001I'd like to call this meeting on January the order if you guys would all join us in a moment of silent meditation. Now we'll do the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. [clears throat] >> Angel will you please read our mission statement. Our mission is to guide students to become informed, engaged citizens and curious lifelong learners. And then Katie, would you like to do our students of the month? >> Absolutely. Um students, when I call your name, if you'll come stand right in front of everybody and face the crowd and then um we'll shake your hand and you'll tell us who you brought with you and I have a certificate for
002you. Okay. Uh first we have Margaret Singleton. Margaret, come here. So, I'm going to read uh what your teacher had to say for about you. I would like to nominate Margaret Margot Singleton for the Damat Elementary third grade student of the month. Margot consistently demonstrates the qualities of an outstanding student. She is an active learner and puts forth her best effort every day. She is consistently respectful and cooperative and always willing to help her classmates both academically and socially. Congratulations. >> Tell everybody who you you have with you today. >> My mom and dad. >> Your mom and dad. Congratulations. And this is for you. Good job. >> [clears throat] >> And you can go back to your seat if you like. >> All right. >> And next we have Alexander Pyramid, third grade from
003Wheatfield Elementary. Alexander Pierman shows generosity every day by sharing, helping others, and making our classroom a kinder place. He is also good at including others, sharing supplies, and always being willing to lend a helping hand. He makes a positive difference in my classroom. Thank you, Alexander. for Adam Pandra. Who did you bring with you today? >> Oh, my dad. >> Your dad. Congratulations. And I have a certificate for you. >> Here you go. Those are for you. >> And next we have Avery Sema. [clears throat and cough] >> Hi Avery. You can turn around and face everybody. This is what Avery's teacher had to say. Avery is an outstanding person, classmate, and student. One of her best qualities is that she doesn't shy away from challenges. If something seems difficult to her, she makes it
004a priority to figure it out. She is not afraid to ask questions or ask for help so that she can improve in any skill or topic. Once she feels confident in her abilities, her first instinct is to find someone to help. Among other things, she is kind, patient, generous, and funny. Her classmates and I know that we can count on her for anything. Aver's attitude and bubbly personality has inspired me since August. I am so grateful to have been given the privilege of being Avery's teacher this year. >> Congratulations. Who did you bring with you today? >> Your mom and dad. There you go. You're welcome. Next we have Payton Kayakowski. Did I say that right? Payton teacher said Kanguki Valley Middle School is pleased to announce that Payton Kaiakowski is our choice for student
005of the month. Payton was recognized recently by her pod teachers as a student of the month as well. Payton brings a positive attitude with her to class each day. She's willing to work hard and complete her assignments in a timely manner to achieve her goals. She's a positive role model for her fellow classmates. She shows appreciation to her teachers and classmates by building them up with her encouraging words. Payton models our core values of responsibility, ownership, awareness, and respect every day, and we are grateful that she is with us at KBM. We believe she has a bright future ahead of her. Congratulations, Paige. Congratulations. >> Who did you bring with you today? >> Mom and dad. All right. Congratulations. There you go. And then we have Brianna Prozac. No, Brianna. Um, Brooklyn Wit. [clears throat]
006Brooklyn's teacher said this. Brooklyn is a hard-working student that participates in class. She is kind to her classmates and always willing to help others. Brooklyn always shows up for class prepared, on time, and ready to learn. I appreciate that she is constantly engaged in the lesson. She is a silent leader and leads by example. Brooklyn has been an absolute pleasure to have in class. I really have enjoyed chatting and getting to know her. Unfortunately, >> okay, >> there you go. And we have Robert Kaine. No, Robert. And [singing] we have Maddie Ansler. This is what was said about Maddie. Maddie is a junior in the band program here at KVHS. When I think about her as a musician, the following comes to mind. Hardworking, looks out for others, and constantly working to improve herself. Maddie
007is an active member in the Panki Valley Marching Band as one of the three drum majors. Altos Saxs in the KVHs advanced band, Alto saxophone in the advanced jazz band, piano and the intermediate jazz band, viola and the string orchestra, viola and the jazz strings and flute and the intermediate band. She was also selected to be a member of the IMEA, the Indiana Music Educators Association, and the Future Music Education Biquum this January in Fort Wayne. Congratulations to you tonight, my parents and sister. Congratulations. Thank you. >> That concludes our students of the month. You guys are all welcome to stay for the entirety of our meeting or if you would like to be excused, you may leave now. We have no public particip. >> All right. Well, reorganization first meeting of the year. So,
008based upon our past practice, if you wish to appoint me as the temporary chairperson, uh we'll need a a uh move by a second and a vote. >> So, moved. >> Second. Moved by Jill, seconded by Jeff. All those in favor. [clears throat] Seven to one. >> Seven up. All right. When we will move on now from the voting of the president after the approval of the president, the president shall take over for the vice president, secretary, and assistant secretary. So, do we have any nominations for the president? Uh Tim >> motion by >> Jeff for Tim. Anyone else? Then >> I move to close nominations. >> Second. >> We have a motion by Jill and a second by Bill to close nominations. Those in favor? 70. Now we have a motion to approve Tim
009as the president of the board. >> So >> second. >> We have a mo um Jeff and Katie made the motion and the second to approve Tim as the president of board. Those in favor 70. Congratulations Tim. [laughter] >> Try and get this. >> Pass the gavl, please. >> [laughter] >> Okay. Accept nomination for vice president of the board. >> I'm gonna nominate Jeff. >> Second. >> Yeah. Move to close. >> Oh, sorry. A motion to close. Second. [laughter] >> Uh motion to any anyone else. Motion to close. Does somebody say that already? >> I did. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Second. And that's moved by. >> Okay. Andre, >> you're good. >> All in favor? 70. Motion to to approve Jeff as the vice president. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Any Jill? All in
010favor? 70. Next up nominations for secretary of the board. >> Uh, can I nominate him? Can I nominate since I'm president? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> I'll nominate Katie. >> I move that nominations for secretary be closed. >> Second that. >> [clears throat] >> Christie. >> Yep. >> All in favor? 70. >> Motion to approve Katie as secretary of the board. >> So second, >> Jeff Bill. >> Yeah. >> All in favor 70. Exam. Accept nominations for assistant secretary of the board. >> I'll nominate Joe. I'll be able to close it also. >> Second Jill. All in favor? 70. Motion to approve Jill as assistant secretary. >> Second. >> Christy Katy. All in favor? 70. Good job. All right, >> moving on with the approval of the minutes and claims. We'd recommend your approval of
011the minutes from the December 8th, 2025 board meeting and executive session and the December 15, 2025 board meeting. So move second. Jeff, Bill, all in favor 70. >> We re I forgot I wasn't here. Does that matter? >> Should I abstain? >> You can actually vote on the minutes by Robert's rules of order. >> Okay. All right. Sorry, I got it. Um, under 6B, uh, we recommend your approval of the corporation's claims and payroll, the amount listed. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Any bill? All in favor? 70. >> Under report items, congratulations to uh, senior student athletes. Gabby Diner, Izzy Yonman, Emily Shabolski, and Aubrey Sters on being named academic all state by the Indiana High School volleyball coaches association. Congratulations to the high school esports team on December the 12th, 2025. They held
012a 24-hour gaming charity live streaming event to benefit Riley's Hospital in Indianapolis. and they set a record and raised $4,330. >> What was her goal? That was 3500, wasn't it? >> Yes, I think [clears throat] so. It was good. >> That's pretty good. >> Good. Yes. >> Congratulations to sophomore uh Braden Huff for holding the new KV1 dive school record of 383.15. And congratulations to the Lady Cougars who competed in the sectional and sent seven wrestlers to regional. And congratulations to senior Lily Colbreth who is advancing to the state finals. And also we'll make note under the board report that all you board members completed your conflict of interest forms this evening prior to the board meeting. Moving on to employment actions. Under retirements, we'd recommend you accept the retirement of Judy Fitch. Uh, wefield
013kitchen manager. Second. >> Second. >> Joe. All in favor? 70. >> Under resignations. We'd recommend you accept resignations as listed. >> Second. Bill Christie. All >> in favor? leaves. We'd ask that you accept the leave request as listed. >> It 80 Dan. All in favor? 70. >> Under extracurriculars, we'd ask that you approve the ECA recommendations. So move second. Go ahead, >> Katie. Jeff Katy. All in favor? 70. >> Under employment classified, we'd recommend your approval of the classified recommendations. >> Move. >> Second. >> Dan. All in favor? 70. Under new business, [clears throat] we'd recommend the food service recommendation to renew the annual contract with the Northern Indiana Educational Service Center through the Wbash Valley Educational Center for the school year. >> So move second. >> Katie Jill, all in favor 70. We'd recommend
014to dispose of or scrap the high school novels speed scrub writer. >> So move >> second. >> Jennif favor 70. We recommend that Higgins overhead door remove and replace both fire rated rollup doors at the high school. So move >> second. Dan all in favor >> recommend a two-year contract with utility service. Um utility service provides the service for test for testing for total colola form analysis related to the swimming pool and also to our well projects um or excuse me to for our wells for drinking water and if we replace the well with city water then the contact amount would be reduced. So move. >> Second. >> Jeff Katy. All in favor? 70. >> We'd recommend the purchase of a new ride-on scrubber for the high school. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Bill.
015>> All in favor? 70. >> Annually for the next three items here. Annually we are required by law to bring these uh for your approval. So under F, we ask that uh you name Chris Richie as the corporation treasurer. So move >> second. >> Jeff Jill. All in favor 70. We ask that you approve Stephanie Wangan as the corporation deputy treasurer for the calendar year. >> Second. >> Dan, >> no. >> Bill [clears throat] Katy. >> All in favor? 70. >> H. We recommend your approval of Elizabeth Barnes from Church Hill and Antrum as our corporation attorney. >> So moved. Dan, Jeff, all in favor? 70. >> Also, annually we bring to you a resolution for uh board compensation. The state law um allows the annual compensation to be 10% of the teachers salary. However,
016you are um part of this resolution does not allow for that. It's $2,500. Then an annual uh a me an amount per meeting, regular meeting and a spatial meeting which remains the same which is set by state statute by uh IPS schools and that dollar amount remains the same. >> So moved. >> Second general Jeff. All in favor six abstain. Abstain. [clears throat] Under J, every January, we bring for the board for their approval based upon teachers contract and past practice that we uh that you adopt the IRS standard mileage rate for this for 26. It is 72 cents per mile. >> So move second. >> Bill Jeff. >> All in favor? 70. >> There's a recommendation that the school corporation switch to school blocks for the web hosting service. The annual hosting fee is
017$6,000 plus a onetime startup fee of $1,800. There is a 20% de discount uh if KV agrees before February the 1st. >> Mr. Street, I just have a question about that. [clears throat] Did anyone check into the um like phone usage like when you're on your phone if you can still clearly see those items that we discussed before? >> You can. They're in different spots. I believe it goes to they're at the bottom. >> You should be able to bring [clears throat] those up. >> Okay, perfect. Thank you. >> So moved. Second, >> Dan Jill. All in favor? 70. We recommend um the approval of Cruz Plumbing and Heating to replace the middle school hot water holding tanks for $53,24512. Move. Second. Oh, all in favor 70. >> Have no field trips, but under use
018of school facilities, there are four items and we recommend your approval of use of school facilities. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Katie, Jeff. All in favor? 70. and professional leaves. There are two professional leaves brought before you this evening. We recommend your approval for those. >> Second, >> Christie. All in favor? 70. >> Those are all the items that we have for our regular board meeting. >> Motion for adjournment. >> Some move. >> That's it. >> 80. All in favor? 7 0 624 Four. And the first item is Chris with finance. We were notified by state board of accounts that they're going to be starting to do audits of our building extracurricular accounts here in the spring. Make sure that we're aware of that. Um we finished the year in a strong position financially
019and we were able to do an education operation transfer of 680,000 comfortably which is about 2.5% of our education fund revenue. We're allowed to do 15% statew under that. Um we have some projects that are will be going out to bid that are out to bid and some that will be coming up to bid soon. Um high school roof bids will be done. Also Devont Elementary January 27th bids are due. Our municipal water project that's adding municipal water to the intermediate school, the middle school and to the bus garage and corporation office complex. Those bids will be due on February 17th and the intermediate school and middle school have will have uh heating and ventilation projects and those uh bids will be due March 3rd. So our architect is very busy working with him very
020busy. Yeah, that's all I have for tonight. >> Any questions for Chris? Moving on to Mr. Spa. items. >> We have a WEDA testing for our ELELLL students that started today. Um the uh the three ELLL teachers will go to the different schools. So, it's spread out over the month um to accomplish that. Uh next week, I learned checkpoint number two starts. So, hopefully we see some improvement from first checkpoint in the fall to this checkpoint. um textbook adoption. This year we have English language arts and January 26th and February 4th we have some textbook companies coming in for the elementaryaries to give presentations. Kind of narrowed it to two uh textbook companies that they like. And then uh on January 5th um we had 57 teacher appreciation grants that were turned in and uh
021they're down with Jasper Newton Foundation so that they can be evaluated. >> Is that about the number we anticipated receiving or did we have an idea of how many we get >> since it was the first time? >> It's a pretty good percentage. talking to some other school districts and [clears throat] once Jasper gets Jasper Newton categorizes them then we'll have to look at those and sign off for that. When I say we the admin team Chris well tonight uh I'm sorry any questions for Mike? Any additional questions tonight uh wraps up our our series with our our five buildings. So we have the middle school and high school. So Josh Pierman's here and Ryan Meyers with an assistant athletic director Bill Mueller uh to present and tell us about their district opportunity for question
022and answers as well. Uh we have a few other items in work session and we do have an executive session scheduled as well. So Josh, >> right? Well, good evening everyone. >> Good to see you. Hope you're doing okay. I don't know. Uh, I guess if I point this at your computer there to change it. Okay. Um, well, first of all, thank you. Thanks for what you do. I know that it's probably a very thankless job. Um, I know it's, you know, you get to tolerate all of us and then hear about all the drama that we have to, you know, deal with sometimes. And so, sometimes it's great, sometimes it's difficult. Um, but honestly, it's rewarding no matter what we do. So, I think that's the fact of the matter is. And at KBMS,
023uh, I really think when I moved here seven years ago and I became the assistant principal at the middle school, uh, I'm going to be honest, I didn't necessarily think that one day I would be the principal of the middle school. Um, but here we are and I'm very grateful to serve in that position. Um, and I'm grateful to serve in this district. And so, [clears throat] this quote really stood out to me. I wanted to just kind of share that with you as we get jumped in because this kind of embodies what I feel like embodies what we're trying to teach to our middle schoolers. um that intelligence plus character. That's really the goal of education, true education. Um it's great to have academics. It's great to have books smarts. We all believe that.
024That's why we do what we do, why we educate kids. But building character in them is something that lasts for a lifetime, right? If we can continue to raise up and send out great people into our community, that's the whole point of what we do. And so that's what we're trying to do at the middle school. Um and so a couple things about what's new. Thanks to you all and thanks to just the great team that we have. We've been able to welcome some new faces to KBMS. If you've not met them or been over to see them, I really hope that sometime you can. Um there are some great additions. Miss Kendall Seal um is a new school social worker that we've added this year. She works alongside our two guidance counselors and she
025is doing a fantastic job. Um kids have really been able to connect with her. She took charge of our red ribbon week um this year and she started some girls groups that she's meeting with girls just to kind of talk about middle school adolescence as a female. Um and there's been some really great conversations that have come out of that. It's just been a really good kind of team building opportunity. And of course, Mr. Seymour, Mark Seymour is our new uh assistant principal, athletic director. Uh he's doing a fine job. He came to us from over in Lancing, Illinois. um and he was a uh physical education teacher there um and came very highly recommended by some administrators in his district. Um so we were happy to h have him over here to become a
026cougar and I think that he's been a great fit to our school and our school community. Um [clears throat] and just a side note, he's not here tonight and if you stop in in the next couple of weeks after Friday, you might not see him because his wife is having a baby. It's their first child and so I know he's really excited about that. So, they'll welcome that baby in this weekend hopefully. So, um, another exciting thing that we've been doing over at KBMS, and I'm going to elaborate on this a little bit more in the presentation, is the KBMS Cougar Pack is something that I really felt coming from Damont Elementary when I served as principal there for a couple years. Just coming back into the middle school environment, adolescence is a time where
027middle schoolers push away their parents, right? If you've lived through it, you know, you you know, you know, right? Um, and so what we don't want that to be is a time in middle school where parents become just completely disconnected to the experience of what middle school is. And so, uh, we were able to create this parent advisory committee. I actually just met with them earlier today at 4:00. Um, and they continue to do amazing things for our school. They just want to be a resource kind of like a PTO would be or a PTT in one of our other buildings. And so they're just doing a great job. Um, and then of course, what else is new? We've implemented a new win period, which is what I need. Uh that's an intervention and enrichment
028time for our students. Uh we had a couple quick pivots at the beginning of the year where we flipped our schedule around a couple times and after some trial and error, we were able to kind of land this second semester where we moved our win period to the start of our day and now we had advisory back at the end of our day. Now again, if you had a middle schooler in your house at any time, you know that sometimes everything seems like a catastrophe to them. And so what we saw at first was when we introduced the wind period, and I'm going to elaborate on that um in a little bit as we built toward the future. A lot of kids in middle school, they didn't really understand what we were doing with it
029because they had never done anything like it in middle school. However, again, coming from an elementary setting as the principal over at DMont for a couple of years, that language, what I need when is a very common phrase heard throughout K through five in this district. And so, I felt like it's a natural transition as we continue to use that language. It's part of the PLC process that our teachers use um to give students what they need, whether it's enrichment or intervention during that time. And so, that's what we've been using it for. So, we want to continue building towards the future. Uh, you know, the Titanic doesn't turn on a dime, but it does turn. And so, we're uh we're making progress with what we're doing at the middle school. Um, I think that
030we're going to do that by three things. And just for alliteration sake, expectations, empowerment, and encouragement. And so, I want to kind of elaborate on those with you a little bit. At KBMS, we are trying to recclarify and make sure that people understand our expectations. Um, our expect expectations come through clear learning targets, common academic standards, and consistent behavior practices. Um, again, we're seeing some of these things come out and play out in our win period through our student intervention team, um, our guiding coalition that is being formed right now to help lead our PLC's in our school. Empowerment. Um, empowerment is a big thing that I want to do, not just with kids, but also with adults. Again, that's another reason why we kind of created that pack, that cougar pack for the parents.
031Um, we give them voice, choice, and leadership. That's how we want to empower our staff and our kids and our community. We do that through our clubs, our extra and co-curriculars, leadership opportunities, our innovative teaching strategies. We're sending kids, we talked about Wash Valley Education Center earlier, trying to get teachers to take advantage of that um through some of our consortium that we're a part of there um where we have opportunities to send them for free, a couple of them to certain professional developments. And so we're using enrichment time as well. Now um that's another fun thing, exploratory time. Um something we did last year where I introduced that to the middle school students. We had teachers find something that they were passionate about. Some one teacher chose friendship bracelets. I'm going to out myself
032and say that I made karaoke club, right? Um we had people that did nature walks and things like that and kids got to sign up for four weeks. Every Thursday they got to participate in something just completely different. It was just to explore new things and have some fun and get to be with those adults in the building and see them in a different spotlight that maybe it's not math, maybe it's basketball skills um that maybe one of our teachers taught. And so just really great things that we're trying to do to give students more excitement and ownership of what's going on in school. And then lastly, that engagement piece that kind of leads right into that. We engage students and our staff through being relevant, through building relationships, and through creating a sense of
033belonging in the building. Again, that goes back to that advisory period. We are really redefining expectations that have surrounded the advisory period. For years, the advisory period has just kind of functioned as kind of a quasi study hall. And even if I describe it to parents who don't know what that is, I might say think study hallesque, right? It is a period where students can get help and learn different things. um if they need some reteing of things. But really the advisory period according to the Association of Middle Educators is really supposed to be um an all-encompassing time for both academic and relationship building for each teacher to be able to check in with every kid in that classroom at least once a week. And so that's what we're trying to get for. We're working
034toward that because I believe that every kid in the building should at least have one adult that they have made some kind of a connection with. And so that's the hope through that process. Um our parent advisory committee, our athletic teams, uh college go week and something new that we are going to do this spring is we are going to host our first ever military military and trades week. We do college go week in September. And working with our guidance counselors, I felt like this was a really great thing that we should do because not every kid might choose to go to a college or university. Some of them may choose to go to a trained school. Some of them may choose to go military. And we want to celebrate that. We want to honor
035that, especially those professions uh and people who do that. So, we're going to be doing that this spring. Some of the things I want to glow and grow about. How are we glowing? What can we champion? What can we grow in? You've heard me say some of these things already. Um, when I excel in readable English, you may have caught wind about something called readable English. That's something that we were awarded a dig digital inter intervention and what's that word, Mike? Digital intervention and tools grant. I there's a big fancy word for it. We were awarded it in June or July. Mike helped write it. It's a big thing. Um but with that we purchase licenses and readable English licenses. LL is for math and language arts and that's for we went ahead and thanks
036to the corporation we uh helped supplement the part of the grant that did not pay for all students to have but now because of that every student at the middle school has access to ELA and mathl. They use it at least it's a minimum of twice a week in their language arts and math classes. And for those students who don't have a readable English when period they use it at least well it's every day um four days a week at least doing two days math two days English language arts and there is a specialized skill plan associated with their ilearn checkpoints. So somebody mentioned I learn checkpoints earlier. Once they take that test, we re we test again at the end of January. It will automatically pull that data from the state, sync it to
037EXL, and it recreates a personalized for Josh Pierman my scores. It creates a personalized path for me based on what skills I am deficient in or doing well in. And so that's what that does. But readable English is a tool that we have been able to get with that digital learning grant. and it is basically an orthographic mapping uh tool that helps students be able to see what they are what they are reading. We know that in middle school if you don't know how to read by middle school you are very far behind and we need to do everything we can to try to catch kids up. And so speaking of catching kids up you will see right there the norm of expected growth for a year is about 10 for Lexile level in middle
038school. Our students at KBMS are 8.6 times ahead of the national normed average already this school year for what they are expected to grow in their reading per year. That's really good. And then when it comes to their fluency that is how you know well they are reading that those 400 students that are doing this which is over half of the school that we are again very far ahead. If you look at the norm levels, eighth grade is 22.8 times higher than their expected growth in fluency already. Seventh grade is 4.4. Sixth grade 5.6. So, we're seeing really good things already through this and we hope to continue. I'll try to wrap this up there in just a minute. Mike's timing me. I'm probably far over it. Um, he always times me. Well, Il um
039I mentioned this earlier again. You can see this is this is actual data that I pulled from our dashboard. The 700 and some odd students at KVMS have already answered using their skill plans and their work that they're doing on this over 1,146,000 questions. This is all directly targeted to things that they're not only learning in class but they're with iLearn. it's directed toward their skills that they're trying to build in iLearn. And so they've spent over 7,300 hours working on this. Our teachers are doing a great job having them work. So our my prayer is obviously we continue to see that growth. Another glow I talked about is the Cooper Pack. I wanted to throw some pictures up there of them and give them a shout out. um they have been again an incredible
040asset to our school and I again I'll give them another shout out even in our meeting today. They may be reaching out for information from some of you because um this month is schoolboard appreciation month. So again, thank you. Um they want to do a little spotlight on each of you for the Cougar Pack Facebook page if you would allow that. So they asked me to throw that in there this evening when I told them I was going to be talking about them tonight. Um, and so they've been doing great things treating our teachers, treating our students, trying to build uh that rapport between the community and the school. And of course, we continue obviously all of this is to prioritize academic achievement in the classroom. And we have a big goal with a five-year
041goal of having a 15% overall increase. That's 3% per year over the course of five years. Do I think we can do better than that? Yes. That's the goal that we've set right now. So, we want to see how that kind of comes in and knowing that this is a long-term process and a plan so we can increase our I learn scores across the building and do well with that and maintain that growth. The last thing, one of the last things I want to say is about our attendance rate. I know we have a corporation attendance goal of 95%. I don't know. My jaw nearly hit the floor when I got the email from our attendance director and he showed the stats and this is not a knock on any other building. I'm just tooting
042KBMS's horn that we had the highest attendance rate in the month of December of any building in our district, 95.4%. And that's nearly one and a half percentage points higher than we were last year in December of 2024. We are going in the right direction. We are making some changes and we are getting kids invested in wanting to be at school in middle school. And to me, that's a win. Of course, there are changes coming. We want to stay on pace with all the things that are coming down the pike in Indiana. You probably heard some of it. We want to remain flexible, proactive, and some of the changes. There are changes coming and a lot of new legislation. And sometimes legislation changes from week to week. And so, we just never know what we're
043going to get. But we stay on top of all that with Mr. Spana and Mr. Street. Um, and so I think we're doing a great job being proactive with that. Again, thank you so much. The power of creating a better future is contained in this present moment. We can create a good future because we're trying to create a good present. And so I appreciate all of you. Again, I whizzed through that. It probably was more than 10 minutes, but we have a lot of good things to say about Kings. So, thank you. questions for Josh comments. >> I got a I got a question about the the >> Yeah. >> English reader thing. >> Readable English. Yes, >> readable English. >> Yep. >> Is it a is it just the is is the letter how
044does that work? >> And that's a great question and I wish I can definitely show you. Actually, I'm going to show you right now because you asked because I want you to see what it looks like. It's a system where they teach an a series of symbols to kids almost like if you've ever looked in a dictionary and there's little phmic symbols above certain letters in other languages even there might be like in Spanish there's the little you know things um they teach those series of things graphimmes is what they call those little graphics or icons to kids and it shows them how it looks when they're when they're going to read it and the readable English tool. It's a translation tool. So when they translate, they can translate a web page. They can translate.
045A teacher can upload a PDF of an assignment and it will translate that entire PDF into readable English. And so um if you see that >> Mhm. >> it will the black letters are the only ones that are pronounced in that word. The grayed out letters are not pronounced in English. So t e >> nik >> and and it teaches that whole series to kids. And so I just want to kind of show you that. So this is a new system to us. So it this is kind of what a student would see as as the word is kind of diagrammed and broken apart. >> So I was thinking if it's spelled wrong but it looks the way it should be spelled but you know spelling is different than like technique could be spelled different
046it >> not knowing how to spell it. >> Yeah. No it's and it purposefully does not do that because it it keeps the word as it is spelled correctly so they can see the word and then they start to build fluency because they see how it's spelled. Right. So then when they see that word again that they will continue to notice that and understand how that looks and then they'll put that in their memory base and that's how they become more fluent over time. >> Pretty neat. >> So that's for kids that are struggling with. >> So yes, weident >> the goal being then that you graduate past that. >> Correct. That's the goal ultimately that we would get them beyond that and so as they continue to build that fluency um there are multiple
047phases in readable English's implementation. right now most of our students are this semester we started Labor Day probably um that we are getting into what's called phase three and again that's more heavy um translation of websites and pages and PDF worksheets things like that and they're really starting to use that tool and build their comprehension because it's one thing to be able to read quickly it's another thing to be able to understand and remember what you read and that is what we are finding actually at the middle school that we need the most growth in. While the the fluency numbers were nice to see that, we want to see the comprehension growth because again, a student may be able to buzz through and read something, but if they don't remember anything they just read, it's
048not going to stick. So, that's our goal with this. It's a it's a process, but um we're seeing good things. And I want to give a big shout out to our teachers for really jumping in on this. We had a lot of it's not just English teachers. I've got science teachers. I've got social studies teachers that volunteer art teachers that said, "Hey, I'll help teach it." So, half about half of our teachers are teaching 400 kids this program and the other half or so are teaching those who did basically they passed the iLearn language arts portion. Um, and they did not need that kind of remediation. So, >> good question. Hope that answered it, Tim. >> Oh, yeah. That was great. Yeah. This is also a program that we instituted at the elementaryaries there where
049they uh phonics wasn't stressed. Um and then we saw reading scores across the the country go down. Science of reading came out a couple years ago and it's stressing phonics again and and this is a big part of it. Um, and so the elementary levels, the goal is if we can really stress upon except the younger levels again like we probably all did um that the reading levels will continue to go up and at the middle school they they'll already be where they need to be. >> Any questions? >> Thank you. Thank you, Joe. >> Thanks, everyone. Mr. Myers High School, you can pull that up. Um, thank you for having us tonight. I like to thank you guys. I know you guys do an awful lot for us and so Mr. Spana, Mr. Street,
050and Mr. Richie, I have to call a lot of annoying questions sometimes about where does this come from. So, um, I appreciate everyone's help. Uh, it's we have a great team at the high school as Mr. department does at the middle school, but uh Joe Ban, our assistant principal principal, and Susie Quankinowski do a great job uh building relationships with kids and with teachers and u they do they're just they're terrific at what they do. And then of course and the athletic world, uh Mr. Mueller and Mr. Wagner also, uh incredible job of all the events that we put on and all the tournaments that we host and it just takes for granted that oh, we're just going to host sectionals, no big deal. But in a lot of schools, that's a big thing. And
051uh we have great facilities and we're we're very lucky and blessed for that. So I just want to say thank you before we get started. Um it's not easy and uh we appreciate your guys' support. So um do you Sorry, I didn't think about the poker. I think I only have 30 slot. No, I'm kidding. I [laughter] Could you put present mine? I don't think I can. I won't do it this way. I don't think >> well I don't know if there isn't it >> there was but maybe it's not so trying to grow and get better or using Canva instead of Google Slides and sometimes Canva doesn't like to play nice when you're trying to especially present things. Um so we'll just go with this. This will be good enough and we'll figure it
052out. Um there's just a few snippets of some of the things that we're doing. uh BPA last year. It's one of our most popular clubs. Uh we had over 65 students that competed in more than 30 different events to qualify for the state competition which was in March. And then they went further and went to uh Florida for nationals. We've been to nationals oh gosh long time. >> A long time. We we've had people go and that number just keeps growing. Um our kids did a a great job. Again, um talking to Mrs. Blanco, we're expecting at least that if not more, you know, this year. So, she's really happy with the kids that she's getting and and the kids do a good job. Um, you know, in foreign language, you know, we do offer
053three languages. Uh, German is is right now one of the most popular ones. Uh, Spanish still has the most numbers, but German is probably the other one that's growing the the fastest. So, uh, we have a great teacher, uh, Mrs. mimics there and um just kind of immersing the kids in the German culture. They're always doing things up there. Uh they had October Fest and kids bring in food, they build the Berlin Wall, they're doing all kinds of uh neat things throughout the year. You can stop by her room sometimes and it's fun. She gets kids excited for it for uh learning German and uh we're grateful for her. And then of course, Mrs. Kates in our EDS professions. That's one of our CTE courses. But in our capstone class, uh we have cadet teachers.
054And the other buildings have been very good to us. They allow our kids to go into other buildings and observe some of our great teachers and uh they can help in the classroom as much as the teacher wants. So it's great experience for our kids who, you know, would like to go into education and maybe become a teacher one day. This is great experience that they don't have to do at college. This gives them that experience now. And if it's something they love, that's great. That's just going to springboard them where they go. If it's something they don't like, they realize that that's not really me, then it's a great opportunity to find something else, too. So, that's one of the things we love about high school. Um, >> good. Okay. So, just recently, this
055fall, uh, back in November, we were awarded the Purple Star School. I bring that up because that took a lot of people, took some effort on your guys' part. Uh Joe Bon did a lot, but it just recognizes Ki Valley High School uh around the state as a school that supports veterans and some of the programs and things we do. We have some fundraisers. We do, I think, a really nice Veterans Day program. Um and so you had to put in for this an application. Uh like I said, Joe did a lot with this and we were awarded that Purple Star School. So, um really happy with that. Um the two things I always like to I probably hang my hat on the two things that are CTE. Uh if you look at the amount
056of kids and amount of courses that we have um we have more than some of the bigger schools that are in our area and I think it's been a focus for us. Um I I think high school is a great we've always had this shared vision I think amongst people in the room but high school is a place to try new things. It's kind of a place to find yourself. find out what you want to be interested, where do you want to go in life. Um, if you want to go to college, great. We have that. We have a lot of uh, we'll talk about in a second, dual credit classes. But if you decide that maybe college is not my thing and I want to work or I want to go into a a
057different profession, I want to see what this looks like. I could start off by being in um, uh, I could be in welding and I might decide that after welding, I didn't like that. I want to be in criminal justice or no, I'd rather be a CNA. And so, we have all these different programs. We have some great people who lead them. Um, and it takes a lot of planning. There's a lot of uh things that go into this, but we offer 21 pathways for kids. And I think that's a great thing. There's a lot of things for kids to find something they like. And then to kind of go along with that, the one thing that I like uh we do is we offer a lot of dual credits. And those dual credits I
058talk to you guys about anytime I get a chance. Uh we have offer 50 dual credit classes. So, kids are are getting those credits. They get a high school credit and then they get some college credits and that's what they take with them. I know we talked about this before. Um, my daughter Meline is is a junior finishing her senior year of college right now. So, it saved her a year of school. Um, my other daughter Avery is a junior this year and uh she'll have probably the same thing happen when she graduates with all the dual credit. And there's a lot of kids that have the same. a couple of kids will get out with associates degrees. We're getting to be that point now where we offer enough. So, these are all great things.
059I think we talked to you guys last year. Um I think the class of 2025, we saved the parents over $1.2 million in credits that they didn't have to pay for that just come, our kids get it. And so that's that's a that's a big thing I think that uh you know, we don't often give ourselves a pat on the back for that, but it's something our staff it takes a lot of work on their part. um they got to have their their coursework. They got to have a master's degree. So, we have teachers going back uh and getting those things. They're able to get certified to teach dual credit. I was talking with another school and the principal when I told him how many, he said, he goes, "How do you have that many?
060Only have three teachers that teach dual credit. It's a school up north." Um but, uh he can't find teachers that want to do this. And we're trying to tell teachers right now like, "Well, slow down a little bit. We don't have we can't offer dual credit for freshmen." So, uh, we're doing a lot of things for those kids and, uh, you know, I think sometimes that, you know, people don't know all the the great things we do. Dual credit is certainly one of those things. Um, so enrollment for the high school, uh, you can see over the course of the last five years, um, we've we've seen our numbers drop. That's probably not uncommon right now. Seems like a lot of schools that that we talked to are seeing the same things. I think what
061hurts us a little bit more at the high school, there's a a junior class that's the 2008 kids that were were born. Uh [clears throat] that group of kids have been lower number. You could look up in 23 24 when they were freshman. There was only 214 compared to the other class sizes. Uh take that to today, there's only 206 in that junior class right now. So, as they've kind of aged through high school, they went through um our number continues to drop a little bit. I think after that group graduates, there's about 40 40 kids more in the other groups. So, I think our numbers will go back up, but uh we are we are seeing enrollment declining for various reasons. Uh we're working through it. We're trying to uh I still think what
062we do is good. I want to keep pushing our kids and and I don't think changing things right now um we we we're doing great things. So that's the enrollment. Uh a couple of the things that we've tried to do, you know, areas of focus for us um which is kind of what Mr. Street, Mr. Spana have set, but improving academic achievement. Um we've done some things the last couple of years. We added a new course this year and you'll see here in just a few minutes. Uh, our English department has really kind of taken this and they're trying to add more rigor to what they do. This year, uh, Mr. Kates went and took some summer classes so that he could teach you an AP class. It's AP seminar. It's like, uh, it's like
063an honors for English 10. So, uh, it's something that he had to spend a lot of his summer doing. And, uh, it's been pretty good so far. U kids are signing up. We have a lot of kids signed up for it next year. So, it's just another way they could take the AP test at the end of at the end of the year and then if they score high enough that could count towards a college credit for them. Uh, we've added personal finance that started last year, the year before that is a graduation requirement for the new diplomas and so we will have to um we believe our kids are juniors and seniors is kind of our target area for kids with personal finance. Not that the freshman and sophomores couldn't do the work, but
064we feel like when you have to learn to balance a checkbook and what do you mean I have to pay bills and taxes? What are taxes? We feel like those kids that may already have a job that that means more a little bit to them or they know they're going to be going out into the working world that that means a little more. So, we feel like that's a junior senior class. So that'll be something that as their kids starting with this freshman group, as they get older, we'll be taking a lot more with teaching more sections of personal finance. And then this semester, uh, we're teaching dual credit econ. Sarah Welsh is is taking that on. So we've offered dual credit government, um, but we've never offered the econ with it. So this year
065we're starting that. So that's another dual credit opportunity for kids. Um, Mr. span, would you be able to click on that link for me? These are some classes that we're looking at with the English department. I'm going to step up closer because I really can't see those. So, in the English would like to um I think one thing that you'll notice with the new diploma requirements is they've really given us a lot of freedom to kind of teach what we want to teach kind of thing that as long as it fits within the department of ed and our codes. Uh so, one of the classes we'd like to offer, we're going to be talking about this and bringing it to you later. Um, we're looking at sports and literature and writing. And I'm not going
066to read all that, but uh, you can see how that is. We're looking at genres and themes. That'll take place of a English 11. The one I really like, problem solving and persuasion. You can kind of see this. This will all be coming to you later. Um, John Gray has uh, moved over to the teaching weights. And what he's noticed is we have in the APC classes, we have those kids that have never lifted any weights ever before. And then we've had the kids that have been in sports or maybe they're a senior and they have ABC. This is their third time having APC. Well, you get such a change, you're having to really teach these kids, but these kids you kind of So, in order to Mr. Gray would like to keep it, we
067have like a beginner's APC where it's going to be a lot of teaching. uh we'll be using a lot of the machines and stuff and then as the kids get stronger, as they become more comfortable, the techniques are better, then we'll go into advanced APC. So, we'll kind of split that up for next year. So, that's something we're looking at. Um in the sciences, this has been the diploma right now requires that the kids have three years of a science, which is great, but we're having a hard time getting kids to take four years of science. And some of that just they've got other classes they want to take. They want to go a different pathway. So, but for some kids, we'd like to offer a few different ones. I don't know if you don't
068mind scrolling down a little bit. We're looking for add these three animal behaviors, uh, astronomy, uh, and microbiology. So, those are classes that we could offer with the hope that they're semester classes, and the hope is that we can get some of those kids to take that fourth year science um, is is kind of what we're looking for with that. Computer science is going to be a graduation. It is a graduation requirement for the class of 2029, which is our freshman. We don't have anything like that right now. Uh when Mr. Hyde retired, that was our computer science program. And so we won't be asking for a a teacher for it now, but starting next year, we think this is that one. It's also a junior senior class. It's a semester class. So we're kind
069of hoping that computer science and personal finance would be the two that would go together. know that at their junior year or senior year able they'll take those semester classes. So that'll be something that's coming uh down the road. And then of course uh workbased learning that's something that you guys approved. We started it last January with eight kids. This year we had we have 27 kids in it. So we saw a good bump in that. It's been a really good program. We have uh the kids that take it really like it. So, they're in class at KV for the morning and then on Monday afternoons. They're with uh Jennifer Giler, who is our workbased learning uh teacher. She does uh things like uh uh employability skills, writing resumes, practice job interviews, things that they
070might need when they leave KV. The goal with that is that we keep expanding that. I would like to see that get somewhere in the 40s, 50s, something like that. Um and so, uh that's been good. uh the other days that they're not with Mrs. Giler, I'm sorry, they leave at noon and then they go out and they work their job for the afternoon. So, um some of those kids that were graduating a semester early, now we kind of offer this so that gives them a chance to stay in school all year, but they get out half days and they get to go work. So, it's kind of the best of both worlds for them. Uh we've had a lot of lot of kids talking about it, so we're kind of hoping that we're going
071to keep growing that program. Uh move on. Our other areas of focus, attendance, of course, that's that's a thing. Um the state this summer uh have changed a little bit of what what they count as attendance and they wanted to for us to track it a little bit better than maybe what some schools have. This has been our attendance rate this fall. You can see Mr. Pyramid did beat us. So we have some growth. We have we can get better. Uh but that's Mr. Kennedy. That's where we're at with that. What do we do? Um Joe and Susie are meeting with kids daily and sometimes all day. Um talking about [clears throat] attendance. Um a lot of the times just trying to be proactive. You know, we notice if a kids miss three days in
072a row, what's going on? Hey, you know, you only got a couple days left and then you know, then there's there's warnings, there's consequences. Uh we try to tie a lot of things to attendance. You know, we feel like it's important that you have to come to school every day. We feel like when you go out into the work world or you go to college that it's important you show up to work every day or show up to college. And so we try to hold things to kids. We want to reward the kids are doing the right thing. So if kids want to go to a school dance, uh whether that be prom or homecoming, um then we have to we put a attendance part to it. So you can only miss certain amount of
073days. And as long as you stay under that limit, then you're we'd love to have you come to our dances. for those kids that, you know, are habitually absent, then that's something that they don't get to partake in. So, that's been actually a really good thing. Uh the guy before me actually started that and put that rule in place and then he left. And so, we kind of had to carry it out, but it's been a it's been a great program. Uh it's actually it's it's actually worked really well. We we've had a lot of success with that. We tie field trips to attendance. Uh so, we we do a lot of things to reward kids for for having good attendance. Uh and then the last thing I put down there in that slide, it's
074called project attend. You guys have probably heard about it. It's something we use. Uh our director of attendance is a big part of that along with Joe and Susie, the sheriff's department. Uh if it has to go further than that, then we talk about prosecutor and probation and judge. But it's a meeting that we have um at all of our buildings and uh it takes place to kind of bring parents in and and kind of talk to the parents about the importance of of attendance and why it's why it's important for us. It's also gives us a chance to kind of learn more about what goes on at home. And so if there's any kind of issues like medical issues that we don't know about, it's a good time to kind of just talk to
075parents. So, um that program it's really helpful if if we get to that point. You know, we usually don't have it go a lot further than that. >> Yeah. >> So, what else do we do at the high school? Uh, we work on school safety. We do have an SRO at the high school. That's changing. Uh, Officer Pearson, who's been here for three and a half years, uh, recently got a promotion at work. So, uh, he'll still be with the sheriff's department, but he won't be with us at the high school. So, right now, they're in the process of of trying to find someone full-time. Um, Officer Rusk has uh stepped in in our fourth SRO that you guys approved and he's done a nice job. Um, I'm sure Mr. Street shared last week his
076efforts and uh we were looking for a vehicle and and Mr. Russ did a really good job and spent a lot of time looking at camera footage to help us. So, uh, on top of of our SRO, you know, we do have security. Um, I feel like our our football games and our home basketball games, I feel like we have a pretty good showing of our reserve officers that show up to help out. Um, any of our school dances, we go to prom. Last year we were in Sherville and we had three of our SRO's up in Sherville uh helping. I think it's great. They build relationships with the kids anyway and uh it's great to have them there. So, we we love them that they come up there and help us out for for
077things like that. Um, we do have a school safety team at the high school as well as the other schools. Our members uh are all Indiana school safety specialists. They've all been trained for that. And so that kind of that gives you another view when you're looking at your own school of things that could be a problem or things that we need to address. Um they're a great great team to have on board. And then I think one thing that we do that I don't believe a lot of other districts do is we have a reunification team that meets and uh that reunification team is made up of a lot of people. We've practiced that before if we were ever to have it a you know reunification that we had to do. I feel like
078Katie is prepared for that. I feel like that took a lot of planning. It takes a lot of help from a lot of people. Um it may not be perfect but it would be really good in the case if we ever had to use it. So, um, that's how we work with safety at the high school. Discipline. Discipline's kind of a it's it kind of eb and flow. It kind of sometimes it's it's a lot higher than others. I was surprised when Susie ran the uh the data for this, but um we have a few less students, but we also haveund fewer infractions. So, um I think if there's anything that this tells you is that we have great kids and uh our kids for the most part want to come to school. They want
079to have fun. They want to learn. Um and they don't cause any trouble. They're they're just great kids to be around. And so this is just kind of a small sampling of that discipline. That was a focus that we had this year going in districtwide discipline. Obviously at uh Deont and Wefield Elementary, it's going to look a little bit different than the high school. Um but the language can be the same. And so we've kind of taken some of those pieces that that language about being responsible and respectful, being safe, being a problem solver, and we kind of adjusted that to what it should look like at the high school. So we created these posters. They're hanging all up throughout the high school. We have them in every classroom. They're in the hallways. They're in
080the bathrooms in the cafeteria. and what we expect for our kids. And um kids, of course, like I just said, they do a great job. So, I also kind of added some preschool stuff because I know you guys want to hear about our great preschool that we have. Um right now, we have two teachers and four pair of professionals. Um our preschool numbers, the the numbers adjust or they they fluctuate throughout the year. um we always start off with our lowest numbers in August and then as kids who are being tested, you know, uh qualify for an IEP, then they um they are [clears throat] given the opportunity to come to our developmental preschool. And so we have right now, as of last Friday, we have 29 students in the morning, 23 in the afternoon.
081You can see how many IEPs. Um the peers are would be considered like general ed students that would be in our our preschool. So you can see what that is. That number started off probably uh I think it was like 22 and 16 and now you can see what the numbers are. It won't be uncommon for it to get to 30 35. But that's that's two different classrooms as well. So it's not 30 kids in one room. It's it's two different classrooms. So, but you can see that. Um, so we're seeing, as I just mentioned, we get more students as the year progresses. Um, North Newton just approved a developmental preschool. So, how might that affect us? We have eight students right now who would be considered North Newton students that come over here for
082preschool. Some of them will probably stay because we've had older brothers and older sisters. And so Rosie doesn't feel like all eight of those kids would leave us next year. Um so that it will help take off because as at the end of the year it gets to be a lot with the amount of kids in there. So maybe some of that will help us a little bit. Um I asked Rosie for Ne what kind of things do you see coming? She said that we have a lot of uh we have a lot of behaviors in there. Um, so maybe in the in the future maybe another PAR would be helpful uh as as we try to especially some of those kids with some of the behaviors that we see. It's almost uh two adults
083and one child almost in some situations. So um it could be something as we look down the road that we might look at. Um high school doesn't have the we have the facilities but having a preschool bathroom is is very difficult in the middle of a high school. Um, we've made the really good best of the area that we have. Uh, Rosie said, you know, maybe more room for another another bathroom in there. But, um, I think for the space that we have, we have an outdoor playground now, which is something that we've never had at the high school. Uh, and I think that's a big help. Um, they can go right out of their classroom, right into the courtyard. They have all kinds of toys out there. Um, and so it's it's been a
084good thing having them over there. Um, and so that's our preschool. That's all I have for you. I'll save for the next session, Mr. Mueller. We'll talk a little bit about sports after, but that's it for the high school. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any questions for Ryan? >> The expectations that Ryan showed, they're also at the middle school >> and the is and the elementaryaries. So, it's what we had worked on, talked about, stuffed. >> Thank you. Well, I'm not expecting. No, he's like, I'm done. >> So, a few other items with our work session is our next board meeting. Uh we will also have the uh annual board of finance meeting will also be at that time and you'll be approving a president, secretary, etc. With that, uh Indiana general assembly is in
085full swing again. So, one of the bills that have been introduced and also [clears throat] at the federal level is some dietary changes. You know, I'll say Andrea is very much on top of this and communicating with other people and and companies already concerning this. >> Good or bad, >> it's just changing some things. Uh, you know, >> Fodi was very happy about it and was excited to teach nutrition again. I think the way I took it, it's a little bit back to how it used to be. >> No. >> So, not anything but just >> stressing more fruits and vegetables and things. So, it's healthier. >> Yeah. >> So, and there's several bills have been introduced that affects education. Uh so I have already started my communication with Senator Demyer and Charbano, Representative Culp
086and Aworth and they all responded back the when I first communicated. So >> that is good. They they've always been outstanding with them. >> Also talking with Rhonda this afternoon. Uh they are planning on doing some more bus training with the fire departments and EMS. uh taking one of our buses that no longer run um that we will declare as as junk in the near future and using that and possibly taking a car um an old car that putting like the bus on top of the car extracting and working on with that. So, uh, we appreciate, uh, Rhonda and the training she does, but and Ryan had talked, uh, quite a bit about school safety, and we've really made school safety a priority. And Ryan's our school district, school specialist, safety specialist. So, thank you,
087Ryan. But, our fire departments and EMS and police departments have really helped with this. So, we want to be ahead with with those items. So those are the uh that's all the items we have for the work session unless you have something