001you have to start it we're wired okay guys call the meeting to order with the pledge of allegiance please is okay good evening and thank you for coming welcome to the um regular march meeting of the green castle school board first item on the agenda tonight is adjustments to the agenda mr gibbon yep there are no adjustments to the agenda this month okay next item on the agenda is public comments regarding agenda items if we have any comments this evening on these in the items okay hearing none next item is recognitions mr gibbon yep mrs johnson would you like to start good evening i have with me charlotte merope she has been nominated by her virtual teacher mrs lanham who is also here to congratulate her charlotte is an outstanding student she has exhibited kindness
002creativity and academic excellence while not missing any google meetings she is a leader among her classmates and everyone wants to be her friend charlotte puts her best effort into all she does pursues learning with a sense of curiosity and is never afraid to ask questions charlotte makes us all proud congratulations [Applause] it is my pleasure to introduce anna cassidy to you we've waited a little bit to meet anna so tonight is worth the wait anna is in mrs hertenstein's class and she also has um mrs ingle and mrs ames also invited here and mrs muncie so we have along with mrs hurtstein to support anna with her family mrs hertenstein writes anna always comes to school with a positive attitude she always greets others with a good morning or a hug and i always see
003anna helping others in class she's an excellent role model anna works hard and is always ready to learn she is a teacher's dream student anna cassidy our student of the month from january uh my february student of the month sam beckering unless he's just come in um i do not see so i would like to read his next month perhaps tz student of the month is mr truman phillips and truman is a fourth grader in miss lewis's class this year and truman has grown in all ways throughout this school year he has been working hard specifically in the areas of math and writing to meet his academic goals truman is kind and courteous to all of his classmates and the school staff he continues to try each day to be the best version of himself
004we are so proud of truman and the progress he has made this year congratulations green castle middle school student of the month is tristan norman he was nominated by a number of teachers who say tristan is a great student he's very caring person and often can be seen being pot having positive interactions with his classmates he's also a straight a student mr welts would also like to say that tristan doesn't hesitate to email him if there's an issue and he's always very polite and positive in those emails he's a great citizen [Applause] good evening is that savannah over there okay i thought that was you when you walked in it was dark so you can come on down savannah black is the green castle high school student of the month and while she's walking down
005here our character trait was kindness several teachers nominated savannah and had these things to say savannah is the epitome of kindness she is generally kind to other students in the classroom to teachers and others with whom i have seen her interact she is polite and her warmth about her makes her approachable in photography so we know who that teacher is in photography class she's always willing to work with anyone and her constructive criticism was usually spot on and delivered with politeness and genuine concern for the other students savannah is willing to give of herself and her many blessings i love that we are all better to have known her [Applause] congratulations thank you i'll get a chance to head out so certainly our student students of the month and their families are more than welcome
006to stay and attend the rest of the board meeting we also recognize it's a school night so if you wish to leave we're we will not be offended but certainly you're welcome to stay okay well then moving along the next item on the agenda is approval of the consent agenda and on the consent agenda tonight our meeting minutes from our regular board meeting from february 22 2021 and our special board meeting minutes from last monday march 8 2021 and also the allowance of claims mrs romer hello everyone hello next in your board packet you should have two regular payrolls for the month of february the first payroll was dated february 12 2021 with a total payroll of 427 588 dollars and 62 cents along with that payroll beca came the regular accounts payable for payroll
007taxes and retirement total accounts payable for the february 12 2021 payroll 120 0.54 and 74 cents the second regular payroll in february was dated february 26 2021 for a total payroll of 415 693.06 once again there was an accounts payable for that payroll for taxes and retirement for a total accounts payable for the february 26 2021 payroll of 116 984 86. next in your finance package you're going to see a list of prepays there's nothing unusual on this list did anyone have any questions about any of the prepays for february no no okay all right uh total um prepays for the month of february 2000 excuse me month of february to uh 2021 they were 387 000 163 11. you have a single accounts payable prepay for perf there was an adjustment that needed to
008be done and for that perf which is for retirement was 27.82 and then you should have a list of claims dated today march 15 2021. did anyone have any questions about any particular claim for this month i was just uh 217 okay looks like maybe they gave us too much money you had to give it back that's correct absolutely um i was actually reconciling um reimbursements from the state and i reimburse our excuse me i do reconciliation every month on all of our all of our grants and that number did not look familiar to me i just kind of bypassed it until i went to go through go ahead and do the reconciliation and after i did that i knew that was not our money so i went ahead and emailed doe they sent back
009a very long email thanking me for doing that and apparently it should have gone to a greenfield school so i had already revenued that money in it had already been deposited in the bank we had to make it all right on our side so we balanced out so i issued a check to state to refund them for that for that uh that reimbursement we should not have received too bad they didn't just say go ahead and keep it don't that would be great but that usually doesn't happen especially if you're honest about it they would eventually caught it i promise you so it was probably best we were honest up front so were there any other questions on claims okay we've got total claims dated today march 15th 2021 a total of 312 387.79 mr
010white you ready to move on to the finance report sure okay all right next in your packet you're going to see a fund report the first line of your fund report you'll see the education fund 101 balance at the end of february 2021 756 000 670 30. a couple rows down from there fund 300 would be operations operations balance at the end of february 2021 999 756.09 if you'd like to go ahead and go to the last page of the fund report you're going to see a total balance for all funds of 5 million 191 thousand 190 dollars and 50 cents next in your package you're going to see a depository statement and bank balances for february 2021. balance for all banks was 5 million 376 thousand 507.27 excuse me 26 cents you also see
011a line with outstanding checks total outstanding checks 185 000 288 95 that would be outstanding checks for all banks you're also going to see a very small outstanding deposit for 27.81 total for all banks minus the outstanding checks and then that outstanding deposit february 2021 fund balance for all banks five million one nine one one nine zero five zero and if you go back to the last page your fund report you'll see that those balance to the penny and i'd like to submit for approval pending any questions okay great thank you thank you next item on the consent agenda is personnel reports parts one and two which are listed on the website and on the door of central office so can i get a motion to approve the consent agenda this evening so move second
012motion is second all in favor fine all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is reports and our first report is from assistant superintendent jennifer rich hi i was eager tonight i was up here so this is the time of year we start planning for all of our summer activities so i just kind of wanted to keep you in the loop and give you a couple updates on that so summer school so we are going to be approaching summer school a little bit differently this year and i'm really excited about it traditionally we have summer school um right after the school year ends and we target it for those struggling students so k through eight we're going to take a different approach this year and we're going to do a jump start program so
013that will be running july 19th through the 30th and it'll be a half day program we'll serve breakfast and lunch and provide transportation and instead of just targeting specific students we're going to open it up to everyone and try to get as many kids as in the buildings as we can just provide an overall academic enrichment um experience for them so i'm excited about that our high school program will continue their traditional program um after that runs through through june that goes right after the school year and they'll be providing all of those opportunities that they typically do we're also going to provide the summer learning challenge through imagine learning that we did last year and so we had k-th right students anyone who participated an hour in either the math program or the reading
014program they entered a drawing every week and they were chosen and they were selected they got a prize and so we had anywhere from 40 students to 90 students participating every week so i think that was great and so we're going to keep that going as well professional development so i'm really excited because i know how hard and exhausted our teachers how hard they worked how exhausting this year has been for them and so putting out the kind of the feelers for professional development what does everybody have the capacity for who's going to be interested are we going to get anybody to participate and we have 78 teachers and already registered to participate in one of the five trainings we have going on this summer and and each training is multiple days um so it's
015a big time commitment and so i think that just speaks volumes to our teachers and the the dedication that they have and so that's just something really proud of our greencastle teachers for doing that so that's all i have great thank you very much next item on the agenda is the superintendent report yeah so just a couple of uh brief items a lot of exciting things taking place here as we wrap up the third nine weeks and with exciting things a lot of just successes and accomplishments and in our staff and students making it to this point in the year about three weeks or excuse me three grading periods complete we had a excellent music concert performance uh the other uh last last uh last week students did a great job it was just great
016to see them have the opportunity to have a band concert once again the solo and ensemble students that competed in that i think we had over 30 students that earned either silver or gold many of which would have been able to earn also gold at the state level we had a high school student i believe her name is maisha win the rotary speech contest the basketball team competed in the the regionals um certainly the success and then you know in the wrestling program with brock carrington he was western indiana conference wrestler of the year named that today along with many other successes it's just been a really good time to be a tiger cub so just kind of wanted to throw throw that out there mr rogers is in the high school and the prom
017committee put a lot of work into um planning the prom and making it this a reality for our students so i definitely appreciate that i know that hasn't been easy it's been very challenging and then in the coming weeks i know that plans are being made for some of the other traditional end of the year celebrations and banquets so we are planning for those things and and you know even graduation and planning multiple different options but definitely be parents should look parents and students to look for that information to come out here in in the coming weeks i also would like to thank putnam county hospital they i was contacted first thing this morning and they made available 24 time slots for 24 staff members and staff members at each of the putnam county school
018districts to receive the johnson johnson single dose covet 19 vaccine and so we push that information out to staff as well and the hospital here they've just been really great partners and so definitely would like to to thank them for making that available and then finally friday we finish up the week with an e-learning day and also obviously begin spring break which i know that many students and staff members are ready for a short break away before coming back for the stretch run so that's all i have for this month okay great thank you next item on the agenda is old business and we have no old business which moves us to new business and the first item under new business is for the board to hold a projects and preliminary hearing on the proposed
019renovation projects if you are interested in speaking this is a public hearing if you're interested in speaking at the hearing please make sure you've signed into the signing sheet in the lobby and after a presentation by the administration and his advisors there will be an opportunity for the public to make comments about the projects the notice of this preliminary determination hearing was published as legally required on february 24th 2021 the banner graphic and the first preliminary hearing determination hearing was held last monday on march 8 2021. at this time i will ask kristin mcclellan bond council to explain the purpose of this hearing kristen good evening pursuant indiana statutes before a school corporation can spend more than a million dollars to construct renovate or improve a building that will be financed with the lease or
020bonds it must hold a public hearing at which explanations of the potential value of the projects to the school and to the community are given also pursuant to indiana statutes the school must hold two public hearings and adopt a resolution to determine to issue bonds or a lease for a project which exceeds certain thresholds these public hearings and the adoption of the resolutions are just the very beginning of the legal process for a project these resolutions will establish a maximum financial terms for the proposed project thank you we will now hear from mr gibney about the project or the process of determining and communicating the projects to the community and the need for the projects yeah so as mrs mcclellan explained this is just another step in the process we actually began the process long
021ago this past fall when we engaged with krm architect group to help us conduct a study of our facilities and help us to put together a master plan for the school district this included multiple visits to all of our site facilities reviewing building conditions you know trying to note things that might be end of life also engaging in conversations with different departments and teacher groups at all of our buildings just to really kind of capture a pulse of potentially some of the needed changes for the different types of programming that are conducted in those spaces so just a very collaborative in-depth detailed process we also had the community stakeholder meeting this past fall to share more with the community and also to listen to feedback from the community to to really make sure that you
022know some of these targeted improvements or suggestions for improvements can really be taken under advisement in moving and moving forwards you know it's impossible to to maintain an entire school district just simply out of the operations fund and so we have an opportunity here to make needed improvements to address safety security and access and to also to address the environment and where teaching and learning and athletics takes place and we have the opportunity to do this as you will hear we have some we have some debt falling off and so we have an opportunity to replace debt um and with that there would be no impact to the debt service tax rate so just a little bit of information about that process and you'll hear very shortly just in more details about some of those
023things okay thank you we will now hear from kevin montgomery architect with krm about how the proposed projects meet the needs as described by the superintendent mr montgomery welcome hi thank you guys we have a few slides if we want to go ahead and jump to the next one a little bit of this is a recap of what jeff said we began the planning with a study in september of 2020 and tried to make that as an inclusive process as possible there was a lot of boots on the ground work to understand your buildings and document everything as existing conditions as well as meet with as many staff community leaders and parents and teachers as possible next uh most of this presentation is a summary of those findings and what recommendations come out of that
024to meet the the school's goal of of maintaining the buildings as well as improving safety security and access this first slide is the uh some of the conditions around the campus of the middle and high school sites there's several areas that have uh reached the end of life specifically to note a couple would be um the the athletic track that is failing um there's some settling within the field itself as well uh the back softball and baseball areas have similar problems along with the kind of original concessions facility which is failing structurally and then several small aesthetic and functional you know just land of life items throughout the site next and then for each of the five building facilities the summary comes in the form of this what we call issue mapping that's a floor
025plan that is color coded in terms of need so most urgent and recommended is red and then it goes to blue which is is needed and then green is will be needed in the future but not urgent and you can see then on these pages the dashed lines that highlight the scope that is proposed within this this upcoming project so those highlights from the high school include the science lab area the media center or library some of the restroom facilities the finishes and furniture within the classroom and some areas of the athletics we should note that the high school takes up the more scope it's your largest building it's also your oldest building it's pretty easy to to see where the the needs and end of life items are within your building next here's a
026few examples of those spaces again point out you know the science labs both the education and process of doing lab work and the support spaces and technology that go along with those spaces is you know well beyond out of date this building's 60 years old again areas like the restrooms high use facilities the media center is similar to those science rooms that you know technology and innovation and group learning is completely different than it was when these were originally built next mcinally um the highest and most priority is uh the lower level and specifically the locker rooms um everybody knows how great this building is um you know the major spaces have been you know kept up and served you wonderfully but as you go a little bit deeper into the back of house those
027original conditions show through um in particular the locker rooms were built before you had women's sports like you do now and they've never been renovated so allowing equal opportunity is part of that access to opportunity for your students next there's a few of those images of some of those spaces that are in great condition but also those those lower level areas that need some of the improvements next this is the middle school again shown here in red some similar spaces the the science labs and media center media center for similar reasons but also here highlighted as the security right now you don't have a secure vestibule process to allow visitors in safely next again a few examples of those spaces pretty similar conditions in most cases to the high school within those original spaces next
028now as your buildings get a little bit newer we're into the intermediate and elementaries this is deer meadow again there are there are several items that make up a list but they are not high priority and will be you know several years out the the most important one here is that entrance security for the same reason as middle school there's not a secure vestibule for during school hours next photo conditions of that building next rid path um has a similar condition at the entrance so we'll improve that possibly we're proposing to improve that it does have a real need around some of the exterior there's some facade work sealants and joints that are beyond it beyond its life so we're including that scope of work potentially as well next here on that upper row of
029photos you'll see some of that work some of the efus and sealants so that you don't run into interior water problems in the future that work should be happening now next finally tz um and while most of the plan is is colored that's you know it's all green uh it's small you know finish upgrades and amenity spaces that would be would be nice and could be done in the future but right now for the high priority items and security we'll focus on that that entrance and then also some water issues and drainage that's how the build how the water comes off the building could be improved next photos of that project next here overall we have um estimated budgets for each of those potential projects and facilities and then in the middle there you'll see
030the soft costs that go along with providing the engineering and survey and design work and then finally the cost finance the project for a total of not to exceed 32 million next another way to view it is by facility or by building again your largest and oldest being the high school does take a significant amount of work but we'll put you guys in a great place for you know 10 20 years of the future and then more evenly distributed and again by size for your other facilities next i think that's oh yeah um here's a early schedule potential schedule for the project if we were to begin in the spring pretty soon we'd be working on design through the remainder of most of the year and bidding things out um in fourth quarter for phase
031one which would be a lot of the high school work and get that ongoing and have to to phase areas and not interrupt student activities and and your schedule too much and then we'd move over and continue uh the design work of the middle school and then primary schools fitting those out consecutively after that and then all the construction would would continue through questions or comments before we continue i think with financial advisory not for me hey thank you next we will hear from mike thurber our financial advisor from thurber and brock about how the proposed project will be financed as well as information about the effect on the typical property taxpayer good evening good evening and thank you i would like to go over the financial characteristics and details of the project work however
032i'd like to start by addressing a little bit about the the school corporation's current debt service picture right now the corporation is paying on a few bond issues and over the next seven years all of your outstanding bond issues all of your outstanding debt will be paid by the year 2027 each issue that you're currently paying on will be retired or paid off so it's a good time right now to be not only planning all of this project work but to be putting the debt in place to finance the work so on to uh the this project cost as mr montgomery just stated the uh total cost has been set at an amount not to exceed 32 million dollars and that amount is comprised of hard and soft construction costs of 29 million 450 000
033uh approximately 2 million 550 000 of the 32 million has been allocated to take care of uh capitalized interest which is interest paid on bonds prior to making full lease rental payments on the bond issue and then 300 000 of the 32 million has been allocated to pay cost of issuance associated with the financing so those sums or those areas of money comprise the total project cost of 32 million excuse me 32 million dollars um the maximum term of the lease for the bond issue has been set at 22 years and the maximum annual payment on bonds has been set at an amount not to exceed two million nine hundred forty thousand dollars annually um so it's again it's a good time to be putting the debt in place to take care of your projects
034right now bond rates or interest rates are at good low levels and hopefully that will continue through the summer months when we go to sell the bonds and put the debt in place right now if you were to to sell bonds for the total 32 million you would receive an interest rate that would be well below 3 percent and again we hope for that to continue we'll be ready to put the debt in place by late summer and i'd be happy to answer any questions or discuss anything you you might like at this point i do not have any questions does anyone grind down okay thank you very much thank you okay now we will open the public hearing um we'll accept comments questions from anyone willing to speak do we have any no one
035wanting to speak at the public hearing okay hearing no one we will close the public hearing please note that this is just the first step in the legal process the board will continue to work with the administration and its professionals to look for efficiencies to conserve tax dollars while meeting our educational needs and i would like to ask christa mcclellan to summarize the project's resolution for us members of the board have in your packet a project resolution is required by indiana law whenever a school district proposes to spend more than a million dollars on a facility as you'll see the resolution contains the estimated hard and soft cost of construction as well as the cost of issuance in the total project cost it also contains the estimated tax rate impact on the debt service fund
036which is estimated to be zero okay can i that's pretty much it in a nutshell okay can i get a motion in a second to adopt project resolution i make a motion to accept a second okay we have a motion in a second to accept the project resolution any discussion okay hearing none all in favor all opposed motion passes next kristen would you um explain the preliminary determination resolution you also have in your board packet or resolution making a preliminary determination to issue bonds this is also required under indiana law anytime you propose to finance a project above a certain threshold this resolution resolution as you will see contains again the total project cost the maximum annual payment and lease term and other financial terms such as the estimated principal amount and tax rate impact
037thank you okay can i have a motion and a second to adopt the preliminary determination resolution this evening don't move second okay we have a motion in a second is there any discussion i think it's just nice because our debts coming off at the right time interest rates are right and our buildings are needing the work so i think this is going to be just the perfect project at the perfect time i would agree i agree okay do we have a second yeah i seconded it okay um all in favor hi all opposed motion passes next kristen could you please summarize the reimbursement resolution the last resolution you have relating to the project in your packet is called a reimbursement resolution a reimbursement resolution if the board decides to proceed in issuing the bonds would
038allow you to incur any initial costs payable from the operations or rainy day fund and reimburse yourself once the bonds are issued this is a federal tax law requirement okay thank you very much okay can i get in motion in a second to approve the reimbursement resolution this evening i'll make a motion second okay so motion in a second any discussion hearing none all in favor all opposed motion passes that concludes the hearing portion of the board meeting this evening so next item on our agenda is an approval request for the second reading of updated job descriptions of maintenance custodial and food services mr gibney yep so last month i presented each of those items to you for first reading and now is time for a second reading and adoption it's our goal to make
039clear um the job descriptions for our employees so that way there's a shared understanding and it's more they're more easily communicated so it's my recommendation that the board approve these updated job descriptions so anyone have any questions comments on the job descriptions these are very detailed job descriptions so thanks for your work and it's nice to know i think it's nice for everybody to know exactly what their job is and what to pertain so thank you okay i get a motion to approve the three the second reading on these three updated job descriptions i make a motion to approve second okay i have a motion in a second any further discussion questions hearing none all in favor aye all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is an approval request to approve some donations
040i think we can lump all together we have a donation from the mary allison trust fund to ridpath primary in the amount of one thousand dollars we have an or a donation from jeff and denise sigworth to the green castle high school top 10 dinner in the amount of 1 000 we have a donation from jeff and denise sigworth to the green castle high school soccer program in the amount of 1500 ops can i get a motion to approve these donations make a motion in a second dale you second okay here promotion in a second any discussion thank you yes thank you very much to obviously mary allison trust fund but to the single worst for their continued generosity um all in favor aye all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is the
041first reading of a couple of more updated job descriptions for special education and instructional assistance yep so just like uh with last month a couple of other categories bringing updated job descriptions and we'll continue uh until we have we cover every position uh within the corporation and there's no action required at this meeting this is just for first reading okay thank you very much next item on the agenda is the first reading of 2021 2022 building handbooks yep so it's hard to believe it's that time of year already but included in your packet were student handbooks for each of our school buildings and this month is just a first reading and we'll bring those to you for second reading and adoption next month okay okay next item on the agenda is other business does anyone
042have any other business no i wanted to say thank you to mr rogers and his team for working on the prom i know it's uh it's not easy and working to make sure everybody gets as close to what they want um so i appreciate it and um hopefully the kids will have a good time anyone else okay can i get a motion to adjourn so move second okay we have a motion and a second to adjourn the meeting all in favor all opposed motion passes thank you and be careful going home this evening you