001pledge of allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all good evening and welcome to the regular december school board meeting uh first item on the agenda is adjustments to the agenda yeah so there are no adjustments to the agenda this month perfect next item public comments regarding agenda items do you have anyone wanting to comment on anything on the agenda tonight okay moving on next item is recognitions mr gibboni yeah so this is a little bit um different months just given the short month and holiday so i know that there are some students of the month that we won't recognize tonight that will recognize twice as many in january but i see
002mrs rhodes is your student of the month here don't be shy i really don't need that i could probably use my teacher voice yeah and then just be loud so so teasy is very proud to have izzy isabelle batten as our november student of the month izzy is a fourth grader in mrs mann's class and mrs mann says that izzy is the student that every teacher wants she goes out of her way to do the right thing while her classmates may be talking out of turn she waits and listens patiently and maybe later when she catches mrs mann alone she might share something she knows about that topic izzy never speaks unkind word to her peers and she wants to do her best on every assignment sometimes she even tries to work ahead when she
003can to be prepared for the unexpected she not only takes care of herself but looks for ways to help her classmates without being asked she is patient with others she assists her classmates with classwork in a way that helps them understand she looks for people who are left out and she includes them she helped with their class community service project at rescue treasures thrift shop and even worked past her shift izzy knows how to have fun as well she's a wonderful card magician she loves soccer and basketball she is a child that her parents can be very proud of and that her school district can count on to represent us well this is why isabel is tz's [Applause] yes do we have any other recognitions this month okay um we are we do have the
004backdrop display set up for uh to take pictures okay awesome would you like to jump in this muncie great job busy perfect timing dear meadow would like to announce quinn case as our student of the month she's a mrs carr's class mrs carr said quinn is an amazing girl she has so many talents and strengths she continues to challenge herself to grow every day she's inquisitive and loves to learn even though quinn's academic achievements are outstanding i think the thoughtful and kind way she treats others is even more impressive she always has something nice to say and makes everyone feel welcome in our classroom our art room the playground anywhere quinn is an awesome role model for our school congratulations [Applause] um yes uh bailey bagus is our gms student of the month and fortunately
005last minute her and her family were not able to attend but i would like to still present the kind words said about her by her teachers mrs robinson said bailey shows leadership amongst her peers with her maturity and poise she is quick to understand the needs of others and responds in a helpful way an art class when she sees another student struggling with a step in a project she has a gift for stepping in with just the right amount of assistance bailey lifts other people up and raises the achievement of those around her making her the best kind of leader mrs stoffragen said she exhibits a positive attitude with any task in the classroom and as a very helpful teammate in labs i appreciate her energy mrs smith said bailey is a strong leader in
006the classroom she does a great job leading group work and making sure her classmates are doing the right thing mrs niklas said bailey is a natural leader among her peers she leads by example and has a natural charisma that others want to follow watching her in groups she encourages others to participate and keeps the discussion moving along thank you so much um hello we didn't mind all that excitement that's about as exciting as it's going to get i know all right next item on the agenda is the approval of the consent agenda which consists of meeting minutes from november 22 2001 or 2021 allowance of claims the financial report and personnel reports part 1 and 2 which are on the website and the door this is roman you're in first year finance packet you're going
007to see the first payroll in november dated november 12 2021 total payroll of 427 to 1270 along without the accounts payable for retirement and payroll taxes 118 twenty two sixty eight and then the second payroll in uh november would be the payroll where we had the increases the all staff increases so you'll see that that's gonna be a little bit higher this time around total payroll 11 26 21 uh was 680 831.46 and of course along with that higher payroll you're also going to have higher uh turf perf and payroll taxes two hundred twenty one thousand sixty four dollars and six cents and then next in your packet you're going to have a list of pre-pays there nothing unusual on this list if anyone have any questions about pre-pays you'll see there's two different sets
008you've got the regular prepays and then there's a single for postage just because mrs romer forgot it on the first one so i just added it to a second one so total was three hundred nineteen thousand five eighty four 55 for the first one and then the second one for that uh postage was 601 on those prepays and then you've got your claims that are dated today 12 13 21 again i didn't see anything i was i was going through here that was unusual did anyone have any questions about any of the of the claims for this month i did not okay all right total claims dated today uh 12 13 two hundred and twenty nine thousand seven hundred twenty one dollars and twenty five cents and then if you're ready to move on to
009the finance report we can do that all right okay next in your packet you're gonna see the fund report balance at the end of november 2021 in education 1 million 543 737 20. uh ending balance in operations 837 264 dollars and 94 cents total for all accounts if you go to the very last page that should be page five for all accounts is five million six forty five eight eighty thirty five and then next in your packet you're going to see the depository statement of bank balances for each bank you'll see the less the outstanding checks for all banks and then the november fund balance for all banks minus outstanding checks is 5 million six forty five eight eighty thirty five if you do that comparison with page five of your fund report you'll see
010that those balance to the penny and then finally in your finance packet um just update for the bond 2020 expenditures you've got your total expenditures forward from july 2021 through november 2021 was about 2 million 52 000 167 14 and then the total expenditures out of bond 2021 for december have been 784 231.37 those are all listed there for you so you can see what we paid in the month of december so total mon uh total um expenditures to date out of bond 2021 are two uh have been two million eight hundred thirty six thousand three hundred ninety eight dollars and fifty one cents and pending any questions i'd like to recommend for approval make a motion to accept the consent agenda as present second okay um emotion in the second call in favor all
011right all opposed motion passes thank you mrs romer you're welcome next item on the agenda is reports and first the superint or the assistant board like crunch so i just wanted to take about 30 minutes tonight to talk about literacy trends in america okay we're going to move that to the end of the day just kidding instead i'll give you a two minute overview of a doe initiative how about that okay um so the doe is presenting a new reading initiative and they're putting out more information in january but starting next school year 22 23 they are going to be providing us two components to this they call the literacy framework so one component is literacy instructional coaches so just like we got coveted relief money the state got covered relief money and they're using
012that to hire and train literacy coaches and then distribute them to districts in need we won't qualify i'm 99 sure we won't qualify as one of those schools to receive a literacy coach but there's a second group where they provide that and so you can kind of opt in if you take the opt-in suggestion or approach um then you probably will have to share a coach with a district but then they want to use that data they put the coach in your building for for your district for two years and they want to show that data that the model works so that something they can sustain and continue so it's just kind of like a pilot or a trial and then the second component is professional development around the science of reading so we will
013see what happens with those details in january when those come out greencastle we are already i think ahead of the curve with our primary schools right now we've been doing science of reading professional development for the last 12 months um in our k2 and that's so teachers already adjusting their reading and spelling instruction for instance instead of like the friday spelling tests where kids memorize words and so the research shows that those skills don't transfer so they don't actually use them in their writing they still spell incorrectly um so instead you teach spelling rules so for instance there's no um word in the english language that ends with the letter j so instead you teach them in the rule that that starts or ends with a dge and so then they identify and apply those
014like badge fudge trudge those kind of things so instead of being the regular spelling list that you memorize they memorize rules and apply them so it's just little things like that that are more science based and brain learning based where they can retain it so just making those kinds of adjustments um make big changes and reading comprehension and retention so those are kind of changes that we've made over the last year and now we're getting ready to extend that up and encompass tv with some different reading and writing strategies too so we're excited about that so that was quick cool that's good thank you that sounds great next on the agenda is the superintendent report yeah so the first thing is i just want to uh since this is our last meeting for winter break
015just wish everybody all of our patrons our students and our families a safe and relaxing holiday break and we'll work to close up the first semester here on friday and welcome everyone back in in january go along with that as you can see or as you've heard or as you've watched the many wonderful holiday concerts and things that have taken place so just thanking our students and our staff members that helped put on those performances i think we do a marvelous job here at greencastle building project has gone out to bid and plans and documents and specs are posted on eastern engineering and different websites according to the public notice and so we'll accept bids on that project until two o'clock on the 27th of january just a quick update based on special ed funding
016so just like with our student count day to where our funding can increase or decrease based on the two different count days our funding camp is affected by the december one special special education count and depending upon where students fall for their disability determines the different funding levels and so in looking at that we're looking at roughly a 200 000 increase in funding for special education um but on the on the negative side of that we're looking at a 50 000 decrease in cte funding and that's very similar as well the amount of students enrolled in some of those cte courses and if you understand our junior and senior classes are a little bit smaller than normal and so i think that really kind of attributes to kind of the dip in that but overall
017more funding headed our way which is a positive is a positive thing and then we received our 1782 notice or our budget order from the dlgf that was on friday i'm sorry i'm losing track of days here this week and just overall um highlights of it is uh they're all very positive is our assessed valuation and our taxing district increased by 29 million dollars from last year to this year and so anytime your assessed valuation goes up that can have a positive effect on your tax rate and it can cause your tax rate to to fall more on that in a minute they approved our budget as is for education fund for debt service fund for pension debt that cut our budget by thirty thousand dollars in operations fund but that budget also includes our
018entire cash balance so we're we're fine with that and approved our budget as is for rainy day overall our levies and debt service and operations both of those combined we're are up 148 thousand 222 dollars compared to the 21 budget but on the flip side of that our overall tax rate is down just over five cents so our 2022 tax rate is a dollar 31 11. so av went up and that brought our tax rate down even with you know those larger larger levees so overall a very very positive budget um which obviously is important if you can remember back to the building project you know one of the main selling points for the building project is we said it was going to be done with no tax rate increase and you can see that
019there is no tax rate increase that actually decreased slightly and that's based on the assessed evaluation so overall very very positive on that and we look to end this year in a positive manner and continue to build up some fund balances so we can just continue to move forward in a positive way with our finances those are the updates that i have for this month okay thank you next item on the agenda is old business and there is no old business so new business the first item is an approval request for the teacher appreciation grant mr gibbon yep so uh we each year we receive um teacher appreciation grant funds from the state to distribute to our teachers and our administrators are not included in that distribution and just like in years past we've typically
020provided the same stipend for our administrators as we did for the teachers and so before you as a recommendation to do that in the past we're able to use title 2 funds we don't have a title 2 fund allotment to do that so i'm seeking to do that simply from the education fund okay okay i get a motion to approve that plan yeah we'll make that motion a second promotion in a second any discussion or questions hearing none all in favor all opposed motion passes next item is an approval request for permission to pay late arriving 2021 invoices yeah so as you can see today december 13th is our board meeting and um we're going to have some invoices come in here after this board meeting and we just are simply seeking permission to pay
021those with funds earmarked in 2021 and of course we will provide a list list to you at our january board meeting next item is an approval request for some donations we have one from project lead the way to greencast community schools for two thousand one hundred dollars one from the putnam county community foundation to greencastle high school in the amount of one thousand dollars putnam county community foundation foundation to greencastle middle school in the amount of one thousand dollars putnam county community foundation to zonika's intermediate in the amount of 1 000 and the mary allison children's trust to deer metal primary in the amount of one thousand dollars yep since my recommendation the board accept these donations and we greatly thank the donors so move second yeah motion in a second to approve all the
022donations any questions comments thank you thank you thank you okay hearing none all more um all in favor aye all opposed motion passes next item is an approval request for some the second reading of several viola policies that we have looked through for two months now another board packet so yeah we've been chaired with the board both months they've been discussed with cabinet and discussed the association as well and now it's time for um approval and adoption of our new policies i will make a motion to approve the updated policies okay we have a motion and a second any questions or discussion hearing none all in favor all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is the return to in-person plan mr gibney yeah so as is required by the federal government we have
023to allow public commentary on our return to in-person instruction plan every six months and so december is that six month time frame and i believe we'll be doing this all the way through since we have received esser funds from the federal government and i don't have anything new to report other than the information that we shared out with our families i don't remember when that exactly was but just just a couple of weeks ago that it's our plan wouldn't we come back in january to recommend masks but not require them as long as a building's positivity rate stays below five percent if it if it goes above five percent um then that building will wear masks until it drops below four percent and right now i know that even though there's community spread when you're
024looking at the county maps and looking at our numbers our numbers have not exploded within the schools so obviously we will continue to monitor all of that moving forwards well we send out kind of like you did the first time just maybe an email or something reminder after the first year reminding people yes before school starts yep absolutely we'll we'll definitely do that and then our dashboard will obviously look different because it'll be by building okay okay perfect okay next item on the agenda is other business and i have one item of other business jeff and i got a email from laurie hardwick today saying it's time for one of our appointments to the human relations committee commission um i guess you know the best way to do this because that the person that's in
025there now is not going to reapply or return so maybe send out an email to all staff saying you know anyone that lives we have to live within the greencastle school district yeah anyone interested willing to apply um if jared watches this sometime but you can put that in the article in the banner that it's not limited to school employees but anyone in the district right maybe send a letter of interest to you yeah i think until the 1st of february and we're going to appoint someone in february i think that makes sense yeah yeah you send out an email that'd be great we'll get someone in there okay anybody have the other business any other other business how was uh what was mr crane's visit it was good yeah it was good he saw
026a lot of good things in the fab lab had a lot of good conversations with the kids and just interactions with the students um and then certainly um in talking with mrs hamilton students where i wasn't a part of but i know that dr french participated in that i think overall it was well received i think the kids learned something which is nice it's important for them to learn about how their government works right on top of everything else and then kind of even leading up to that we had senator crane over here and we just had some good conversation about um you know just things taking place kind of needs and trying to obviously kind of set the stage for the future sure anyone else hearing none uh can i get a bush move
027here make a motion a second okay motion in a second to adjourn all in favor aye aye all opposed motion passes oh thank you all for coming all four of you thank you and happy holidays happy holidays be careful going home you