motion to approve the consent agenda so i've seconded that okay motion in a second no further questions all in favor aye all opposed motion passes okay next item on this end is reports and the first one is from assistant superintendent dr 000 french from the american rescue plan specifically
010for homeless children and youth and so we can use those funds specifically to help kids that are homeless or in foster care so we've irreborned those funds to help in terms of extracurricular activities or school supplies or if they need cleats or any other fees that would be attributed to that so we have dedicated specific funds we always try to make that work um thanks next is mr gibbons report yes i've asked mike montgomery from karen to provide a little bit of an update about our projects that are going out to to bid this month for secure entrances at our primary schools um the uh eight or the ceiling of the building envelope at tz and then some of the things at the middle school so an overall status up so this is uh what's
011on the screen is the same as the handout that you have so to give you a little bit of an overall uh status report of all the projects um football and track is uh it's essentially complete but there's there's a handful of things that have just been tough to get the contractor to finish they have been back even yet today and this week um working with mr gibbon and the staff to get those completed i think they feel like going to be able to run track on your first meet on april the 5th the high school in the mackinaly which is the the biggest project of the group we've all been working with the general contractor it's going well he's planning to move on site in early april and by the end of april they'll
012they'll be doing some work over there so there's some logistics work that's going on now to make it all work together and just as a reminder that project has to be completed by december 31st of next year so a lot of work to do but the group so far seems very professional and organized the primary thing to talk about tonight is the work that is now out to bid it's the work at the zonagus elementary school to seal up the envelope of the building so it doesn't leak to to reduce the humidity in the building which has been an ongoing problem along with that work as the secure entrances at the primary schools that's tz ridpath and dear meadow those bids are due april the 12th and we're going to talk a little bit about
013what's in those plans just so that you're up to speed and knowledge and before that and then ongoing right now is the middle school design work that includes uh the secure entrances uh the media center renovation and the science area renovations at the middle school and then the last group of work um is uh the high school parking lot area uh rid path exterior renovate uh there's some exterior work to do there and there's some other miscellaneous work that we're gonna try and pick up as part of that big group so if you go to the next slide please as a matter of fact skip skip a couple of them there now this is a floor plan of uh go back please go back one there we go this is a floor plan of rid
014path elementary excuse me i have to zonagas tz and in order to let the contractors know what their work is to do to seal up this envelope that's a little bit hard to see here but all the way around the perimeter we've poked our heads above the ceilings and identified every condition different condition of construction and talk and in the bid documents the contractors are given the information about what he is to do or he or she is to do to correct the air infiltration so if you go to the next slide and even skip one more ahead there this is just one example of the type of information the contractor is looking at in the for each different condition and there are 14 different conditions around the building in the upper right as an
015example you can you can see actually the top of the concrete block wall and then to your right of that is the soffit area and that is the area that's going to be blocked up because it just leaks a lot and you can matter of fact you can see over the right hand side you can see a light fixture with daylight coming in around it i'm so lower maybe a little hard to see but in the lower drawing of that exact same condition essentially we're directing the contractor to work his way around the building and the specifications call for two inch thick essentially cooler walls like you might see in a kitchen cooler a commercial kitchen and different conditions where they put that up and seal the perimeter around it and cover all the edges
016and we think it's a good as economical as you're going to find solution to give a good installation and seal up all those all those areas this is a typical condition and there's there's a lot of wide open areas just just like this next slide please uh this is a partial floor plan at t z elementary and this is their the plan that's developed to secure that entrance and in the upper left part you can see the where the office is and then directly below the office is a new secure vestibule and essentially a tz which is the toughest one there's a glass wall that will divide that entryway in half so that if i'm approaching the building and i want to come in during non-dismissal hours i would push the same button that you
017have now have the doors released but i can't go all the way into the school building i have to go into the office area to check in and then i'm allowed to go from the office area into the school and but during dismissal and the other times when the building's wide open both of the sets of doors will be open so the students can come and go and parents can come and go so if you flip one more slide this is at dear meadow elementary school which is the easiest of the three you can see uh kind of in the top part there it says new door that's essentially all i have to do for this particular building in terms of the architecture of it is to cut a new door into the existing office
018area and then set up some of the security a little bit we are taking an alternate to maybe look at a buzzer on that new door so that instead of people going straight into the office they might there might be a buzzer there depending on on cost but this one is very very simple to set up so if you can go one more slide this is a red path elementary and it's it's not particularly difficult you can see kind of on the right hand side there it says moved glass if you remember the entrance to red path there's already a glass wall after you come in from the exterior there's just not enough room to get the new door into the office so the glass wall gets moved back and then a new door is
019cut into the office area from the existing vestibule there is a fire alarm panel there and there are some complications but in terms of the actual layout and one other small detail up above where it says single door that's the door the double doors now that leads into the cafeteria due to the space constraints that's being changed to a single door um so again it was uh not too difficult to fix there's just some electronics that goes along with that next slide so uh the the other large part of the work that's uh coming up is the middle school and there are three primary components to this a renovation of the science classrooms you can see on the right this is the existing floor plan renovation of the media center and then some renovation configuration
020for the entrance area for the secure entrance and uh just the way that the middle school is configured there is a separation that takes people right in right into the court or a little bit like it is at to zonagas so it triggers more remodeling than you might have seen at rid path or dear meta next slide please for the media center our team has met with the administrators and the teachers and you know it's an opportunity to create a new um kind of new energy for the for the media center to help attract students and find new use for it so these were some of the images shared during a work session with the staff working in the media center area next slide please as we went through and worked we came up with
021some some different configurations and none of them have been settled yet but this is just kind of our progress one of the ideas was to develop if possible an instructional corner where now a lot of the classes if there's a substitute or you know some other instructional shortage they all go to the media center so this might set aside us a space to allow that to occur and also provide space for uh more flexible uh classroom gatherings in the media center and i won't go into a lot of details next slide this just shows that there are different options that we're studying now with with the staff next slide please this is some of the work in the new entrance area and this happens to be one of the options that seem to be a
022little bit uh this is a tough area to work out there's no doubt it just happens to trigger if we're not careful we'll trigger more remodeling than you need or want to do but this uh in this particular one you can see that the office and clinic and guidance are moved across the hallway to the outside walls and then those two classrooms that are moved down the hall to the north a little bit and then the hallway itself is actually jogged up towards towards the west a classroom is added so it ends up reconfiguring quite a bit of the area some of it one of the things i think all of us discovered in working with the staff was there's a lot of spaces that weren't as efficiently used because it's you know kind of
023an older school and they've just kind of used space as they've found it so it does give an opportunity to create some more efficiency in the office and guidance and and you know just for example uh i believe there's a partnership forming with the local hospital in terms of um electronic uh so this will allow you to have a better facility for that next slide please this is a blow up of that same area where the potential of the hallways just shifting to to allow this particular scheme to work and then if you flip to the next slide please uh this there are multiple uh versions of the possible science area this this is the layout that seemed at the time uh currently seem to have the most attraction to the staff and uh there
024are three uh science classrooms they're all a little bit bigger than what they have now the prep areas in between and the labs the the science classroom labs are a little bit larger so instead of sharing a lab space and and each teacher having a classroom they now have a combination lab and classroom space all within the same footprint that they have now and all all new equipment so that's i think that's the last slide and that kind of gives you an update as to what we're working on right now so if there's any questions i'd be happy to try and answer them for you at t z when it rains how are we collecting that rain water and getting it away from the school not very well yeah uh that is not part of
025this work this we're trying to get out relatively quick okay to get as much of it done during the summer right so it seals up because it's inside space that's going to come as part of the next the next the next wave and right now the rain water runs off the roof and just goes nowhere to tell you the truth and initially we thought maybe groundwater was part of the contributing factor but we did have some soil borings done there and they it wasn't that it was this and just as a reminder once this uh the air testing company that did this said that one of the things that will happen is we'll go through this process of sealing it up and then you'll have a reasonably well sealed building then we'll test it again
026because there may be other openings that without enough pressure they just didn't show up before so we think this will take care of a lot of it but there's more to come with that building there okay thank you thank you just kind of on that same topic we're looking at testing one wing of the middle school that has some humidity moisture issues to see if that's an envelope um issue as well um so we have some dehumidifiers hamilton couldn't even test that that here a new wing just to see if there are any leaks that we can seal up and on that same top or excuse me on the topic of a high school working on the phasing a lot of meetings in preparation for this the construction is coming and it's going to come
027swift and it's going to come fast so we are working on some announcements for families and community in general because with them with weddle brothers mobilizing next week people are going to start to see some fencing that they're not used to seeing and we're gonna have to make some adjustments to our to our operations so and that'll be constantly changing as we begin this journey for our beautiful high school we'll be updated it won't be for a real long time though what's that it won't be for a real long time though no it'll be done yeah it'll be done tomorrow mike told me that but we are working on that because we do expect to share information with the community and we obviously want to get in front of our staff first and then students
028and families that's what i have for this month okay thanks um next item on the agenda is old business and we have no old business so the next item on the agenda is for the board to hold a preliminary hearing on the proposed construction project if you are interested in speaking at the hearing please make sure you have signed and signed the sign up sheet and that includes your name and address after a presentation by the administration and his advisors we will there will be an opportunity for the public to make comments about the project the notice of this preliminary determination hearing was published as legally required and at this time i will ask bond council to explain the purpose of this hearing good evening jane herndon from ice miller pursuant to indiana code 20
02926 737 before a school corporation can alter a building where they're going to spend more than a million dollars they're required to hold a public hearing in addition after certain thresholds the law also requires public hearings and this is the second of that public hearing for that purpose thank you yeah we will hear from mr giving you at the process of determining and communicating the project with the community and the need for the project yeah so we obviously went through the process a year ago last march with our with our two hearings and that was for essentially this group of work at the high school in mcanally center and then the work that mike montgomery presented on from krm and we heard overwhelming support from our community and our public and you know one of
030the unfortunate things with the climate right now with the construction market being volatile supply chain being challenged is our bids came back a little bit higher than expected and so in order to fully complete the work that our that we hear from that we hear that our stakeholders want us to complete it's necessary to add issue excuse me issue some additional bonds and so this we need to go through this process in order to do that so we can adequately complete the work throughout the school district um and you know one of the changes that we made a result of that is obviously we decided not to do the off-site ball fields because we couldn't afford to do it we wanted to focus on our academic spaces we wanted to focus on safety security and
031then obviously finishing up the high school campus making sure that we did the work the right way so we can revisit the off-site ball fields at a later date but we we believe it's important to uh to focus on this you know the rest of this work and move forwards with that okay thanks okay well now we will now hear from stifl nicholas and company about how the proposed project will be financed as well as information about the effect on the typical property owner good evening luke bruggeman with steeple we serve as bond underwriter for the school corporation there's a couple slides i have for you guys we've been working with the administration on this proposed bond issue and i just want to share the potential structure and the potential taxpayer impact or lack thereof
032that this bond issue would have so if you flip to the first page this occur it's the current debt profile of the school corporation so this is just all of the school corporations outstanding bond issues grab the ones from the back thanks so if you flip to that first page that's the school corporation's current debt profile that all that includes all the outstanding bond obligations that the school has uh in uh in the bar chart there is all is all the different ones and and that corresponds to y-axis on the left-hand side for the annual payments for each one of those on the right-hand side is what the debt service tax rate is and that's based on uh that red line graph that you see running through there and that's really the most important part
033of of this bond issue so you can see uh the school's maintained about a 62 debt service rate over the past couple years we structured this 2021 bond issue that for the first round of these projects to allow for future projects the strong assessed value growth that the school corporation saw last year along with the low interest rates during the bond issue last year allowed for that capacity to be realized earlier than expected so when you flip to the second page there that the blue on the bottom is the current debt service that was just on that prior page the orange there is the potential five and a half million dollar bond issue uh layered on to that for the outstanding payments again the most important thing here is the debt service tax rate that
034line graph you can see that we're still targeting that 62 cent rate that the school corporations hit historically over the last few years and then not only that i think it's important with this bond issue that we're we're doing this in a way to structure the bonds to maintain debt service capacity for the future so we're not doing doing this round of bond issues and and hamstring the school corporation for any future projects or any future debt service capacity we know there's going to be capital needs in the future you're going to have something that comes up over over the next 20 years then the last slide is just the legal parameters of the bond issue and that's really just going on what was shown in those charts before and these are the maximum parameters
035for these bond issues we can always come down from this but we cannot go any higher uh than what we're proposing here so that would be a five and a half million dollar uh bond issue approximately two hundred and fifty thousand for uh cost of issuance and then five million two hundred and fifty thousand for hard and soft project costs now you can see the estimated interest expense there and the max lease payment of two million nine hundred and forty thousand that is the combined max annual payment that the school would make in one year for the 2021 bonds and the 2022 bonds combined so we're not going over that original threshold that was passed uh last year the maximum tax rate impact 61.99 you've heard me say 62 cents time and time time and
036time again tonight that's what i'm referring to the net increase over the 2021 rate is 0 so we're not going above that historical 62 cents i'll pause there answer any questions that the board or the administration has so debt service tax rate neutral and again all of our projects will have been bid by then and so we'll only issue bonds in the amount we need we won't take the full 5.5 if we don't need that right and we still have room in case there's an emergency here thunder exactly all right thank you thank you thank you okay now we will open the public hearing so if there's anyone that would like to speak about the proposed projects now is your chance no one okay so keep in mind there's no board action needed at this
037hearing rather to hear public comments and now we will have ms herndon explain or summarize the project resolution so the first resolution is your exhibit a entitled the project resolution it probably looks a little similar because this is very similar to what you adopted about a year ago and if you look in the first few paragraphs it it summarizes that action that you took back in march of 2021 then at the top of the page it goes on and really really reiterates what you just heard luke talk about the 5 250 hard and soft construction maximum cost of issuance of the 250 000 for a total maximum of 5 million 500 000 and most importantly that the tax rate is expected to stay level uh at that 62 cents so any questions on that resolution
038okay can i get a motion in a second to adopt the project resolution okay i have a motion in a second all in favor aye all opposed motion passes how could you explain or summarize the preliminary determination process a resolution this resolution is the one that you adopt after that second preliminary determination hearing that we just had it describes the project in exactly the same way it was described a year ago the only difference here now is it is authorizing the additional maximum of the five million five hundred thousand dollars the term of the lease is still 22 years and it goes through the annual lease payment that you heard luke talk about and all those financial figures that are required by statute again the most important thing in many ways is that tax rate
039expecting to be net zero with the maximum increase at the 62 cents okay thank you and can i get a motion i'll make a motion be approved as read a second motion in a second any further questions or discussion you're not all in favor all opposed motion passes thank you um next item on the agenda is a prelim um an approval request for a project resolution mr no we just we just did the uh we already adopted those we did that completed those b and c just as okay gotcha okay next item on vision is an approval request for a resolution to authorize deposits account with teachers credit union yeah so one of the things that we have done is we've approached some of our local banks about our interest rate on some of our
040some of our accounts because as you call right now all of our banking is with first national and ccu has offered us a an interest rate of 0.75 our rate of return through for the next two years which would generate roughly uh an additional 18 thousand dollars in interest and obviously you know we we try to be good stewards of our money and the taxpayers money and so as a result of this there's a proposal to transfer some of our funds from first national into an account with teachers credit union because it offers a better rate of return so we'll still keep first national bank as our primary primary account but then we'll open up a money market account with teachers credit union so in order to do that the board has to uh to
041take action sounds good to me to get a motion to approve i have to make promotion in a second many questions okay hearing that all in favor aye all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is an approval request for some special education services one being the 2022-2023 speech language pathology something i am a speech language pathologist services contract with shelby slack 2022-23 physical therapy services contract cornerstone rehabilitation and the 2022 summer speech services yep so it's my recommendation that the board approve these requests so we're able to keep our people in place and continue to provide the awesome services that we do for our students and their families i'll make that motion thank you okay i have a motion a second any questions can hearing that all in favor all opposed motion passes
042next item is an approval request for the 2022 summer meal program so as is customary again we just want to be able to offer meal services through our food service department throughout the summer in order to do so we have to have board approval to do that and mrs carrick and her staff will publicize which sites they will be we are shifting back i believe to a more of a cafeteria style approach meal so families and students under 18 coming in for the meal rather than a grab and go curbside i make emotion different okay motion in a second all in favor all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is an approval request for a deca overnight field trip to georgia yep so we had some students qualify for and mr rogers correct
043me if i'm wrong is it an international competition and there's i believe there's three students uh is there more now okay but there's three students um and they're going to be chaperoned by mrs dell travel arrangements and everything have obviously been taken care of but since it's overnight and out of state it requires board approval and those documents were included in your board packet i think it's a great opportunity for our kids to not only rep them represent themselves but our school community certainly is a celebration of their hard work i make a motion that we uh let them go and do their job in georgia okay motion in a second all in favor all right all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is an approval request for tozonicus intermediate intermediate student device
044proposal yeah so included in your packet was the advice proposal to update our computers um at tz and uh thanks to mr hill our technology coordinator technology director he applied for a federal federal emergency connectivity fund grant and we just found out that we were awarded 188 thousand dollars from the federal government which is amazing and that's really going to help offset the cost of devices excuse me of the replacement devices for tz for the next four years and uh also included your packet is a quote excuse me a quote that dell agreed to extend that had already expired to allow us to move forward with purchasing those devices so that hopefully we'll get them this summer but if not i've been assured that we can work out a transition when they do arrive and
045so this will greatly offset what families are currently paying for in rental for their device we're still working out what that exact fee is but it'll be a lot less thank you for getting the grant that's good yeah mr mr hill did a good job yeah okay can i get emotional proof i like them i'll second that okay we have a motion and a second all in favor aye all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is an approval request for a builder's risk proposal yep so as is legally legally required as a part of the process um epic insurance midwest who is our current insurance our current insurance agent we have our various policies they bid out the builders risk policies and so in front of you you have the proposal too many
046pages here from hanover insurance and it's at a roughly a cost of thirty six thousand dollars or roughly eighteen thousand dollars per year um to cover us um during the building project uh and uh you know say we finish up earlier than the two years it'll be prorated and there'll be a be a credit given and so um this policy would go into effect april 1 and it's my recommendation that the board approved this request i'll make a motion to that effect in a second any questions comments okay here you know all in favor aye all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is other business does anyone have any other business to discuss i'm just curious how the how the dog's doing here speak how dory [Laughter] i'm probably getting way ahead of
047myself here but we've talked briefly about the summer food program so clearly next year we're going to think about are you hearing anything as far as if our meals will be funded again this year yeah so there's a lot of debate in the federal government with a lot of things right now um and i don't know it just depends i know that one side you know there's an appetite from one side but there isn't from another no pun intended with that um but we have not been uh told that there's a guarantee that meals will be free next year just curious good question okay thanks to any other other business okay next item on the agenda [Music] all opposed motion passes thank you for coming and be careful going home you