001we'll call the meeting to order and we'll start with the pledge IED alance to the of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all want to um welcome everybody to this evening's board meeting remind everyone who's are live streaming the board meeting this evening so we'll also welcome those um that are joining us via the live stream um so we'll start with consent agenda items I have a motion to approve consent agenda items motion motion by Earl I I have a second second second by Pat any discussion all those in favor 70 um next we'll ask if there's any Comm uh Community member who is here to speak on an item that is on the agenda or any other
002item hearing none um we'll move on I think we have some visitors we do we have the high school choir program with their director Mr br you come on in who'd like to sing for us this [Music] evening thank you thanks so much than's Cur going heck of vight across like all the way got to F like I want a straight line across oh cool all right hi my name is Aaron Brooks um thank you all so much for having us tonight um we're excited to be here uh this performance that we're getting ready to do I actually picked it out specifically for being here tonight and then it would just turned out so good that I was like I I can't so it's the idea right that counts um so we're actually going to
003be performing this at our concert too but you guys performance yeah um this this piece is very difficult um it is something that even College choirs struggle with and I think that you're going to find that our kids have pulled it off beautifully um so our concert is on Tuesday next week and everyone's invited uh it is going to be a night filled with beautiful music and beautiful voices and it's going to be a great experience um I am I am very happy that I ch to be part of the family here at JS County um I truly believe that we have the best talent and I'm not just saying that um and so I appreciate you all for allowing me to be here I will say originally I said no um you know Mr
004Roller is one of the best salesman out there all right so without further Ado um this is a touch of class and concert choir both um they will be performing glow by her quitter our pianist had to go to the band concert so I'm sorry that [Music] she falls the winter snow Whispers to The Sleep World below winter awes morning breaks ands the Earth [Music] gentle the glory [Music] [Applause] of silver car [Music] for [Music] Anders [Music] the softly falling [Music] snow [Applause] [Music] [Applause] aren't they fantastic more that's all we got folks it was the one song trust me it was a lot thank thank you thank you oh my goodness excluding you I'm a so that was fantastic So yeah thank you for arranging that I um saying as I was walking down
005the hall um I was alumni Touch of Class concert choir um of course Joel I mean I think most of you know that Joel is music Major and um of class and the foundation that we laid here at the in Jennings County had a lot to do with his decision to do that so um that was great I did great job yeah just a reminder for those online and those in the room again the concert is Tuesday he said 7 o'clock so make sure that you head out and support um the choir um and the music program at the high school so yeah fantastic um all right so we'll move down um under old business we have some programs yes I'm just asking for approval for the jams County High School New course additions um
006that were the inform at the last meeting okay um entertain a motion to approve I have a motion by Marilyn any a second second second by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor 70 and then we'll move down under professional staff there's a resolution yes I have resolution for a correction to a supplemental pay a for certified teacher that I messed up on when I did the original you approved last meeting well Philip I don't know if we can you accept that mistake how dare you I know I felt bad about it we'll make we'll make it up but all right so we'll entertain a motion um to correct that I have a motion by Travis do I have a second second by Chelsea any discussion all those in favor s then we'll move down
007um under new business we have some Neola policies maybe yes asking for first reading for the Neola policies listed um but asking specifically to separate policy 2510 I'd like to table that one adoption of curricular materials okay so um these are first reading policies so we'll um have there will be no action taken on the first reading items um but we do need a motion for Neola policy 2510 to table that I have a motion by Travis I have a second by Pat thank you any discussion all those in favor 70 and we'll go down and yes I'm asking for approval to add an elective college and careers class at the James County Middle School for next school year um 24 25 okay I have a motion um to that college and careers class at
008the middle school motion by Chelsea do I have a second second by Marilyn any discussion all those in favor 70 next uh we have a presentation yes I have a presentation for you this evening on our attendance data and goals so as we were looking at data to review our needs for our strategic plan um student attendance became a very obvious need and its connection to achievement so I'd like to present with you information that has recently come out from the state to update what we've been studying and then progress on how that work's been going first semester so this is a um Y national um concern with attendance in October 2023 there was a report from attendance work works that had new data from the Department of Education that showed in 2122 66% of
009all students enrolled in the US had levels of extreme or high chronic absence and that means at least one in five kids in every school was missing almost a month of school a year that's across the nation um along with that that chronic absence absenteeism is a concern because it's related to significant declines in achievement and also filling in those gaps that were created by the pandemic so to put that in perspective New York Times uh did the data crunching and said that on an average day of school last school year 10% of all kids K through 12 were absent on any given day and dat it even shows that after you adjust for um poverty status and race that us children who Skip more school as we would understand get significantly worse grades they
010also have significantly lower test performance for achievement this graph shows that um students who were absent zero days in the year are the dark blue students who Miss just one or two days are the medium blue and the light blue are kids who are absent three or more days and you can see for both kids living in poverty and not in poverty the impact attendance every day can have on their overall achievement on assessment so just to summarize things that make attendance important what are the outcomes when you have poor attendance it means you're going to have lower academic achievement at the High School level you have an incre increased risk of dropping out we have decreased literacy rates that are linked to poor attendance failing classes in teens it can be linked to an
011increased risk of substance abuse and then of course having a poor pattern of attendance in your school years can be linked having a poor pattern of attendance when you're an employee in the future so before we get into some data for both the state and local level just going through some of our attendance terms so attendance rate is the percentage of enrolled kids in a school that are there for specific date or window of time an excused absence is an absence that's reported to the school by the parents for illness or another approved absence reason an unexcused absence is an absence that didn't get reported to school officials for the reasoning or it was for an unallowable reason and finally The Chronic absenteeism this is the definition from our Indiana State Department of Education a
012student with chronic absent ISM who is someone who's absent 10% or more of the school year so in Indiana it's 180-day required year so that's equivalent to 18 or more days the tricky thing on chronic absenteeism is that counts whether those are excused or unexcused so even if a student had doctor's notes for 18 days as far as the state is concerned they count towards our data for chronic absen ISM student so what does that look like in Indiana this is data from the State Board of Ed showing the rates of chronic absenteeism in the state um over the last five years you can see that spike in the middle that came along with covid and that it has not returned to Baseline since then and what that looks like specifically is these numbers broken
013down by the number of schools in Indiana so we have over 1,000 schools in the state that in their student population one in 10 of their kids are chronically absent 547 that their population one in four students are chronically absent 270 schools have one in three of their kids chronically absent from school that means they missed about a month of school in the year at Le at the minimum and then 84 schools in the state have 50% of their kids or one in two of their kids are chronically absent what that looks like by grade level um although chronic absenteeism has increased since the pandemic these are trends that we saw solv before the pandemic and that is that usually our kindergarten students and first grade students have some of the highest rates of chronic
014absenteeism that rate tends to go down through lower elementary and then begin Rising again in middle school and continue increasing throughout high school with our seniors having um the highest rates that also shows that um students living in poverty um also usually have higher rates of chronic absenteeism um many times due to the that they face that might be different than their peers in attending school so that is the state data and now I'd like to show you how our data um actually comes in for jingus County Schools so two years ago and this was part of our comprehensive means assessment that we did um in connection to our strategic planning we had chronic absenteeism rates that III data that's done on a state level identified us in one of the 10 highest um chronic
015absentee corporations in the state so we came in with just over 23% of our students being chronically absent so this is why we identified attendance as such a big goal for our Corporation is because we knew it was such a high need so this data was based on two years ago I thought you might like to see where we fell on that state chart of the number of schools in each of these areas so this is data based on last school year so Graham Creek and Hayden would have fallen in the category of having one in 10 students chronically absent nve Brush Creek and cpio would have fit in that 25% of their students range about one in four students and we had three schools that were actually in that category of the most chronic
016absenteeism range of half of their kids of one and two were experiencing chronic absenteeism high school middle school and Sand Creek um this is data that we were aware of as a need which is why we have tackled attendance is such a significant goal at every single building this year so we started by looking at what research tells us will make a difference with attendance and those areas are family engagement being connect students being connected to their school Community Partnerships and extending Health Care access so what that has looked like for us this year is first and foremost School Improvement plans um every school had focused planning and efforts that began in Spring last year and lasted until the first day of school that involved all staff members in creating a school Improvement plan that
017focused on how do we get out information and what do we set our goals for to improve attendance what kind of incentives can we create to help incentivize student attendance at school how are we going to progress monitor this data so we can be sure we're making active improvements and then I would argue most importantly parent communication how do we build awareness of what the importance is of attendance and that we have a concern that we as a community have to work collectively to correct um Community awareness includes an awareness campaign for families and community members and advocating with um employers to be our partners to talk about what the importance of being a good attender can mean and those Partnerships included Community Partners who help provide incentives um our schools have some attendance programs
018going on that have had some great local businesses pair with them to have incentives for the kids whether they be popsicle parties for good attendance or even gift card drawings the high school has a very elaborate store students can choose um tickets for and and pick prizes um Partnerships for family support sometimes we have families that say they need support transport transporting their kid to school or they need alarm clocks um need some different supports and so we've worked with family supports and communitybased juvenile and Family Programs to provide support that might extend beyond what we can provide as a school and then finally grant funding how can we use Innovative grant funding to help support this area so some examples and I have to say these are extensively more than this and each school
019will be sharing those with you on Monday at the work session what they've been doing but just to highlight um for instance the high school has piloted using parent Square for ATT notifications so if a student is absent at midday the parent receives a notification and can respond directly about why they are absent all of the other buildings have been making daily phone calls so if a student is absent the parent gets a um contact directly um student and School attendance incentives have been in place across the district with daily or weekly progress updates um we have buildings where every day they're saying at the end of the day what our attendance rate was can we do better tomorrow let's keep it on track um family engagement conversations to ask how we can support attendance
020Improvement so as we've identified students in need um that are edging towards chronic attendance concerns for the year we have reached out to families and asked what can we do to help um then we have a districtwide attendance committee where we meet with parents once their chronic absenteeism reaches a range where we know we identify they need additional supports and then finally we are beginning a lot of Community Partnership conversations for additional programming and all of those are summarized to sound like a brief amount of work but I have to say our staff have went Above and Beyond on attendance this year um I could share lots of anecdotal stories of teachers calling to say someone's out and they're concerned about them how can they help to make sure they get back to school um
021check-in calls intendance parties uh they're doing a lot of things and they're starting to see I think the results on that which is evidenced by this data so what you're looking at is um um in the First Column are the attendance rates last year and the second column is the attendance rate at this point this year and so you can see all Schools attendance rates are up now attendance rate can be deceiving because you can have a a higher attendance rate but still have a high chronic absenteeism rate so we went ahead and dug into that data as well the First Column you can see the 2223 chronic absenteeism rates and the second column you can see the 23 24 chronic absenteeism rates and I think it's clear to see that the strategies the buildings
022are trying are making a difference and an impact so the way that data was obtained 23 24 that was students with 18 or more dayses absent the second column it's a progress monitoring so we're midy year so we used what half of the 18 would be to say midy year how are they doing I will say second semester is harder for attendance because you get into the winter months and um so think we'll have to definitely keep working hard on so that those numbers don't change um I'm going to read a couple of those out loud because I don't know if you can see them from the audience but Brush Creek huge progress gone from a 45% chronic absenteeism rate to their current rate is 12% um Graham Creek 19% to 15% Hayden already had
023a relatively low rate and they have held that study at 15% nve has gone from 26% to 18% Sand Creek 40% down to 32% cpio 29% down to 16% really want to brag on the secondary level and the work they've been doing um they the middle school have gone from 53% down to 32% of students and the high school has gone from 45% to 27% of students the exciting thing here is we are getting kids at school so they can learn which we know is linked to student achievement so I think there's a lot of dat from attend that we'll continue to see um as we go forward we have reports set up on these metrics so I'll be able to run these again at the end of third n weeks and at the end
024of the year for comparable data the last slide just has the sources from the facts anybody who's interested um it's just an update I just want to share some of the hard work they've been doing and that it is making a difference and then making an impact on our attendance rates so kudos to our families for helping us and kudos to our staff for working so hard to make this difference thank you I think it's um I don't know if anybody has any questions for Nikki regarding the presentation guess I have one Nikki on this thing where it says 84 schools one and two students um of course we had high school middle school at Sand Creek do you have any idea of those age or four schools I assume a lot of them were
025high schools and middle schools anyway I mean is that because of age I did not I do not have that list I could reach out and ask but yes secondary attendance like you saw in that graph how it depended by age we know it's high school is the worst composition of four years of of high chronic absenteeism so one would assume the secondary on their head I just want to thank thank you for for this work you got you easily understood and uh recognized the problem and we apparently made a big job and that is kudos to staff because you do not make attendance change by a one-time conversation attendance changes by making a phone call every single day and following up every single day and so this represents a lot of work of teachers
026and office staff and everyone in the school to help kids attend I think it was important to sharing because obviously some schools have had a better done better with attendant in the past able to share with other people by working together made a difference 45 huge amazing amazing it is great and I think the Partnerships right we can't as a school corporation we cannot do this on our own um you know on the one slide it has family engagement as number one school connectedness as number two Community Partnerships um I mean that's so um it truly does you know take a team so thank you for sharing that any additional discussion on that presentation if not we'll move down under SC science of reading Grant yes I'm asking for approval of acience of reading competitive
027Grant um we received $270,000 this will go uh towards reading materials teacher training and staff s sens for training um especially our primary K through three grade um to help with signs reading obviously a motion to accept that Grant motion by Earl I have a second by Pat any discussion 270,000 fantastic it's exciting that's very it's really exciting great um any additional discussion or comments hearing none all those in favor 70 and then we'll move down under I think we're down under professional staff and I a request to permission to fill requesting permission to fill any positions we may have open prior to the next board meeting we have a little bit of space and it's the start of a new semester so just asking permission to fill any spots that we needed to help
028us get started on the New Year motion by Travis do have a second second second by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor seven o and I didn't mean to skip over recommendations but there were none so so now we're going to support staff and I think we do have some recommendations just a few yes asking for approval please for J Bailey to serve as a Jennings County High School volunteer FFA FFA livestock coach also asking approval that mass and brusher um be approved as the jinnings County Middle School um RN which we are so excited at the position fill um also asking that Carl pimberton be approved as the jinnings County High School girls head wrestling coach one of our new positions and Bry Wagner be approved as a Jennings County Middle School custodian
029have a motion to accept those four I have a motion by maryn do I have a second second second by Cheryl any discussion just a question does Mr Bailey make house calls oh um I'll check on that I'll check on that girl is not serious about that put that on the record no other discussion all of those in favor seven um next we go down to permission to post a position asking for permission to post a support position for the High School athletics um this position will help support individual student needs and any extra needs in the High School athletic department outside of school hours I have a motion to approve that posting Pat do I have a second second by Travis any discussion all those in favor 70 next we'll move down under Finance
030yes have a lot of donations so I'm asking permission to accept the following donations First Baptist Church missions eight zap bug heaters $1600 value one for each School Anonymous 325 to Brush Creek for student snacks Coffee Creek Christian Church 250 to G Creek for students in need Lisa Bailey $4,000 to Hayden for breakfast lunch assistance nbic $200 to nbe for title supplies cpio United Methodist Church $100 to cpio lunch accounts Jenny County pallets Incorporated $1,000 to Jennings County High School winter formal Jackson County denel $100 to the jchs PBIS Rotary Club of nor feron $1,780 for the junior class at the high school roseacre Farm case eggs to the High School culinary arts class stevenh J ellner $585 to the high school aspire to Greatness luncheon iron Benders Fitness and Nutrition LLC $100 to the
031high school winter formal and Jimmy's Church of Christ $200 to the high school Panther pantry have a motion to accept those donations question what is a zap bug here I may want to get one I don't know find out wonder I know they cost $200 what they are though I find we not under the discussion phase I have a motion by Chelsey at second my discussion maryn I'm not I'm not talking any [Laughter] hearing none all those in favor 7 uh next we have a resolution yes with four weeks between this meeting and the next meeting resolution authorizing treasure Deputy treasur to make payments of claims without board action card January 11th and to allow the treasur deputy treasur to make transfer appropriation thin education Debt Service and Ops in order to balance major account
032classifications do I have a motion motion by Pat do I have a second second second by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor seven we have another resol next is the resolution it's always made the last uh board meeting of the year because of the year end scenarios uh close out the form nine is a resolution authorizing treasure Deputy treasur the jam County schools to make temporary transfers from a fund having a sufficient balance to a fund having a depleted balance for December 31 2023 cash flow purposes I have a motion to accept that resolution motion by Travis second by Pat any discussion all those in favor seven next we're down under operations calendar yes asking for approval of the 2425 Master calendar um jcca looked at three options and they gave us the opinion
033that this was the best option it's Top Choice this one um aligns with the career center holiday breaks and it's also really close to this year's pattern same types of holiday and breaks okay a motion to accept that motion by Pat do I have a second second second by Cheryl any discussion all those in favor seven I think we're down under other no other hearing nothing I'll entertain a motion to adjourn a motion by Chelsea do I have a second second second by Pat all those in favor seven