HCCS School Board Work Session - March 9, 2026

001I want to welcome uh everybody to our work session tonight for the March 9th for the Huntington County Community school corporation uh work session. In terms of uh what we do with these, a reminder to our public, these are non-action items. These are more informatory. These are discussion items. Uh we usually pick uh two to four topics and try to have a more indepth discussion with our board and community. Uh we usually have presenters here uh to go through things with us as well. And it might be Mr. Peters or myself at times as well and uh take questions as needed. So, uh, with that being said, tonight, thank you for joining us and our first, uh, discussion topic tonight for our work session is on the science textbook adoption. Uh, Mr. Peters and your

002team, I believe. >> Thank you, Mr. Burberry. Um, I've had a chance to kind of ponder, uh, as I start to reflect on my career. Uh, and I couldn't help but think that I've had the opportunity to work with some very dynamic people. And tonight you're going to hear from two of them that rank right at the top of two individuals that I've had the honor and privilege uh to work with. Lynn Brown, assistant principal here at Huntington North High School is our second P second secondary PD coordinator and Lauren Hogue is almost wrapping up. It doesn't seem possible. Lauren, your first year as our elementary PD coordinator. And so what we wanted to do tonight board was just to share with you and to our public our science textbook adoption process that we went

003through this year. Uh we're going to bring back to you on March the 23rd a proposal uh with definite costs uh for you to vote on that and approve that for us. Uh that would start the 2627 school year and then that will begin that process of ordering materials and getting them in here uh this summer before uh school starts in the fall. So I have Lynn and Lauren here. They're going to share out. They've got a PowerPoint they're going to present uh to you and we can take questions at the end. So ladies, thank you so much. and lean in, I was told. All right. Well, good evening everyone. Thanks for having us. Um, we're just going to take you through some of the steps uh for coming to a decision that we'd like

004to bring uh with our science adoption. So, we started with looking first at the state approved list of vendors and we took that to um a science committee that we had that had probably two or three teachers from each elementary building. And so they were able to go through um go to all the websites and they narrowed those choices. Uh there were how many I have 14 on the list and they narrowed it down to three to four for us. And then from there we contacted the vendors and got samples. So we brought samples to every single elementary and then all of the teachers were able to go through and kind of vet these um resources. So they were able to go through a checklist. Uh we mirrored our criteria uh to match the high

005schools. Um just taking off some things that weren't appropriate for elementary. Um and then we also invited the principles invited families in as well to uh look through the materials. They also went through the state standards to make sure they really felt like they truly matched the curriculum and what they wanted to be able to teach um for the students. So from there uh the teachers took those uh the criteria and uh we talked to the parents and then everyone was able to submit their own vote for which choice they liked the most. Um so we narrowed it down then we have one that overall won and so then at this point then we bring it to you all for a board approval. So there were 14 companies total on the vendor list. So, we're

006looking for something that was very easy for teachers to use and be able to implement, incorporate into their schedules. Um, obviously that it's aligned to our standards and then also integrate into Canvas since we're trying to use that technology piece. So, our recommendation is Discovery Education. This includes mystery science, which is what our teachers are currently using. So, it's a nice smooth transition. Uh, very little training needed since they're used to this and they're using it. um looking at that digital format since it is being used. But the great part about Discovery Education is that it not only gives us access to the science curriculum portion, but we also get some of the social studies, the math, and the ELA. So, they can be using it across all their content. So, secondary has not had

007new textbooks for 14 years. So, we've had a had a hot moment since we've had new textbooks. So, we went through some similar pieces and some slightly different pieces as elementary um prior to this adoption. Actually, four years ago, Jay said to me, "Hey, we're going to get new science textbooks." You remember that, Jay? And we um we went to caravans and we got all the sample books and we actually ranked them and we were ready to go. And then the state of Indiana said, "Do not buy anything. We're going to create a new approved list." And so we put all those books on a shelf and then we looked at them again and we did the the process another year. The third year we just didn't bother doing anything. And then this last year

008we've actually uh readressed it. So we looked at the brand new state standards and we wrote curriculum before we even looked at the textbooks and we actually taught that curriculum for a year before we even looked at the textbooks. Um in alignment with the new state standards and the frameworks. the frameworks take the standard and then branch it out so that you can see the vocabulary that goes with the standard sample questions that go with the standard and experts in the field. Um, and then this year we looked at that state approved list. Sometimes there were seven or eight books that were approved and sometimes there was one book that was approved and we'll talk about that in just a minute. We narrowed that list down. every middle school and every high school science teacher

009was on the committee. Because in high school, sometimes you're the only one that's teaching the course. Sometimes there's two or three people teaching the course. In middle school, it's such a small group of people, it made sense just to let everybody come and sit around the table and have that discussion together. And then we created a stakeholder group. The teachers, the principles, and myself created a list of about 50 community members. Some of them, many of them were parents. Um, some of them were people that have helped us with grants or have helped us with a PBL in the classroom and they're experts in the community. One of them was a ELELLL specialist that worked with us from HU. So that we had different eyes on the the work and then we made the final

010decision and now we're seeking board approval. Cindy, if you would pretty please. Thank you. For middle school, there were seven companies on the approved list. We immediately gave the middle school science teachers all seven companies websites and their sales pieces and they went through those and they determined whether they wanted to throw any out like they could just tell from what was sent online in the the flyers that it was no good. Um we got down to about four of those four we asked those companies to come stand in front of the teachers and present. We used to go to a caravan and there wasn't one available so we just had our own caravan and they came to the learning center and they had a half an hour to present and a half an hour

011for our teachers to ask questions. After the teachers went through the four pieces they ranked them one, two, three, four and then we had a discussion about the top two and the top one was Savas. That's really good news because not only is it a a very wellrecoognized company, but it was about $400,000 cheaper than the number two which was imagined. So that was kind of nice when we found out that we saved $400,000 right off the bat. Cindy, could you advance one for me, please? High school is a hot screaming mess. It is really really hard to do high school science and high school social studies because each of the content courses have a different list of books. So for ICP, for example, the state gave us one choice. I know, right? That's that's

012bizarre. And we hated the one choice. So we had to become a magit to do that. So we went through the same process. We looked at all the books. We had a rubric that we've used for English. We've used it for math and we've used it for science and if we ever adopt social studies again, we'll use it for social studies. Um, and teachers went through and then they told me which companies they wanted to have come and present in some cases, especially for AP or dual credit classes. There's already a recommended book and so we just stayed with that book. Um, so the companies came, the teachers talked, the teachers didn't stay all day. Biology teachers came in and went back and taught. Chemistry teachers came in and went back and talked. And so

013then we came up with a list of books. Cindy, I think it's on the next slide, but I don't remember. Go one more for me because I just said those things. Go one more for me because I just said those things. Um, for high school, we also wanted to make sure that we had a balance between um the chemistry lab and the biology lab and what actually was in the textbook. So, if you would advance a slide till it says high school textbooks for consideration. There you are, Cindy. You're perfect, Cindy. So, you'll see we're looking at a lot of companies. Jay has a lot more work in his horse trading for high school than he does for elementary and middle school. has one company to try to talk down. He has several. Um, you'll

014see that some of those companies, like the last one for AP environmental science, it's actually a college level textbook company because it's a college level course. The teachers in those courses actually contacted the company themselves and then came back and said, "Yes, Lynn, the approved book looks good for us." And so that's what we went for. And then we have the exact same timeline as elementary. Our hope is that we will seek approval with you and we'll be able to order things so that they're here in the buildings. One of the really important things is this might surprise you, but when you order this many textbooks, you don't always get what you ordered. And so we'd like to be able to go through those boxes and make sure what we ordered actually comes before we

015leave in the spring. So we don't have teachers that come back and say, "Hey, so we have twice as many chemistry books as we need, but we have no biology books." That literally happened with ELA a couple years ago when we got twice as many tenth grade and no nth grade books. So, we'll go through it and then um do our level best to get professional development for those teachers in May and June so that when they start in August, they're good to go. I think we're ready for questions if you have any for us. Board, if I could share with you while you're still thinking. I'm sorry, Mr. Allen. Did you have a question? Mr. Meltter. No, go ahead. No, you first. You might answer my question. Let me give you some estimated costs.

016Again, estimated because um I won't say this is a fun part of my job, but trying to help them understand that we don't have a lot of money and we're ru we are a rural district and here's the amount of money that we have to spend. What can you do for us? because we would really love to go with your company. However, this is the amount of money that I had to work with. And so, elementary around 39,23850. Grades 6 through 8, 211,849. High school $247,612 gives us an estimated total cost of just under 500,000 at $498,699.50. And so again, we will have an actual cost figure for you uh when we bring this proposal back to you on March the 23rd. Um let me share with you what has happened as uh Lynn shared

017with you uh when they paused the science and we've been pausing it seems like forever that backed up that adoption cycle where we should have truly a year ago been in that social studies adoption mode. Well, guess what? they haven't printed the vendor list yet. So, what does that tell you? So, now we're on pause. But now, guys, we're now facing um in the next two to three years, uh English language arts adoption is needs to be in the next two years because of that six-year cycle. And then we'd have reading for elementary. So, we're kind of in a a phase here where it could be the next two or three years where you're going to be going through an adoption cycle. And so your question you're going to ask me and thank you for

018asking is Jay where's this money coming from? It's a great question. I knew Ryan was gonna ask that so I'm I'm ready Ryan for everybody. It's a great question. Remember back when Becky Smith was our virtual CFO and up until January of 2025, that curricular fee was separated from the education fund. And then they married that uh one-time gift the state gave us of about 750,000 if remember that state reimbursement probably never to be seen again but that would sure help because I just shared with you 498,000 750,000 boy that would do our adoption every year but that was just a one-time gift I think and we're not expecting that to happen moving forward the education fund then in 2026 includes the curricular materials and that's about 1.5 million that sits in that account in

019our education fund right now that's earmarked for textbook adoption. One of the things that Michelle Babcock and she's amazing what a great great hire u fund to work with her Tyler doing a great job. Um Tanya and I have met with both of them saying how do we do this adoption for the next two or three years and where is this money coming from because I'm an old poor farm kid rub two pennies together you know we've got to have this money and be good stewards of it to make sure that we can get the resources and materials for our kids. So, what they're wanting us to do now is putting together an estimated cost budget that would go in effect for the 2728 school year that would incur the costs of like what social

020studies adoption might be, what language arts adoption might be, and the cost there involved. So, they can begin to incorporate that in the budget and build that into that budget, obviously using the material fees that we currently have right now. So, um, we've never done that before, uh, here estimating two years from now what the cost could be, but that's the way it's got to be, uh, in order for us to make sure that we've got monies set aside for the next two or three years with adoptions. So, >> well, I certainly wouldn't want to be the person replacing you. So, um, yeah. Um, Mr. Peters, thank you for that um financial update because I was forgetting about 750. Um do we anticipate the state figuring out some things here? I mean, >> I talked

021with it's a great question. I talked with Tyler again today at length and he said uh again he he wrote a little note there for me. We are not expected to receive any additional funding for curricular materials from the state going forward. So, um, and I think again, um, he's in tune with that. Uh, so I I think that's I wish we could because this would take care of our adoptions every year. If we could get that money, this would be a piece of cake for us. >> Yeah. And I think uh, Mrs. Brown said that, you know, we've been waiting for social studies for >> Yes. a decade. I mean, it's it really has been something. I didn't realize we'd been waiting that long for for science. >> Yeah. and social studies was a

022year prior to that. So we're about 15 years out for social studies. It's been a minute. >> So to to Jay's point, I wouldn't bet that they would put anything in the next bianium and that's so that's coming up. So January they're going to start the bianium budget. But with this adoption cycle coming on, it needs to be a conversation. I know it's on ISBA's radar. they have not had it as a priority for a while because there's been nothing to adopt. But I would almost guarantee you as a legislative priority, it would be again to have those conversations. We're now starting to adopt some books and we have some funds set aside. I guarantee you there's other districts out there that have nothing. And what I would love for you just very briefly remind

023us prior to the legislative change how we used to fund this. So why it didn't used to be a problem and now it is do that I could do it on my I could do it very badly but you could you collect textbook book rental fees. Yeah, exactly. >> And and because of that collection, there was monies there uh because of that collection that we could then have a a fund source to be able to look at adoption. >> It was self it was a self-funding process. >> Yes. >> So when the state took took over textbook adoption and and made it free to parents, which I am all for. I think it's a great thing. What they really did not do for us as a board is give us a funding mechanism, which is

024all right because they didn't have any new adoptions out there for a while. Now that we're starting up the adoption process, we need to go back and advocate not only for our district, but all the districts that you took this over. You did not. And it was a self-funding process, but now it's not. So, we're going to need to help advocate for us. I know is it's on ISBA's radar. It's coming up. If you have a chance to talk to any legislator, just as a reminder, this is not something that they've had to deal with in a while, but it's now something that's coming up. It's just as a reminder when we see these, these are some of the talking points that we need to advocate not only for HSCSC, but as the state as

025a whole because we're not the only ones. We again, as Mr. Peters had mentioned, had some money set aside and we can kind of do that first round. But just as Lynn says, we've got social studies and then you got, you know, English language, all that stuff coming up. You're gonna have math coming up here at some point, too. We've got to have a funding source to help do that because with it all being lumped in the education fund. And that's why I asked Becky to earmark that back in the day is we'll lose track of that. And then we've just got to make sure that all right, this is for textbook adoption, this is for for salaries. We've we've got to figure out how to make that all happen. So, it's a very important

026process and something that we need to keep cognizant of. I I I appreciate Jay mentioning that we set that aside because I we we earmarked it. It's it's just all in that bundle, but that is an earmark there for that. So, >> and again, kudos to Becky, excuse me, kudos to uh Michelle and to Tyler again for that um budgeting process that they will do here this summer once we give them an estimated amount and that budget process that they will do. So that in 2728 there's going to be monies there available for uh adoption to take place. So out of the box thinking that's crucial >> which is also helpful when we go to talk to our legislator. We've already budgeted this amount. You know this is what we need. Anything that you can

027help provide will help. So that number is very important not only for us for a budgeting standpoint but in our advocacy when we talk to our legislators. So that's a number that we should socialize broadly and so everyone knows >> to be uh respectful of of time on this topic. I I also want to commend the previous board and leadership. One of the first board meetings I watched before I came to this district. Jay was talking about textbook adoption and his curriculum funding and there was a healthy balance at that time. What Huntington has done well over multiple years and under Mr. Peters and and different leaders with different boards has they have always come in under the textbook adoption and had basically a savings account of a couple 300 from what I can tell

028in our history 3 to 400,000 a year to cover future textbook adoptions. And so when I saw the 1.1 back then has grown to 2.1 before they combined these, please know that's why they're in good shape. That's why Jay can do what he's doing is he's done the work with this board in the past seven years to be ready for this. But I will be clear, uh Michelle Babcock was asked in her first interview, what is your plan at your district and what would it be for ours on textbook adoption with these changes? And she got into the weeds pretty quick about what that plan looks like two years out, 18 months out, 36 months out in terms of budgeting for that. So, uh I think we're very prepared. I I think also we're prepared

029in a manner that maybe a lot of districts aren't due to previous work that's been done here by the board and Mr. Peters to be honest with you. >> One quick question. I know you talked about books, but does it come digital too? Or is it just books? >> We're looking at digital only. >> Digital only. >> That's what we're using right now. So both elementary and >> for elementary we're looking at digital >> and for secondary we're looking at classroom sets of textbooks so that kids who in IEP a 504 they're learning the language they have a concussion there's a lot of reasons uh we'd be able to check that book out you can use them in class and then the exact same book will be digital so they'll always have it with them

030plus there's um a platform for each one of them that has some other pieces to help kids uh digital labs for example, videotapes that demonstrate some things. So, it's a combination of both. Um it's the cheapest possible way we can do it and still put textbooks in kids' hands if they need one. >> It's amazing. You say cheap, but you know, you think of all the paper and all that goes into making a book and you're talking digital and you know it's like a price of a USB and hand a USB out but it's still expensive. >> My thing is Jay ladies, you got the parents involved. You got the parents felt feel like a couple parents I've talked to have felt like you actually got us involved in this. We're involved in our kids'

031education. I'm glad you did that, Jay. That was a good Thank you. >> And moving forward, guys, um critical when that social studies adoption list comes out, that that vendor list that we've got to choose from, that parent involvement will be, it's critical anytime you have textbook adoption, it's going to be really critical when that social studies curriculum comes out that we get eyes on that at all levels. Final questions on this topic before we move on. >> Mr. Peters, on the that $750,000 that the state gave us, is that included in the 1.5 million? >> Yes. >> Correct. >> Other questions before we move on, >> landlord, thank you for that part of your presentation tonight, Mr. Peters. Always well done. The second topic tonight is something um that we've worked pretty hard at

032at Huntington the last couple years as the well as the state of Indiana to be honest with you is a little discussion of the checkpoint data. Um I'm I I swore to the ladies that I will let them do this because this is near and dear to Chuck Brimberry's heart. Um, but just a reminder to our board and to our community, checkpoints are called are in in my old world were called formative exams. And formative exams are just that. They're a snapshot of how your child is doing at any given time that you take the exam. Uh, many districts before the state did this um would give 10 or 15 or 20 point every three weeks or so over maybe one to three standards. and then you build into your curriculum to retach or to

033enhance based on how the kids are doing on any particular topic. Uh the state adopted that. I never thought I'd see the day and uh and um I will tell you that we are working very hard on that with our kids and our teachers and L and Lauren and Mr. Peters and and a host of lots of what we call PLC's, professional learning communities where we get our teachers together and we talk about the data for children on how they're doing and then we review our maps and see how we need to tweak those in honor uh in best interest of kids learning. So ladies, if you want to talk, we've got a little bit longer time period for this, up to 30 minutes to talk about this uh the process a little bit and

034maybe your um your thoughts on how we're doing on this process as well. So thank you for sharing this tonight. >> I get to go first this time. First of all, it's not on a slide, but I would like to thank Lauren. She has been fearless in looking at this data. I've had a number of partners in elementary um but none of them have stepped up to the plate and said how can we make real change and look at our data the way Lauren has and the model that she's following is the model that secretary has been using for a little bit and I I could not tell you how proud I am of her and how happy I am that she's doing this really hard work because it's easy to say we love all

035of our kids and we love each other and hug each other and walk away and not make any real changes. It's really hard to look in the mirror and say, "I need to lose 10 pounds." And actually lose the 10 pounds. She got him to look in the mirror the other day. And I'm really proud of her. That's that's hard work to do. Thank you, Lord. All right, Cindy, we ready? So, my job is to teach a little bit of history, which is what I do anyway, right? That's my favorite thing in the world. And Chuck didn't steal all my thunder, so I got a little bit of it left. So the state of Indiana went through a big bunch of changes in 22 23 school year. Um the laws changed dramatically. The department of

036education changed their goals dramatically and I think we were uniquely set up to to take advantage of some of those things. So the first thing that they did was they changed the standards which then caused changing of curriculum maps, instructional tools, and pacing of the content. We're going to show you those three things as we go through. They also took a deep dive into the science of reading. If you're paying attention, they're about to take a deep dive into the science of math. That's the next thing that's coming up. They changed the titles of courses and the courses that we need to teach in middle school and high school. And we are working on those changes even as we speak. As you guys know, we were uniquely positioned for the changes in the diploma. Uh

037the accountability law just was made known to us last week and I was one of the few people in the state that was kind of happy. I was like, "Oh, check check. Oh, we're going to change this whole thing." We'll talk about that another time, but we're set up for that really, really well. They changed STEM requirements and then of course they completely redid iLearn and checkpoint data. So for most of my career, this is what iLearn looked like. They gave you standards and there were a lot of them. They were kind of vague and you kind of hoped that you were teaching what was going to be tested at the end of the year. You taught with all your heart all year long. They gave a test right before the kids left. The kids

038didn't do very well on the test, but you still had field day and then you came back and you did it all over the next year, right? And there was very little as an individual teacher you could do to make changes in that because you didn't really know what was on the test and you didn't really know the level of rigor and you didn't really know how much of anything was going to be on the test. And guess what? They've opened the doors and they've actually shown us what's on the test um and the level of rigor and how to support kids who are in the process. So Cindy, if you would change the slide. I I stole this slide from the Department of Education, but I left their s symbol on so you guys

039know that I stole it. So, they took the standards as they sat in 2020 or 2022 and they said state law said they had to take 25% standards away and create prioritized standards. And then out of those standards, 33% of the 75% that was left were essential standards, the ones that are most often tested. All right. I did a lot of math there. I'm sorry, Tim. All right, change the slide. You had that like, why did they do that? I don't actually know the answer to that, but they did. Um, they did it though in part to create this cycle. And the cycle is the cycle of good teaching everywhere on the planet, right? First of all, what is it you're going to teach? Then you check and see, do the kids understand what you're

040teaching? And then if you need to, you respond to it. You can stretch some kids and you can retach some other kids. And then you check again to make sure the retaching worked. And then before you give the summitative, you check one more time. You work with them again and then you give the summitive. So last week, no, two weeks ago, I sat with the middle school math and English teachers and we looked at what's on that summitive test and we said, "Hey friends, here's how many questions are on this set of standards. Are we ready? Do we need to do anything different? Do we need to retach? Do we need to retach groups of kids? What are we going to do? Here's how many are on the next set. We couldn't have done that

041even last year. They've made updates even during the school year that allowed us to do that. Cindy, if you would change. Lauren's going to go over several parts of the slide individually in just a moment for you, but I want to give you the big picture and then she'll drill down. So, I said to you that before we just had standards. In the upper leftand corner, you will see a sample of the frameworks. And the frameworks take a single standard and they break it down into what's the actual academic vocabulary. What vocabulary are we going to see on the test so that people aren't saying things like you're folding it hot dog and hamburger style and then the kids see vertical and horizontal on the test, right? They give you exactly what it means to

042have mastered it in multiple bullet points. They give you common misconceptions, things that they expect most kids are going to struggle with. And they give you things that can help you with individual sets of kids. It's normally a two to three page document for every standard. They tie that to the upper right hand side, which is called a blueprint. for every grade level and content area. They give us a blueprint which is a standard what quarter or checkpoint we're going to teach that standard in and it's going to be ac um tested for and then at the very end how many questions are going to be on the the final the summitive and what percentage of that test is on the summitive. It also tells us if all kids are going to get a question

043on that standard or if some kids are going to get a question on that standard. It'll also tell you if it's a multiple choice question or some kind of performance activity that the kids will need to do. Then they tie that to the bottom section where they give us the percentage of kids who've met above at prof proficiency, below proficiency, approaching proficiency, and are seriously in need. And then they give us reports that drill down to individual kids for each one of those standards. So creating a small group of kids who are at proficiency and we want to drive them to above is really simple. We just have to look at the report to find the kids who just barely missed it and probably know it and made some kind of test taking mistake. And

044so really we just need to review and make sure they really understand it. That's really simple. It's the first time in my career that any of these items have been made available. And that last section where it tells us exactly how many questions are on the summitive, that wasn't available to us six weeks ago. It really is it's brand new and that's why we met again. And I said, "Hey friends, we got new information which made us happy." Now Lauren's going to walk you through the details of the checkpoint and how we use these three charts in more detail. Go ahead. Thank you. All right. So, what are the checkpoints? They they are short assessments. So, as Mr. Brimberry said they're formative assessments and they really are for teachers to be able to drive our

045instruction. Parents do get the reports and I'll show you what those look like. So parents starting this year with the tests this year will be able to track their students all the way through ECAS in one spot which is really nice. So parents are given those um reports but they really are for teachers so that we can find where students have gaps and fill those gaps. So, we have three of them. Um, and they all have windows. Um, so I'll talk about that in a second here, but each checkpoint has two opportunities. So, the numbers get a little confusing. It'd be nice if they said form A, form B, really. Um, but we have three checkpoints and in each checkpoint there's two opportunities. Uh, the state requires everyone this year. Last year was a pilot

046year and this year everyone in the state has to give opportunity one. You have the choice to give opportunity to. and we at Huntington are choosing to give opportunity to and that helps us show growth once we retach. So these windows um the first one opens around September 9th and it goes to about the beginning first week of November. As soon as the first one closes, the next one opens. That one goes to about the beginning of February. As soon as that one closes, the next one opens and that goes to April 10th, which is a Friday. And the next Monday, the summitive opens. So it's just a cyclical. There's always a window for something open. So you have to give the first opportunity within that window, but then when you give the second opportunity,

047you can give it any time in the year. We choose to give uh those opportunities within four to six weeks of each other. We try to do that before the next window opens so teachers really can focus on the standards that we're trying to retach if needed. Okay, you can go ahead and switch for me. Thank you. So the reports that we get this year, we had no data last year. So the reports we have this year are about four pages. This is the top of the first um page. You can see that bottom with the four different colors that kind of sliding scale that will show us uh where students are falling. So if you're in the blue or the green, you're passing and if you're in the red or the yellow, you did

048not pass. But within that, we have four proficiency levels, right? So below, approaching at, and above proficiency. So we do hope that within even the second opportunity if needed that students are passing and they move to the green or the blue. But the nice thing with that sliding scale is on the report students do get a raw score and so we can at least see growth. So if I have a student right in between that red and yellow area and I retach and I'm working with a student they may not fully pass but maybe they get really far into the yellow and so I know they're on track and I can continue working with them. And the goal is then to fill all those gaps before the summitive. Go ahead. Thank you. All right. So,

049when we're using this in our classrooms to drive instruction, I'll kind of work backwards. First, for our tier one, which is just whole class instruction where you hope to get everybody right in your in teaching. So, what we've been able to do is scaffold the lessons. I'll show you an example of a map that we've reworked this year, but we've scaffold that those lessons for teachers to show if you think to that red through blue scale. Uh those proficiencies have a descriptor. So let's say we're talking about area, it will tell us what students can do when they're in working below proficiency in area, what kind of things they can do at approaching and so on. So what we've done is we've taken all of those skills and we've put them like scaffolds. So, so

050teachers are starting at those kind of below level skills and working through approaching and then at and above. So, we're trying to push them as far as we can and that's what those proficiency levels level descriptors are. So, that's what teachers are using to drive their initial instruction in class. We've also reworked our end of unit assessments um with some of the information that Lynn showed you. There are also um why can't I think of the name items uh proficiency descript no item specifications thank you that's the one item specifications and they give you exact samples of questions that students will encounter. So we've been able to take those and create end of unit assessments so that students are receiving those after the unit of instruction which then leads teachers to know before even a

051checkpoint if teacher if students are understanding or not and can do some reteing even before the checkpoint and then they get to the checkpoint and now we have all of this data and we can say students are passing or not passing. Um and that's where we start forming small groups for instruction. Uh this is one of this is the blueprint that Lynn spoke about. And so on here it has the frameworks those are and the indicators on the far left. Um but you can see more close up it shows which checkpoint specifically each standard is tested in. So what we were able to do was take our master maps and realign them. Um in grades three through five it no longer says quarter 1, two, three, four. um they say checkpoint one, checkpoint two, checkpoint

052three so that we know all the standards are are being covered and we're giving our students the best chance for um success within those. So specifically you can see um the left hand side that is what one of the master maps looks like. Um we have done a lot of work to link that and make that very user friendly for teachers. That's something that I hear even just today. I was at a school. Every time I see somebody, they comment about the master map and how it's easy to use. It has all of those um parts from the DOE that Lynn described before linked right there. So teachers have everything they need to plan well and really intentionally for students. That middle big section on that master map has all those bullets and that's the

053scaffold that we built for them. And then the unit assessments are built in there too for them to easily um access once they've taught those and they take the checkpoint. One of this is the third page of the report we get from the checkpoints with kind of like that rainbow um colors there that tells us for one student the specific questions for specific standards that students encountered in the order they encountered it. So the green is at it's colorcoded the same as the um front page that I had shown you. Uh so for that standard they got an at level uh question and then if you see to the far right it's a check so that tells us the student answered it correctly. The next one is was a below level question. They answered that

054correctly and then you see the blue one has an X. So we know that that student did not answer that question correctly. And what that allowed us to do is go to that far right hand side. I created these for the elementary teachers to use to break that data down. So if if let's say those two at and below were the same standard, they may not be. If they were the same standard and a student did well on that and they did well until they got to an above level question, then that student just needs more work in the above level proficiency in that descriptor for that standard and so on and so forth. So what teachers would have been able to do um at the PLC's that we've gotten together with that Mr. Brimberry

055talked about, we've been able to break those down and that created very specific small groups for teachers to just take right away and start teaching students to remediate anything that they are lacking and need more help with. >> Sure. So, these are some of the things that we've been doing this year for elementary and secondary. And you can see they're almost exactly the same. Uh, we've aligned our master maps like we talked about. We've had those professional development sessions for teachers with those uh district grade level collaborations too. Those have been very powerful this year. Uh our EXL I'll come back to that here is linked to our checkpoint data. We've remediated. Uh we also have been in contact with the uh specialist named Logan Miller. We've talked to him many times. I talked to

056him today actually. Um he is wonderful in getting us help. Uh we've actually had several meetings with him, presentations just to ask questions because this is new data and reporting that we've never seen before. Uh so he's been able to lead us through and answer some questions. Uh and the state is making adjustments. That sheet that I showed you that this the teachers are breaking their data down, the state's actually going to do that for us next year, which is wonderful. Everyone's going to be very excited to know that because it's very time consuming, but it really gets you to know your data, which is great. Uh so going back to the LL quickly, that's a program that we pay for uh the district pays for and it's linked for both math and reading. And

057what it allows teachers to do is assign um specific standards. It actually is linked to our math textbooks as well. So it can correlate directly to that. But my favorite feature is that we have the checkpoints that feed directly into that program and it allows students uh what's called a skills plan. So wherever they have fallen in their proficiencies, it it generates the exact types of lessons and question types that students need to help start filling those gaps. So between that program and the teacher, they're kind of getting uh double duty to to hit what they really need. My favorite part of that middle school teachers are putting questions up on the TV and saying to kids, "All right, find a partner. How do you answer that question? And kids are tearing the question apart,

058drilling down and thinking together because often the pure math the kids can do. It's the question that's catching them up, right? And they're learning how to tear apart the question, analyze the question, and come up with the answer by themselves. They're doing that often at the beginning of class and the end of class. So kids are seeing questions that are exactly like the ones that they're going to see on iLearn and they're not just at home trying to figure it out themselves or sitting in a study hall trying to figure out themselves. They're working with their teacher and with their peers to figure out those questions. That's going to create amazing growth. I also I I said this to a year ago and I I just want to bring it up again. Our teachers were

059pretty fearless and brave when they created the master maps for the new curriculum because they realized that you couldn't go from chapter one to chapter two to chapter three anymore and actually meet this new curriculum map that the state the blueprint that the state had created. And so they tore apart their textbooks, not literally but figuratively. And they figured out what to teach when. And then occasionally they said, "Oh, but we're still going to have to teach this a little bit here or they won't understand it." for teachers that's a big deal especially some of our teachers who had taught something for 20 years and we asked them to rearrange and redo and rework. The other thing that um that's not on there but that we realized this year is we were going you know

060at or above proficiency or die right early in the year that was we weren't even going to think about anything below that which makes complete sense until we found out that lots of the questions were at approaching level and the kids hadn't seen those kind of questions for a really really long time and so they were missing questions that on the same standard but were easier and I said to them huh that happened to us on the SAT as well. There were seventh and eighth grade questions on the SAT. Our kids were missing just because they hadn't seen it for so long. And as soon as teachers were like, "Yeah, you remember how to do this?" And they get halfway through the problem and the kids would be like, "Yes, we remember." And so we

061went through some approaching questions as the year continued and that helped to build up some scores. And it's one of the things that they're doing right now between now and the test is going back to some pieces. Who knew? But that was because they gave us data that we could actually look at and problem solve. And we asked our friend Logan Miller, who also, by the way, is Kurt Craiggo's nephew. Fun fact, we found out last week. >> I think we're ready for questions. I'm sure we have a million of them here. So, um, I I'll I'll start with maybe Mr. Peters. Is he the one to ask this or Mr. area. But um is funding tied to test scores? >> Little >> funding for the schools ti still tied to test scores. >> Well,

062I would I'll answer that in this way. Um our test scores will be reflective in our school accountability. It's a huge part. Um Mr. Peters and uh and our elementary teachers I read scores um our special education scores are um every assessment the state values and deems are part of school accountability. So when I say they're tied to us closely it is a huge percentage of how the kids will receive and I'll bring this to another work session on school accountability in the very near future. Each child will get an individual score and grade and then each building will get one and then our corporation will get one. So is it um I believe we have excellent and you know this and the board believes this excellent instruction and an excellent culture in Huntington County

063Community Schools. We have to understand the processes of how we're held accountable in a manner that also uh accents the child's growth, the child's achievement, but also our school. And so for us not to know these affects all three levels I just talked about. And we know it in the weeds. And so is it directly or indirectly? I would say it's indirectly tied. um you will in a year get a school grade um maybe next November uh each each child will get one and each school and then our corporation will get one. We know what that means to perception of districts and we know that children are seeking out the best game in town and so are parents. And so I think um yes, indirectly it is. >> Well, the reason I asked is because

064I guess I've been in the board long enough to know that if it's if a test starts with the letter I, >> if it's I read, I learn, I wish, whatever it is, um it it means that we teach sometimes to the test because it was directly accounted for funding we used to receive. >> Yeah. And I it's a great question, Mr. Allen. And what I'm going to answer that on is we want every I I heard Lynn Brown last year talking at one of these meetings and she talked about that we want every child going home successful because they know they can. And if they didn't hit the achievement mark, then they're hitting the growth rate mark at a higher rate than other kids. And so when I see this kind of uh professionalism

065of the weeds of what do we want to teach, retach and enhance, what motivates me in this district and it motivated me previously is I want all of our kids to know they can. I know what comes with that. If you do it at a high enough level, your perceived uh your kids are successful. The kids self-esteem builds. kids self-worth builds, your collectivism as a district, as a building grows to the point where kids see themselves highly successful. And that's what all of us want. And so I don't care what the assessment is that the state gives us, you are 100%. If it starts with an I, it's important. We want to be able to say you can learn and you can achieve. And if you didn't hit the achievement part, you're learning at a

066a rate that is significant enough. Remember Mr. Peters brought you a piece of data. Almost 90ish% of kids hit the I read after last summer. That's unbelievable. And I and Deb commented on it. Russ Digett said at one of our last meetings, we hit almost 94% on graduation rate. The start of their career with our prek three. The end of their career are both extraordinary numbers in this district. the process of these assessments along the way. And I I'm gonna say this, depending on the level, there might be at uh middle school at Riverview 170 kids in a cohort. Maybe at Jay's Flint Springs there's a smaller or maybe that Andrews. The percentage you can't get hung up on. And I say that because it might be seven kids between below state mean average and

067three to five percent above in one cohort. At Jay's one of his elementaryaries, it might be three to four children. What I want the district to see is the beginning is right, the end is right, and we're working really hard on everything in between because of the value of the child along the way. And I say that because an anomaly can happen and seven kids pass that they were approaching and you got them there and that's a huge celebration because we're 5 to 7 8% above average that can easily go one point below another way. But the instruction has been excellent both sides of this. The growth rates is what you want. If you notice, a small section of test questions e equals a large percentage and the smaller the cohort group, the larger the

068percentage. So you can have wild swings without doing you with still having excellent instruction. You need to know that because you're going to see them present and I want us to be always in Huntington very cog. We believe our kids can teach can learn at a high level here and we have evidence to show that. We believe the teachers do a wonderful job. I'm going to say it and I say it all over the state already. Our teachers are very very talented. Our administrators are committed to the growth. The start rate, the end rate is outstanding. And we know that as we learn assessments and as we see the 3 to five, the 7 to 10, the the swings in this, we'll get a better idea on the mean averages of what to expect on

069growth rates here. And I I want the board to always see it. You'll see some anomalies every now and then. It does not indicate instruction or the ability to learn. Some of us have taught in this room in the classroom and you can be excellent and be a point below on assessment that somebody changed the cut score. That somebody's called the state of Indiana. They can change the cut score. You saw 30% uh mastery with the state of Indiana with all schools. I question the cut scores. Why do I say that? Because the academic achievement on both ends are excellent. So when we examine when we're in the weeds of this, you'll keep hearing me say these kids growth rates are excellent. Their mastery is very good. We have multiple data points. If he does,

070if a parent gets a information that says, "Oh, my kid was approaching." Approaching is a snapshot along the way of their academic life. That's okay. We are we're okay. We'll get you to achievement soon. And I don't want us so caught up in one score as I am all scores over time. Um I definitely have two brothers that do very well today that probably wouldn't have done well early in their life on some state assessments. Later in life did very well and do very well as adults. So snapshots along the way. They need to be able to read. They need to be able to write. We got to love them through literacy. And then at the end, we got to get them ready for the workforce, employment, the military, and other things. Huntington does those

071two very, very well. Our community needs to hear that a hundred times. They need to do, we do that very well in Huntington. The process along the way, you're going to have an academic presentation frequently here, if allowed, on how the kids are doing on their assessments. But I don't want to judge children in fifth grade when I know the outcome in seventh grade, they're right where we want them. It's just a different process. So I hear that because the community and board, we're getting questions from parents already. They're encouraging Mr. Allen. My kid was approaching. What do they got to do more of? Well, that means our teachers are talking to them about, hey, we about got them. I don't want a negative on approaching. I want a positive. I want momentum. Next year

072you're going to get it. maybe next assessment. That's our message through and through. Yeah, we're going to prepare them for the test. When you achieve, we're going to celebrate with you. When you have growth rate, we're going to celebrate the same way here. If you need us, we're going to be there. And I that's the message I want I want to hear. >> Thank you, Mr. Brimberry. Sorry, ladies. I was afraid I was going to turn him loose. I never I never intended to. Really didn't. Mrs. Miller, you have something? >> I do. if if you don't mind. Um because this is my bailey wick before I retired. This is what I did um for Pearson education. And there's an analogy that helps folks who aren't in education. You you hear well you're just passing

073them on and then you hear you're just testing them to death. This system is based on a tremendous amount of research dug deep over a lot of years and it's a medical model. So if you think of it like that, something's wrong and you don't know what it is. So, you go to the doctor, a professional, and they take your temperature, formative assessment, short, quick formative assessment, and they find a problem and they give you a prescription, and things aren't coming along as well as you'd hoped, so you go back. Well, they have to test and see if that prescription helped, right? And again, that's why we have multiple formative assessments. They're different for different children or cohorts or groups of children who are suffering from the same malady, whatever it is. And so if

074you you've heard the term multi MTSS, um, multiple tiers of student success, that's exactly what it means. There isn't one prescription that fits everybody. That's what we were accused of years ago. You They used to call it the shotgun approach. You just put it out there and hope it sticks, right? We don't do that anymore. So, we stay with the application of prescribing, testing, checking, prescribing. And that's what the system is. It's just based on a medical model. I hope that analogy helps. I used to use it all the time, but um if you think of it like that, it makes it a little easier. >> Thank you for letting me do that. Mr. Thompson, Mr. Allen, ladies, thank you. Um, I come from a uh teachers perspective and uh we're talking about all of

075these levels of kids and having a lot of data and I would think it would be easy. Let's just say for example, a teacher with a classroom of 18 kids probably in the first few weeks of school they have to dis differentiate four different ways. by March. Is it possible then with all of this data that they will have to differentiate 18 different ways because of all of this data? Are we creating nightmares for our teachers? >> I think the answer is yes. Um because we all learn at a different pace and a different time. However, those 18 kids are all in the second grade or the sixth grade or the seventh grade. And in most cases, it's not just a teacher that's helping them. There's a team of people that are helping them. I'm

076super proud of our middle schools. I know the same pieces are happening in elementary where as we start to see clusters of kids with a deficit for a specific standard. It may be the science teacher who says I I can do that math. I'll I'll teach that piece. It may be the math teacher who says I read pretty well and I can help them. And so kids are being helped by a large number of people. What these new reports do for us though is it pins it down enough that we can figure out what it is all those people can do to help us because at one point we were just kind of spreading kids around and saying these are low kids. So you help them low and these are high kids. So how you

077know and I taught kids one time how to set a table because they were high kids. That didn't help them become above proficient. They didn't learn how proper etiquette but it didn't help them with their test scores at all. So, I I think you're correct that that we're helping kids in a more individualized way. I don't think it's a nightmare to do that. Um, I think it's a a better use of our resources and more proactive thinking about what it is that we can do. I will also say that Mr. Allen started to say, "Are we just teaching to the test?" And then Chuck went on on his dance, right? And he quoted me, so I'm going to quote me again. Um, I taught a IEP test once upon a time when I was teaching

078seventh grade social studies and I've taught a lot of AP classes and I've come to understand that if I as a teacher really really understand the test well, I know what the kids are going to be tested on, I can buy back a lot of instructional time to do the things the kids like, the things that I like, the things I think they should know because I'm being very, very prescriptive in what I need to it done for the test. When we were guessing what was on the test, I had to cover everything in the kitchen sink just in case it was on there. And now I can say, well, there's seven to nine questions on these four standards. I know what those four standards are. I know I've taught kids to proficiency. Now I

079can talk about the Middle Ages because I love it. Or the Battle of Gettysburg that I could talk to you about for six to 12 weeks if you wanted me to. So yes, but we have an answer for it. >> I'll add if that's okay. Uh we've been talking a lot at elementary about teaching to the target, not teaching to the test. What we have now because we have so much information from the state. We're not just guessing. It's not just this big broad standard. It's very well broken down. So we do understand specifically what we're being asked to do so that the students are be being prepared. they happen to be tested over those target skills in a test, but we're teaching them to these targets so that they can be successful and continue.

080Um, and so I agree we are I don't think it's a nightmare. I took pleasure in having so much information individually for my students because I knew I was meeting them exactly where they needed and not just saying, "I hope this is what you need. Come back and and talk to me." Right? I felt really good and I could talk to my principal. I could talk to the parents very specifically about their child. So, the longer I went and the more I knew, I felt more empowered to be able to teach them exactly what I knew that they needed um and that they were going to feel empowered and successful. >> And I might add to that, >> I would just like to say it is it is nice to see you guys uh come

081in front of us and not be frustrated um with trying to talk about how you use the shotgun approach. um how you can um feel like you're really accomplishing things from day to day and hour to hour because again I've been on here a little too long I suppose but I remember just you know us just trying to find good questions to pick you guys up you know because we knew how much a struggle it was uh for you to to go through the days and just hoping that you could help the kids as opposed to being to knowing where to go and to find the answers for them. So that's that's refreshing, >> guys. This embraces what we just talked about here. What Mr. Brimberry, uh, what Lynn and Lauren have said, every student

082every day. We're talking about that right here. This embraces the everyday, every student, everyday concept and mission and vision that we have for a district. I know, Cindy, you pulled the slides down. That's fine. The one that that has that cycle, I think it's like the third slide. as a building administrator and I put my principal hat on this slide right here I would have in front of teachers and I want to call it the cycle of continuous improvement the cycle of so when we collaborate if we were two teams of teachers we're doing data dives Lyn and Lauren are doing data dives they teachers know their data they they know what that looks like and so use this cycle of continuous improvement to be precise be personalized we wrap that with professional learning and

083this is a cycle when we collaborate um on a weekly basis as a grade level team. This needs to be in front of us and this is our guide because it goes down provide learning opportunities. Check the learning. Guess what? Respond to the needs. Do we remediate win time? You've heard wind time. Do we accelerate? What do we do every student every day? And this is right here, guys, that that we're doing. And these ladies are doing a wonderful job uh with that. So, great question, Ken. Um, so, uh, we're going to be excited. On March the 23rd, uh, Lauren is coming back to share, um, data from the elementary, um, and what she's doing with our elementary teachers. So, again, thank you for the opportunity. >> Any other questions from the board? Ladies, uh,

084wonderful job on both presentations tonight. Um, could not be more blessed in Huntington to have both of you involved. Um, I have watched both of you in your professional learning communities. Um, and I watch both of you step back to the corner once it takes off and the teachers engage with each other and teach each other. And it is a wonderful, wonderful situation that I'm seeing in Huntington in terms of true professional learning communities happening with colleagues now in a very safe uh environment uh where we can reflect and talk and and work together. So, thank you for your presentation and all your work that you've been doing. We're blessed here. So, thank you. Next up, uh for our last topic of the evening, um Matt Stevenson is here, uh to talk a little bit

085about the employee benefit trust. Um I'm going to Matt didn't ask me to say this. He didn't give me hand me hand me a card before we started, but uh I will tell you uh my first year in Huntington, I was surprised. I had not been to a self-funded insurance company. We were part of a consortium in my previous districts. And second of all, I had not been a part of one where it was teacher le as the majority in terms of the um meetings that we attend. And the last part would be Matt Stevenson is not only an excellent teacher in our district, but he is an extraordinary leader of others. Uh Matt is uh not going to tell you this, so I'm going to. But he leads a rather important group uh that

086benefits all employees in this district. He is very conscientious. He is very he takes input, but he also has to make decisions sometime on our committee. And so Matt, I appreciate your investment in Huntington, not just from the classroom, but your leadership role. You're very talented gentleman, and I appreciate you joining us tonight. >> Thanks, Chuck. Um, well, good evening everybody. I'm not sure why we're all sitting in here when it's beautiful outside and we have an extra hour of sunlight, but here we are. Um, so I would just want to start by giving a little bit of an overview of the trust. Um, the trust was established in a in April of 95. So we've been we're going on 30 we're over 30 years now. Um, I've been the trust president since, lucky me,

087since right at the summer of 2020, which right at the height of COVID. Um, yeah. So, that's when I took over the trust president from uh Doug Melhaney. Um, you can see our administrators that are on the trust. We have five voting administrators and we have five voting teachers. Um, so that is a balance between administrators and teachers and we have some non- voting members as well. Uh and Julie Shearer, she used to work for the corporation, is our trusted administrator and she does an excellent job. Um we are incredibly fortunate to have Julie as a member of our team and we have been working with LHD benefit adviserss for over 11 years. Uh Ben Fuelorth is our primary adviser. He's a partner with LHD and they are highly respected in Indiana uh for their

088work with um benefit plans. So you want to go ahead? So um last year when I was here at this time we were for lack of a better term in a kind of a state of turmoil. We were experiencing a lot of high claims. Um our reserve accounts were just kind of plummeting. We were getting hammered. Um and we had to make some kind of dramatic shifts. Um John Trout was uh incredibly helpful in that. he had some good ideas on his end um at central office about how to kind of keep us more stable from literally week to week. Um some of the changes that were made on the end of the corporation was we were getting um um premium payments into the trust every two weeks and it was that was what could

089come down to we didn't have enough money to pay the claims at the end of that twoe period and we're frantically hoping we have the cash flow. Um, and then what um, John did was he said, "Okay, well, let's pay him every week." I believe that's what we're doing now. It's every week now. Is that correct? Believe it was every week now. So, um, I don't see that money that goes through Julie, but um, so we made that change. It was also um, decided upon that if we did not have the money in the checking account that the the corporation would kind of float us that money for a brief period of time and then we'd pay that back. Um during the I guess that was the winter of 24 into 25, we had to

090take a couple little mini loan type of things for very briefly for literally like a maybe a week and all of those were paid back and those that has not happened since. Um so it was just that really brief period of time that we were really kind of underwater frankly. So um just so everyone understands and I guess public understands that the corporation pays into the trust um the premium portion that they owe. Um so the 80% roughly that they owe and then the employees pay into that as well and then all claims are paid out of the trust accounts. Um so there's like we utilize like currently we are utilizing Anthem's network but we don't we pay Anthem for usage of their network and to process claims but they are not paying the claims.

091So they are not taking the risk like the financial risk on their part. So um that's one benefit of having a trust is we aren't paying somebody else to take the risk. We take the risk. So, um, if you take a look kind of where we were at last year and where we're at this year, we had three straight years above budget, um, all resulting in a significant deficit. Um, we were losing cash flow in our reserve accounts. And so what we did at the beginning, well, end of 2024 into 2025 is we switched over to the Anthem HealthSync network um, with higher discounts. Um, we have co-pays, so it's a PO network. Um it puts kind of the biggest thing that um again all insurance changes cause frustration with people every single time. It

092doesn't matter how good or bad they are. One of the things that happened this time was we moved or shifted Park View into the tier two of our network because Park View is more expensive to to go to and that was costing us a significant amount of money. So we pushed them into tier 2. they are still in network. Um but it does cost more to to go to Parkview facilities. So as you take a look kind of a brief summary of 2024 into 2025 um you can see kind of on the third line in year performance we were at 108% loss ratio um and about a $550,000 deficit in 2024 and then last year after switching over to Anthem HealthSync we were at a just about a 90% loss ratio and we had a

093surplus of $680,000. So, um, we are on our way, I can happily say we are on our way to stabilizing our stance and where we're at on everything and our our cash position. Um, on that, I guess it's the fourth line down there, the trust catch position. Um, you can see the checking and savings and the operating and reserve. um where those numbers were at the approximate end of 2024 and where they were at the approximate end of 2025. Again, I'm using approximate because any snapshot in time is going to be very different from day to day. So, I will also say this, as of I believe I got this information at the end of February, the checking and savings uh was up to $1.3 million. So we have made significant strides there and just

094getting a better position. Um so that was good news and our uh increase this year was only 4.4% from 24 into 25. So um that was good to see as well. Next slide. Um on this S slide, what I'd like to just point out here is that um the red line there being the kind of the trend uh for health networks and you can see that we are below trend and you can see that last green box is showing the significant recovery that we made last year in terms of our deficit. Go ahead. Um, on this graph, um, it's a little hard to see where I'm sitting. I think you probably have that on in front of you, but the yellow line, I believe is the color of it, um, is showing since basically 2018,

095we've been running at at deficits. I think we had maybe one year of a of a surplus, but and then of course last year was the surplus, but it been running at deficit over and over and over again. Um, and then like I said, we recovered last year. Um, yeah. So, last year, I guess the big thing is last year was a significant improvement on our on our position. So, this is 2024. Um, and you can kind of see this is a month-by-month graph showing kind of where we were budgeted. And the dark dark green line is the budget and the light green is what our expenses were. Um, you can see that peak in May. That's not unusual to see highs and lows as the year goes on. And it's definitely not unusual to

096see a gigantic spike in December when people are trying to use their last of their benefits or try to reach their deductible and try to get a surgery or something at the end of the year, whatever the case may be. That's not unusual. But if you take a look at how high that is, that is over $800,000. So, you know, approximately $600,000 $100,000 is deposited into the account every month. And so, if we're experiencing months that are, you know, $800,000, that reserve that we have, that's where that money has to come from. And so, if our reserve is being used up, nickeled and dimed by all these high claims, when we hit a month like that, that's when we're in trouble if we don't have that reserve to back up. So, I know when you

097when when I say we've got about $1.5 million, that sounds great, but we use basically half that every single month to play pay claims. Um, and this is representing the 2025 performance. Um, you see that big spike in January. Um, and I was seeing that, Julie Shear was seeing that. And it was a little concerning that we had just made a change and we started seeing that and we Julie kept saying a lot of this is from the UMR the UHC rollover. They were trying to clear out their books with us. And we had contracted them with them through the end of last through through the entirety of last year, I believe, is what it was, so that we wouldn't be responsible for any claims that happen to pop up like in September. Because if

098they popped up in September and we didn't kind of contract with them through the end of the year, we would be would have to cover the entire thing and they wouldn't have any discounts or anything for us. So, um, but most of those rolled off probably about in March or so. Um, and then actually just recently we just received a deposit into our account of about $118,000 from UMR that closed our account. So, we got a nice little bump from them as well here recently. Um, I think that's all I wanted to say about that slide. Um here we have just just some things about general performance. Inside that red box you can see our discount percentage has increased this year or last year I guess. Um we're almost up to 60% discount. We we're

099hoping to be have a discount of u over 60% this year. Um over there to the side those percentage of claims you can see that I need progressive lenses. It's hard for me to see what's in front of me and up there at the same time. Um so in 2025 you can see percentage of paid claims and network is slightly under 100%. I don't know why that is. We'd have to dig deep and figure out why there's a it's like 90 almost 99%. So where that 1% is coming from, I'm not sure because just reminding you again that Park View is still in network. And that was one of the concerns that I brought to you last year that when we made the change and put Park View as a tier 2 provider um that

100people thought Parkview wasn't Park View wasn't going to be available to them, but it is. So where exactly that is, I couldn't tell you that part. And on the bottom part, um, again, employees are still paying roughly about 80% or excuse me, the district is paying roughly about 80% of all cost distribution as they have been. So, we aren't having significantly more placed on employees percentage- wise. Go ahead. Uh, this is giving us a little bit of the pharmacy overview. One of the biggest areas that uh we struggle with and you hear it on the news all the time is prescription drugs. Prescription drugs are huge, huge cost, namely those specialty drugs. Um you can see last year we had a a drop and I won't say all of this is due to one specific

101drug, but a lot of it is due to one specific drug, Humera. Um it was very expensive and we didn't have that many people on it, but it was enough to make a huge dent. And uh humir recently in the last couple years went generic and we we made decision. Chuck says Matt makes decisions. Matt doesn't make the decisions. The trust makes a decision and the trust made the decision to uh take Humera off our formulary and move to the generic. So our employees cannot get uh specialty or name brand Humira. They go go generic now. that saved a lot of money and that was uh that transition was made kind of the middle of last year and was completely official at the beginning of of August. Okay. Um so moving forward some things that

102we are looking into this year for maybe making some plan design changes to uh help employees and try to steer usage is waving deductibles for freestanding office visits for diagnostic services. So rather than having those at a more expensive hospital setting um trying to get employees to go to a freestanding facility and just waving the deductible for them. and we the trust would play pay that because overall that's going to be less expensive to everyone. Um, another thing that we're beginning to look at is embedding supplemental health coverage within our actual medical plan. Um, now these are the things that employees have the option and of enrolling in. Um, currently we're with American Fidelity. I don't know that anybody necessarily has an issue with American Fidelity, but this is just an option. Um so like

103you know accidental um accidents, cancer insurance, you know those types of things that you could buy supplemental insurance for. The thing that people often run into is they buy those plans and then they forget they have them or don't know that they have them. They bought them, they don't even realize they did it, whatever the case may be and then they never use the benefit. Um, and so by having them integrated with into the actual plan itself, um, those things would happen basically automatically. And so people would get reimbursed for, you know, whatever whatever it is that they've enrolled in. They'd still have to pay for that because you have to do that through American Fidelity as well. But, um, they would get those those payments automatically. Um, yeah. So, those are a couple things

104we are looking at for this year into next year. That's not something that we're doing currently doing. We're just considering doing that. Um, and just a little bit of information on where we're at for this year. Um, you can see up there I've highlighted the contracts that are up for this year. Um, so our medical administrator with Anthem is up at the end of this year. Um, I don't foresee us making any changes this year because we literally just made a change a year ago and that's rough on employees by doing it more than once every five years or so. So, um, and again, the plan ran really, really well last year. Um, and so at this point, there's no reason that we would think we would need to make a change. Um the stop

105loss again for those of you who are unaware or have forgotten what stop-loss is essentially insurance for an insurance. So once a claim or set of claims for an individual goes over a certain amount um then stop loss kicks in and covers everything beyond that amount. So that is uh vitally important. And then the employee assistance program down at the bottom. We are contracted with Park View. Um Meg Fzen has done an amazing job. she kind of took that program, I don't want to say she took it under her wing, but she started working on that and trying to get more employees steered toward using the employee assistance program for their mental health or financial help or just kind of general needs that people have. Um, she her concern was last year that people didn't

106know it was an option. Um, and so she's been working to try to get more people going that direction and uh John Trout was a big advocate of that program as well. Um, and we we didn't have high utilization of it. And so at one point last year, we were considering uh using a different vendor rather than Park View. Um, but we decided to stick with Park View and let Meg do her do her magic and see if she can help get people steered to that. Uh, one thing I do want to mention about the stop loss is so we saw a lot of um improvement this year from our stance and there's a lot of different factors in that. I mean, part of it was our plan design change, part of it was employees

107moving to um tier one providers. Um so that's helpful. Part of it is luck, frankly. When you have employees that are not getting hurt, not getting injured, not getting sick, then you don't have those large claims. Um so there's a lot of different factors and why we had an excellent year last year. Um, and you know, I I hope that the the claims continue to roll how they are. I will tell you that uh January and February were were very good months. They were very favorable months. So, I don't want to say too much and jinx myself, but things are looking good right now so far. So, I believe that's the end of my slides. So, I'm open for questions if anybody has any questions. >> Thank you, Mr. Stevenson. Go ahead. Right now for

108the corporation, we'll use me as example. I'm on metformin me. So if I'm a teacher, where do I get that met? Who am I getting that metformin through now? I'm on it every month. I'm on it every day. Where's that coming from? >> Do you mean the medication itself or? >> Yes. >> Like the actual drug? >> Well, reason I'm saying that is I work for one of the biggest corporations in America. >> Okay. >> A year ago, they made us go to Express Scripts. Okay. >> Which is a third was a third price versus going through Park View, through Walgreens, through and I had to get it by a 90day supply, but it was third. It's third the cost >> what it was. Like it was a third of what it is now. >>

109Yes. By going through a company called Express Scripts. Okay. >> And they ship it right to my house. >> Uhhuh. Um, so our current mailin is with Costco. Have you looked into that? >> Yes. which was higher. We they've looked into both and scripts express scripts was a third. >> Okay. And you're you're explicitly talking about once we change this year. >> Yes. When you go to change that's something you probably need to >> Okay. So I'm I'm hearing you Gary. I Mr. Mlullen I that is a piece of information that >> for information gathering. Okay. And I hear you and I I have heard that before. >> Okay. So, you're not the first one to bring that to >> I didn't have a choice. The company I work for, we have we have 54,000

110employees. We didn't have a choice. But it saved the company millions of dollars by and it's actually easier to do. I don't have to go to Walgreens. >> Yeah. We don't have obviously we just changed. I mean, we're two months in with Navitus right now, so we don't have a ton of data and so I'm not really sure what things look like right now. I mean, it's it's hard to say. Um, but yeah, just those little anecdote things are are helpful to us on getting an idea of people's experience because that's important. The numbers are important, but people's experiences are just as important for us. >> Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson. Um, Mr. Melture, you have something? He's the trust guy. All right. I'm just telling you, back when I first started, I didn't know

111beans from apple butter about the trust stuff. That guy was raising Kane about it. And I kept shrugging my shoulders and rolling my eyes and he was right the whole time. So, I'm never gonna forget it and I'm not gonna let him get out here if he's got something he don't want to say. Okay, great. Then you must be doing wonderfully. Mr. Wall, I just want to thank you to come talk to us today. I know we don't participate in the trust directly. We just have their administrators and the teachers are part of it, but we are footing that bill. But we appreciate you coming and just giving us an update because I was a little worried last year when we were talking and all that stuff and I appreciate the changes that were made

112from the trust and I'm happy you guys are continuing to do that at a great pace and things are looking good. But I just appreciate you coming and filling us in. Um it's not something you really have to do but we do appreciate you doing it. So >> thanks Mr. Wall. Uh comment on too on Mrs. Babcock. uh her past experience has been with a self-funded insurance company and uh she when she joins us she'll be joining she did virtually last time if I remember and uh so that uh expertise will be uh important as well. >> Thank you Mr. Reberry. Anything further? Go ahead. I'm going to say I'm going to say good job of getting it back where it needed to be because I've been here this is the 12th year and when

113I come on it was a mess you guys with Mr. Mhenny kind of straightened it out a little bit and you've done well with it too. Good job getting it back where it needed to be and >> Yeah. And I I like I said, I when I took over in 2020, I little did I know the chaos of C covid that I was walking into. Um and that first that first uh fault I guess it was that winter actually um when everybody's you going to the doctor and thing crazy things are happening was the first time I was like okay we don't have enough money to cover claims and I had to pull out of the reserves and it was just like those are the things that happen. So >> that man right there can

114tell you we've had ugly board meetings be over the years over this. We've had knockdown correct in the old days. We've had knockdown dragout battles and we don't seem to be having these battles anymore. So good job. >> Thank you, Mr. Mlullen. Uh also want to just acknowledge that you mentioned Mr. trout several times and I think he really obviously paid a um a real instrumental part in making sure this thing got moving back correctly and I know that he took he took on um a few very difficult decisions. Um but good to see that it's where it's at now. So thank you. Anything further for Mr. Stevenson? >> I will take a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. Thank you, Mr. Wall. Is there a second? Thank you, Mr. Thompson. All those in favor

115say I. >> I.