001foreign I want to welcome everybody to the school board meeting tonight just as a reminder tonight's meeting is being live streamed so um I know that this meeting is being recorded and played um hopefully people have joined us on the web um we have a couple of items like this today rearranging things at orders first of all I'd like to motion to change item number f that's marked as approvals I know G up to after item d on their disability so that'll no okay so the motion on the table is that item F will be moved from approval to n form this is permission to purchase for 2024 school buses again moving from approval to and form and then just rearranging the agenda item g under relations this is the North Carolina Police Department SRO
002agreement approval on that we'll move that up to follow item d second I have a second by Travis any discussion all those in favor 7-0 Debbie and then we'll entertain a motion to accept consent agenda items solution have a motion by Earl do I have a second second by Pat any discussion all those in favor 7-0 the next item on the agenda would like to ask if there's anyone present who would like to speak on an item that is not on the agenda Greg Browning Greg are you here to talk about school safety that's correct okay if we could um hold that discussion until the agenda item around school safety is that all right with you perfect um that agenda item is under e so we'll we'll make sure that you have an opportunity to
003to speak at that point okay thank you thank you anyone else want to discuss something that is not on the agenda okay hearing none um we'll go down under Graham Creek um continue presentation hi well good evening guys welcome back don't you on behalf of Courtney christan's one of our amazing sixth grade teachers and myself and our staff I really I want to thank you guys for allowing us to come in I know lifetime president here I know as public servants you guys get The Good The Bad and The Ugly but I want to give you some good okay this is what's happening uh we're gonna share some amazing things that are and what I'm going to do is I'm kind of going to give you guys an update on the where we are on
004the stem certification process and then Courtney get up here kid Courtney's going to actually be the brains of the operation because she's going to kind of show you what what we have found and where we're going to go with it so where we are in the process I'm going to kind of give you a history lesson we're going to go back to April May of last school year and Grand Creek kind of decided at that time we were going to I don't know because Pioneer I guess paved the way and really just bite the bullet and see what we can do with this certification Lily and I know what we agreed to I mean it was the process started in August our staff came in and I don't think they were running I really think
005we had to Sprint to get to October in order to check off a lot of boxes show a lot of evidence give documentation on what we were doing looked at as a school that was teaching stem or being a leader in the stem area so in October we submitted our first proposal if you will and we had to wait until December 16th that the Friday before Christmas break and we got our notification and we just missed it three points Four Points we were so stinking close and I was what staff didn't know at the time is I know from my research on this that most schools it took them two years to even get to this point so what we had done and just from yeah basically August to October to get to that point
006in December was like blew me away so we then provided more evidence gave more documentation send it back in and then just this past Friday February 3rd we got our second notification that we made it we had earned at that point the next step and the next step is the big step and that is the site visit that will be on March the 14th where the idoe and her little teams are going to come in and they're going to interview kids staff custodians Cooks whoever and look everywhere to see if indeed Grand Creek is worthy if you will of this title of being stem certified so where are we now what we had learned is through this truly arduous process we learned where our staff was they grew oh my God it's amazing how far
007we have grown not only stem but just through the whole process how we've learned to trust each other but what we have found is we know we had rock stars in the building that were great at one area but then we also found thanks right you know the old saying you're only strong is the weakest thing so what Courtney has developed is the what now part of it you know what happens if you become certain you know a certified school we win the championship if you will now what you know what do you do then so what we have learned is we've got to keep improving because all on their weak points what's the the gain is in our students education you know we I truly believe we are providing we have parents they're giving
008me some money right I think we're providing a credible education in Kaminsky and this is just one part of it so Courtney kind of take him through your next Journey on where we want to go okay so um don't hate me I think it's the teacher in me but I'm giving you all homework that we're going to kind of do along with me um look Earl he's leaving I know so and the reason I want to give this to all of you is because this is the same piece of paper that we gave to our staff and we actually just gave it to them um earlier this week and we've been able to collect a lot of data and a lot of valuable information um just in a few days um maybe like um but
009so what we did is whenever we were going through this and feel free to read through it as I'm talking and if you want to Mark where you think you would be at um with these six different initiatives that we have going on kind of right now um feel free to kind of see where you would also be at with our teachers because as we were going through the stem certification process we were able to really really highlight what Grand Creek is doing well at and um I mean to just to say that our teachers are amazing absolutely it's true and you can see it on our kids faces when you walk in the door you can see it on our parents faces um so we know we have amazing teachers but whenever we were
010going through the the stem certification process we were able to really highlight it and really show the state of Indiana you know with evidence how amazing they really are um and so doing that we were able to highlight it but then we were also able to see um you know all the huge tasks that we are giving our staff and the tasks that we are giving our our teachers and putting that on their shoulders and so we kind of narrowed it down to six basic initiatives or six main initiatives that we are all kind of trying to funnel together and teach and you know make our kids successful and so we have those six you know it's the the first one is you know Tech with just computers and iPads and are you using those
011in your classroom um we have Google Suites so that's just you know your Google Sheets forms documents slides pbl training project-based learning we have our Sim in the classroom not necessarily just as a pull out in the stem lab but you know our our teachers confident in doing it in their classroom in their curriculum um udl that's the one that we are currently we have little pots in our our each schools that are receiving training to be able to bring it back to train teachers on and then computer science and for Graham Creek um right now our Focus from now until May is really going to kind of push more towards that computer science initiative but we kind of broke it down as we were gathering evidence for our Sim certification and we found that
012um a lot of our teachers we've all been trained in these these different initiatives but then whenever we would go back to our teachers and we would ask them you know what are we doing with them we didn't really have an end goal in mind a lot of our teachers were like well I'm trained in this I'm trained in this and I'm trying to do this I'm trying to do this but I have no idea what I'm actually doing with it and so Mr Hernan and I sat down and we were kind of like okay where's our point a where's our point B and then how do we get there and so we kind of decide our point a was just going to be back whenever the 2016 standards came out um that was kind
013of the easiest Baseline and then again when they they updated in that 2020. so that's kind of our starting point so we wanted our staff to look at you know where are you at thinking back to 2020 and then we gave them the end goal and our end goal is and what Jennings County's end goal is is to you know have teachers fully integrating all six of these things into their curriculum simultaneously toward whenever you walk into a classroom you can't tell if it's math science reading right they're all just connected together and so whenever we looked at this Continuum because you know the end goal is always an end goal because there's always going to be more there's always going to be other things that we're going to be doing to strive to get
014there and so we took this to our teachers and we wanted to know because they weren't for sure where what direction we were going in well then we kind of took a step back and we're like okay do you where are you at just in general you know not even really looking at this end goal but where are you at with these things in your classroom because you know we've all had the training on them but we found that a lot of these things or some of these things weren't making it to the classroom the best way that the teacher wanted it to happen so over the the course of the week the the teachers filled this out and if you would like to fill it out I would encourage you to do so and
015so that way you can kind of see what the teachers were going through and it's really just kind of putting yourself on these sunshine rays because our goal is to get to the sunshine and we try to have symbolism in sixth grade that's one of our standards that we teach is you know symbolic meaning and so um you know we want our teachers to reach that sun we want them to get there and so we put all these different six initiatives on a ray of sunshine and how do we get there and so the data that we found um if you we kind of thought of it as like um like a grade so like if you were at a four out of four you know you're 100 confident in the training in what you're
016doing you're good to go and of course the four isn't quite at the sun because there's always room for improvement um you know that three is that you know 75 C kind of average two would be a fifty percent one would be that 25 so whenever we actually receive the data back this is what we found and each Ray has 16 um a total of 16 votes and what we did is we put everybody that where everybody's Mark was I I tallied them up and put them there so on the technology with iPads and computers and that number one spot there was one person that had a vote there and then on the number two spot there were four people who were at like a two so that's kind of how we got those numbers
017so and whenever I was looking at this it kind of surprised me to be completely honest with you because as I was looking I noticed that the majority of our staff ranked themselves at a three or lower and each of these six categories which surprised me because we've all had training in all of them other than udl and so me that was kind of a red flag that was kind of wait a minute something seems off to me because I would think that you know I would rate myself higher than a 75 percent if I've had this training so then that led me to dig a little bit further so as I was digging and as I was talking to our staff and trying to understand where these why they felt this way as I've
018realized it's not the training you know central office is doing a great job in providing us training and providing us you know these opportunities to have people come in house and you know train us on these things what we're lacking is that implementation piece you know we get the training but then how do we apply it to our students you know I know I'm trained in project-based learning but how do I apply that and differentiate it to 17 different kids this year and then and so that's what I found and that's what we're lacking and so Mr Hunt and I we we've actually we met this morning and we're going to meet again next week to figure out okay now how do we differentiate you know for those people who are at ones and twos
019you know how do I differentiate from one teacher to another teacher I differentiate my classroom every single day you know I'm required to and that's that's the way kids are going to learn the best and teachers aren't any different and so our goal is to you know we differentiate for our students we also need to differentiate for our staff so our next step is to figure out on our ones and where our ones and twos and things like that are and then go directly to them and have that private conversation or just that open conversation of how can I assist you what resources do you need what supports do you need and so we already have since computer science is our Focus we already have some things in motion that we're going to be working
020on between now and May and then that way come August we are going to be able to hit the ground running with every single classroom in our school going at the same pace and the same differentiation for each class to where by the time they've started this this computer science and code.org and in kindergarten by the time they get to me in sixth grade they will have all the necessary um background work and background knowledge done to where we're all working together we're all working at the same pace and on the same page but we have to do that through differentiation and so our goal this year in the summer is to be able to provide that to our staff to make sure that we have confident teachers and so what what you'll see just
021very quickly I'll end this up what I see as an administrator with this is a couple of things one I was so proud that our our staff was vulnerable you know we made sure we introduced this I made sure this is not an evaluative thing I in fact I really want to know your weaknesses why because that's where we got to improve I mean I I'm tired of always assuming route and we're not going to assume let's see where we are let's truly look at data and not make it mean what we want it to be but really what is it showing us and then let's do something with it so when Courtney came with me with this no right here this is going to make me look really good no it's going to make
022our staff really good and they trust each other enough that we I think take that as it's so cliche from good to great and this is our way I really want to get us to not just a stem certified school but a true grade school because the next goal that is coming out of Courtney's only one who knows is we're going to start looking at the you know the Blue Ribbon the bullets are we want to go and take this thing another step so Feathering your guys's cap too when I was when I was trying to figure out because I try to be you know somewhat prepared and and I I couldn't figure out how I wanted to when it's so in every presentation the only thing I could think of was this past week
023I had a student because even though we have these holes and we have this lack of Confidence from some of our teachers there was a sixth grade student she had been absent so she sent an email it was you know wanted her work and so sent the work to her didn't really tell her anything about it but just sent it to her so she could see it I email back and the only question she had was is this stem and I I sent back to her why do you ask if it's stem and she said well there's a science assignment there's a reading assignment and there's a writing assignment and they all connect and I just assumed that there was going to be a stem project at the end of it and so it's working
024the things that we're doing from the ground up from kindergarten up are working we're getting away from that departmentalization where everything is separate and we're finally getting to where it's it's combined and you're not going to see that on a test score you're not going to see that on an assessment but just that email let me know that our staff is doing it and they're doing it really really well and I'm very proud of them and I hope that you hope that you well thank you guys both of you for coming to the board meeting tonight presenting to us congratulations on advancing to a site visit that is super exciting one of the things you know in healthcare when we have people coming into our home um one of the things that we always like
025to do is hear what they have to say because you're growing and you're improving any information or little tidbits of you know things here you're doing well you're maybe need to improve it always gives you an opportunity to grow so that's fantastic so congratulations on them absolutely does anyone else have anything to add okay we'll move on to down under support staff recommendations there's one right above that okay it's under professional um I'm asking for for Valerie Bingham to receive her career increment Master teacher stipend for the years 2023-24 through 2027-28 okay do I have a motion motion by Travis do I have a second second by Mary Lynn any discussion all those in favor sorry about that now we'll go down to support staff I threw you a loop that's okay the recommendations would
026be for Bryce Barnes to serve as a jchs volunteer wrestling coach for the 22-23 year also Pamela Craven will be serving as a nurse at Jennings County High School in North Veteran Elementary there's a recommendation from Mindy Ryan to be a cook at Jennings County High School Brittany sharp to serve as an s or parapro at Sand Creek Elementary and Alta wolf to serve as a parapro at Sand Creek Elementary as well do I have a motion motion by hurl do I have second second by path any discussion all those in favor and then we'll move down under finances donations our donations Casey's gen ital store seven dollars to the end enter fund it could be a United Methodist Church hundred dollars to the Scipio Elementary student lunches Ray wagster 100 to the high school
027Panther Pantry Coffee Creek Christian Coffee Creek Conservation Club fifteen hundred dollars to the High School academic honors program for livestock 500 to the high school supply shop Layman Hummel Insurance 100 to the high school supply shop and Jackson County Farm Bureau bring agriculture into the classroom books 90 value to each Elementary School yes what I say Jackson oh my gosh sorry all right do I have a motion to approve this information motion by Cheryl do I have a second second by Chelsea any discussion all those in favor and then under resolutions next is a resolution that we do every year about this time to adjust the Appropriations between major funds of Education debt and operation rainy day to establish the 2023 budget from the approved budget order on major classifications thank you I have a
028motion to accept that resolution motion by Travis do I have a second second by Mary Lynn any discussion in favor seven of next up I'm asking approval to purchase 23 for the start of the 2023-24 school year Chromebooks for grades 3 through 12. motion motion by Pearl do I have a second second by Pat any discussion I I do have one piece I need to add to that I'm sorry okay the the funding of this will be done through two common school loans and a a loan through Dell Financial which I'll bring to you at a later just want to make sure you get that okay any additional discussions all those in favor yeah all those in favor I'm really struggling tonight all right um now we'll go down to relations so bringing to you
029for approval the North Vernon Police Department SRO agreement we do this annually this one has an option for multi-year it also includes language to allow us to move forward with what we've been planning for the third SRO position dependent on ndpd Staffing so asking for approval do I have a motion for approval of that agreement motion by Mary Lynn second by Earl any discussion all those in favor Seven Up and thank you Chief Messer for coming tonight it's going to be able to get a signed copy of that so I can take it before the council meeting Monday sure will thank you very much thank you um and then we'll move down under property so I have a Safety and Security inform tonight and update I'm actually going to read it to you it's written
030out this way so I can send it as an email to parents tomorrow there's just some updates on Safety and Security in the light of the last few weeks so the first one being Jennings County School Corporation deeply values the Safety and Security of our students staff and families we work in partnership with North Vernon Police Department and the Jennings County Sheriff's department and an ongoing effort to secure our buildings we have prioritized training school administrators and have certified school safety trained individuals in each building in the event of any identified school safety threat we take Swift and immediate action to notify law enforcement and request assistance we dedicate ourselves to doing so with transparency and notify the public with additional information as available and appropriate for safety we have already been working diligently to
031continue to invest in school safety and continuously strengthen our knowledge and safety security in the last three years we have invested in increased camera surveillance updated locks fencing staff training and communication systems in consideration of recent threats We are continuing to review our plans for next steps internally and do so in consultation with our current partners and other law enforcement experts we take safety very seriously and are committed to continuously updating and improving thank you that will be sent to parents and in addition to that we have an update on our building entry procedure so I'd like to read that as well Jennings County School Corporation values parent involvement and Community connections we've worked hard to increase our ability to interact with our parents and families post covid many important conversations happen as parents pick
032up students and drop off needed items we have checked at each entry for visitor purpose and need for building entry we complete background checks prior to entry past secured office areas last week an individual who had a planned delivery and is a parent arrived one of our buildings this person chose to purposely conceal a weapon prior to entry due to this incident and a review of secure entry procedures at this time Jennings County Schools will not be allowing School entry during school hours for item drop-off and pickup purposes please be prepared if visiting a building with your ID and anticipate a short wait while we assist you we are saddened that we are unable to welcome you in another manner at this time we will be reviewing our safety procedures and entry plans with law
033enforcement and will continue to revise and add measures as appropriate we thank you for your understanding so both of those will be sent out tomorrow by email for all parents to have to have so that item isn't in form on your agenda and Mr Browning I believe you're here to speak about safe school safety um if you would state your name and your address just for the records and then um we have a three-minute time period according to policy understood thank you my name is Greg Browning 1110 West State Highway 250 and Deputy Indiana which is in Jennings County um I have a student uh I'm the father or I'm Excuse me I'm the father of a six-year-old son who attends uh Graham Creek Elementary School in light of recent events concerning bomb threats and
034an individual accessing the interior of our school system with a loaded gun I have found myself greatly concerned with the safety and well-being of our children in my research it has been brought to my attention that we only have two resource officers to cover the entire Jennings County School System an area of over 378 square miles with nine buildings and 3 900 students plus staff and faculty this is an unacceptable average considering our children is the most valuable position on the face of this planet and yet the most vulnerable when it comes to being attacked as a comparison when I go to the Jennings County Government building to pay taxes or apply for a building permit there is an armed deputy sheriff at the door and patrons must pass through a metal detector before entry
035is allowed the same Arrangement can be found when entering the Jennings there is roughly a couple dozen employees at each one of these buildings all of which are grown adults all of which chose to be there on their own accord as a count as a county we provide all this protection yet 3 900 defenseless children are supposed to share two officers among nine buildings scattered over that same 378 square miles I find this negligent and unacceptable as I look at the current members of this school board I see old friends retired law enforcement and former students of Jennings County and I'm sure most of you are parents or even grandparents the question is when are we going to provide the same police protection metal detectors at our schools we so willingly give to a handful
036of adults in our County Government my research shows at Jennings County School Board 2021 annual revenues in excess of 55 million dollars a large portion of our taxes goes to the school system and I believe you would be hard-pressed to find a taxpayer who would have reservations about bolstering school security so in closing I ask you board members do we take wise and decisive action now or wait until it's too late only to be forced to explain our short-sighted decisions to a group of grieving parents we parents and youth school board members cannot afford to take such chances by turning a blind eye to this with justification that it likely won't happen here I look forward to discussing this matter at the next board meeting and with expectations you will provide an appropriate solution to
037our security shortcomings as board members and parents let us come together on this matter and show any individual who wish to harm our children that Jennings County schools are prepared to protect prepare to defend prepare to promote safety and health and a safe and healthy learning environment let us tackle these matters with a team spirit not one of opposition to change with decisive action not division with fresh and modern ideas to security and not the outdated and unsafe policies of yesteryear thank you first of all I want to thank you for coming tonight we appreciate that we very much want to hear from community members it's important because we are partners that is what this is about absolutely so I I appreciate that very much we will take your comments under advisement I will tell
038you um share with you that I know that Nikki has met multiple times with police officers as you can imagine Nikki is not an ex expert right she's not a police officer school safety while a lot of our principals have been trained a lot of our staff have been trained in school safety we have to look at our partners in law enforcement to help guide these decisions that we're making to make sure that we're making appropriate decisions so those conversations have begun it's not something that's gonna we can flip a switch and turn on immediately and I'm sure you can understand that but I want to assure you that the entire board I believe that everyone in this room our staff The Faculty of the school we all take safety uh especially of our children
039at the highest priority so again we just want to thank you for coming tonight thank you very much absolutely um so we'll move on down to um permission for the purpose this just informed you that the next meeting I'll be bringing the requesting approval to purchase school buses it's on our normal schedule that we approved in August so we are going to be basically we're still working on the fine-tuning of that on the exact quantity in that next meeting purchasing buses to replace older buses again that item is an inform item and then we're down under other I think so if I have nothing else on the agenda then I will entertain a motion to adjourn I have a motion by Pat the second by Mary Lynn all those in favor meeting a joke