001Okay. Call this meeting on August 11th to order. If you will all join us with a moment of silent meditation. Now I'll do the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty, justice for all. At this time, Dan, will you please read our mission statement? >> Our mission is to guide students to become informed, engaged citizens and curious lifelong learners. >> At this time, Mr. Street, I have no public participation. >> Very good. >> We'll move on to the approval of minutes and claims. We present to you the minutes from the July 28th, 2025 meeting for your approval. So >> second moved by Jeff, second by Jill. All in favor? 6. >> We recommend
002your approval for the corporation claims and payroll for1,941,238.86. So move >> second. >> Moved by Tim, second by Dan. All in favor? 6. under report items. Um, form nine was submitted to the Department of Ed on time as it always is and it has recently been approved by the Indiana Department of Education and is available for your review. I believe it's on the counter, isn't it, Chris? Very good. Moving into employment actions and items. We have no retirements. Moving on to resignations. We ask that you accept the resignations as listed. >> So moved. Second. >> Moved by second by Jill. All in favor? 6. >> Leave request. We ask that you approve the leave request as listed. >> So move. >> Second. >> Moved by Jeff, second by Dan. All in favor? Under extracurricular, we'd
003ask that you approve the ECA recommendations as listed. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Dan. Second by Tim. All in favor? 60. >> Certified. We'd ask that you approve the certified employment. >> Second >> by Jill, second by sorry, Jeff. All in favor? 6. >> Under classified, we'd ask that you approve the classified recommendations. >> So moved. >> Second. >> By Katie, second by Dan. All in favor? 60. >> We have no old business. Moving on to new business. At this time, we'll have a public hearing for the two 2026 budget, capital projects plan, and bus replacement plan. The board of education for the KK Key Valley School Corporation hereby holds a public hearing on the 2026 advertised school budget, capital projects plan, and bus replacement plan. The required notices to taxpayers have
004been posted on the state of Indiana Gateway website and the Ki Valley School Corporation website. So, at this time, we'll have Mr. Richie go over information on the on the plans and the budget. The proposed budget has a total of 1,648 appropriations and is just shy of this year of $60 million. There's five funds that we must uh approve a budget for each year. These are funds that we we receive property tax money or state support in the education fund used for educational expenses, faculty, teachers, aids, curricular materials, supplies, and things that go with uh that follow the classroom. This fund is state supported and receives no property tax revenue and the state support that received is predominantly based on enrollment. Debt funds are always determined by the amount of debt payment that's due during
005the course of the year. We have two debt funds. We have a representative debt fund which we have funds from 2017. is reduced to pay for the middle school. Then we have debt service fund which currently has three bonds in it and we're anticipating another uh first mortgage series bonds in 2025 bonds we talked about before operation fund. These are our noninstructional expenses things like transportation, utilities, equipment, maintenance, central office. We're limited to a growth percentage that's determined by the state. This year we are allowed to uh increase our budget by 4% rainy day fund. This allows for us to set aside some funds for unexpected things. This has no property tax levy or rate. These are funds that were deposited in the rain day fund from years ago. The last time we've added to
006our rate was 2020, but we still have to appropriations if we do need so to do so. This year, year 26, our bus replacement plan. Uh 24 we did four regular buses, one activity. 25, three special needs buses, two regular this year. 26 we're asking for five regular school buses. Bus prices continue to increase at least 10% per year and our lead times right now are about one and a half years. Capital projects plan in 2023. We had a study done by Barton Pilma which addressed areas that were immediate need in our facilities and ones that can be pushed off a little bit farther. We've slowly been working at that list and we have a number of repairs that are on the capital projects plan for 2026. Some very important repairs including our pool area
007that needs a new roof and has walls that are separating slowly from uh peeling away that needs done. There's some also municipal water of note. Again, some HVAC repairs that are needed. property tax rates. Um right now 2026 we've advertised for 1.0249 rate. Uh with assess valuation we would anticipate the assess valuation would be somewhat higher than it was last year. The last two years it's been about 9% higher than the year before which would lower our rate and put it in line with what it's been in years past. That's about the same. >> There are any questions about the budget? >> At this time, the floor is open for public comments and or questions regarding the proposed 2026 school budget, capital projects plan, and bus replacement. Anyone like Okay, we'll I'd recommend that you
008close the the hearing and then I would uh recommend that the board of education of the Ki Valley School Corporation did conduct a public hearing on the advertised 2026 school budget capital projects plan and bus replacement plan in accordance with Indiana code and no patrons um spoke. Uh therefore, no one objected to the proposed budget, tax rate, tax levy, capital projects plan, and or bus replacement plan. >> Someone would like to motion second. >> You Tim, I'm sorry. Motion and then second and all in favor 60. Moving on with new business, we'd recommend that Peerless Midwest replace multiple butterfly valves in the filter building for the total cost with parts and labor at $12,765. >> So moved. >> Second move by Katie, second by Jill. All in favor? 60. >> Use of school facilities. We
009make a recommendation uh that you approve the girls on the run miss for the practice 5K. We'll be using the middle school football track without lights on October the 16th from 3 to 5. >> So move second by second by Katie. All in favor? 60. >> Those are all the items that we have for our regular board meeting. Second >> by John, second by Dan. All in favor? 60. >> And I have 609. Move into our work session after test paper signed by you. ready for the work session. All right, we will first start with Chris with any financial issues or items. Couple things. Wait a minute. Budget hearing complete. We'll have a series of resolutions ready for you at the next board meeting where we adopt our budget. Um, other thing you talked about
010form nine. I was going to tell you that annual financial report will be submitted this week ahead of the August 29th. calling it. So, >> Mike, curriculum staffing, >> uh, curriculum wise, the principles rolled out some of the changes in the new programs with our grant and, uh, hats off to the staff. They they realized that we need to do something different and, uh, seem to be on board. Um, and hopefully everything goes well. The biggest thing is we uh we need to make sure that our staff are trained and we have training set up here in the next couple weeks um in August to make sure that everybody's ready to go. Staffing um we after tonight's board meeting uh believe we are full of teachers maybe eight or two still out there. >> The
011the teachers started though. >> Yeah, they did. under student enrollment. Um, our principles have given us a count of where they are in the building. So at Weedfield we have 287 students K uh through three and the Mont Elementary. >> Sorry 546. At our intermediate school we have 473. at the middle school 722 and at the high school we're at 990 students. We have eight students enrolled in online uh all secondary correct all secondary which gives us a total today of 3,26. So we imagine our our staff our office staff will be going through our list see who hasn't shown up yet going through there. We hope we have some moveins and then unfortunately we always do have some move outs um transit uh population with with that in all school districts. So we're at
0123,026 right now. We've asked our department heads to come in so we appreciate them doing that. First of all we'll start with Andrea with director of food service. >> Thanks for having me. if I had a choice for sure. >> So, yeah, we started the year off uh really strong, kind of good first couple days. Um thing new things happening. We had a new oven put in at the intermediate school. Um I had five new employees that started on uh Friday. We are introducing a twoe rotating breakfast menu. We anticipate that breakfast kept going down, which we knew it would. Um, so we're going to do a two week rotating menu and we will be also um introducing new items um more uh fresh items, eggs, hash browns, things like that that we can do
013now that our count lower instead of serving 300 students in 10 minutes but be more reasonable to do that. Um we launched a new menu program um which allows uh parents um staff nurses to be our menus. We had a few little hits, but I think we got more set um figured out. It's allows us on the back end to track our inventory. Um analyze costs a little bit better. We can the managers put every all their accounts in. So, it's real time that you get on there and see how much you were spending, how much we had left, things like that. So, it's a it's a wonderful program. It was about six months in the making manually putting everything in. We have some new items that we introduced on our menus. We have a
014Caesar salad, wings and rings, and a Cougar burger at the high school. Um, we're doing the old school house pizza. Um, but with me crust. This isn't the crust we had growing up, but um, we'll introduce that because um, seems like it'll be a good hit. And then this is um, I wanted to show you a little bit what our digital menu looks like now. So, um, the best thing is it has uh, allergy information. One of the one of the perks of it, it has allergy information and carb counts for our nurses. So, they can log onto this. Um, they can put in make a tray, see what the the child ate, and then gives them a total carb count, and they're able to dose the the child with the nutritional. So, this is
015the platform you go to. >> Anything else? >> No, it's okay. Um, you'll pick your school. So, we'll go to the high school here. And right now we have it set for grab and go, but obviously there is mainline on there. Um, and then there's breakfast as well. So once you pick and you can pick all, but then it makes the menu very large. So if we just do the grab and go when you want to see the entire menu. So this is what a weekly view would look like. The good thing is a parent can go here to the daily. Let me get on the right day here. So a parent could go in that day and they can see exactly what is offered. Um and it has the calories, the carb count, all
016the nutritional information. They can click go to allergens. They can view all the nutritional and then they can make a trade. And these are this kind of nice for younger kids because they can go on here and then they can pick know what they're going to have. So it tells the components that they're going to have. Um, and it tells them exactly how many they can choose. You know, they can choose chip, things like that. So, it's very user friendly. I think once parents get on there and play around. Um, yeah, it is. Um, it is hard from your phone to print a a monthly calendar. >> It's hard for your computer to print a monthly, >> especially it has everything on there. So, I I recommend doing the weekly one if they're they're going
017to print it. Um, with the younger kids in the elementary, we still are doing the nice menu and and sending that to the school so that they can send those home. I know they like to circle on the calendar and things like that. Um, but this is really nice, like I said, for nurses um for staff to get in there as well um to do all that. And uh the when I make changes, it's real time on there. So if we have something come up and we have to change something, it's it's very easy to do that. So eventually we will have pictures for everything. So, that's our next step is to work on having pictures on there for that. Um, it is a change anytime there's a change. You know, we get a little
018resistance, but um, so far all the emails I've gotten are pretty good with that. Okay, the next one is some goals, food service goals for the year. So, on top of um our original goals, just to go a little more in depth, um this year we're really going to f focus on boosting breakfast participation. With that decline, um we're hoping that um we will be able to offer more hot items, like I said, uh to encourage more students to start their day with a breakfast. Uh we were doing about 200 at the high school last year. Um our first day we did 10, but we had 60 today, so that's good. First day is always everybody's trying to do classes. Our elementarymentaries are down. Um I think that today we were at about 75 on
019our elementaryaries and we have about 300. So, uh, another goal is to support our team with ongoing training. We'll continue to pro provide staff training each semester to keep everyone up to date, feeling confident in the kitchens, bringing some guest speakers, um, different skills, knife skills, food safety, sanitation, things like that. We do that throughout the year. We're going to add more Scratch cooking meals. Uh, we'd like to introduce two new Scratch made items each semester, things fresher, healthier meals, um, and chance for students to try new things. That's our goal with that. in keeping parents in the loop. We'll keep sharing updates, photos, menu highlights to our menu platform, Facebook, so they can stay connected and see what's happening in our program. And then also just to make the cafeteria a fun place to
020eat, continue to make our meals more colorful, fresh, and visually appealing to catch attention of students and get them excited about eating. So those are main goals this year. Um, continuing this year, we'll still do the hydroponics. Uh, Mr. Bitterling's advanced agriculture class will be taking it on this year. I think there's a couple students that were in his class last year, so I'm very excited that they can kind of take the the lead on that. Um, we're still going to offer fresh fruits and vegetables every day and we'll still have our coffee bar um where all the sales will go to our angel funds for our students. So, just kind of simulate and that's it. Anybody questions? >> You have to bring samples. >> Yeah, for a couple days. Is >> there still a
021big outstanding balance from last year? Uh we have I think about 6,000. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So we were able to we were able to pay off I think about 45 or 5,500 donations and coffee sales. So >> thank you Andrea. >> Margaret and Travis you guys working together. >> Yeah. >> All right. >> His maintenance is in my buildings and my kids maintenance in it. So, um, so for 2025 for summer, I wanted to incorporate this picture. I don't know if anybody fit into Mod Elementary to see this mural that's painted at door 10. Last year, we were going to rewall paper that and the cost and the expense. So, I got a hold of our painter. We built the wallpaper off. We sanded it down, painted it for a fraction of the cost
022on the wallpaper. So, we saved a lot of money there. And Tracy Niche came in and painted this mural. It is. It's amazing. The detail in it in person is just it's really really a nice added addition there. So, I just wanted to put that on there just to show you in case you haven't seen. So, our summer project at the high school. We got the main gym. I hope everyone has seen it so far. It's painted. The curtains are up in the corners. Um the record boards are up. I have one extension coming Wednesday. They're coming back for the regional and semi-state. I want to make them 12 foot and so we had to do a 4 foot extension on those. So those will be complete. Um and the football stadium banners, we have
023them. I don't know if the guys start putting them up yet, but they will be up before the first football game. Uh the West Annex elevator is done. Uh so hopefully we don't have elevators to do for a while. Middle school, we got the eighth grade pod is carpeted. It looks very nice and appealing. We've got one more five to go. Actually, two. We've got the seventh grade and then the athletic hallway. Um, and then the resale of the parking lot went very well. They planned it over the uh moratorum week. So, they were in and out. There was no issues whatsoever. So, that worked out very well. Um, we elementary, we got the LBP in the office done. Uh we got the parking lot lines added in the uh bus parking lot so that
024when there's a program there everybody parked all over crazy. So there's at least some lines there. Um intermediate school we got the six classrooms with carpet and paint are done and the maintenance department installed the playground panels that was donated to my elementary door 10 the entrance we got that painted in the mural. Um, and other than that, we have a few little outstanding things. I would say that 80% of our summer projects were complete. Um, I'll let Travis finish the ones that >> um, at the high school, we are still working on the West Annex window placement. Um, and we're working with athletics on placing the wool pads in the main gym. Dam Elementary. Uh we still have probably a couple of weeks left before that birth is done. Uh we're also the midst
025of uh updating landscaping that should be done by October. Got some seeding do there. That's got to get torn out. Uh timing for receding. So, uh, middle school, uh, shop at the outside of the gym doors, they're pretty badly. So, that's about all that we've got in progress right now. Uh, as far as future goals, we have a lot of projects that you all are familiar with that are hoping to get done in 26. That's about it. >> Anybody got any questions? >> No. We appreciate the work you've been doing, especially with the the heat and keeping the our uh air working and everything with that and then our well building out there with with that work with that. So, thank you both. >> Sure. >> And did that courtyard flood again at the model
026elementary or Yeah. >> Yes. Oh, yes. >> Have we resolved an issue with that or not yet? Um, I think that'll be part of a bigger project that's it's a small drain and a big yard. >> No, that goes into the larger drainage drain. >> Did it come back in the library again or not? >> Uh, just the carpet got damp. Not >> We didn't have standing water. >> No fish. I'm kidding. Thank you, Rhonda. Transportation. >> I didn't do a slide presentation because I'm just a big yellow bus. So, um we started off kind of crazy Friday, but a little better today, but um most of the drivers got in routes. We totally changed things up and the 10 minutes we added on to the middle school thought would be a good idea I
027don't think is really going to be a good idea. I can't get my buses back here in time for the intermediate. But as we talked this morning, when you think about that in February, you don't plan on losing seven drivers when school gets out. So, you know, weigh everything. It would have worked like it should have. We're going to be pushing it for a while until Kingston worked out. But I think the last bus was home at 5:00 tonight. They're not complaining, which is a plus. It's just other people are complaining. So, it'll all work out. Usually does somewhere along the line. Little give and take. But um I had to add another bus. I thought I was going to be okay, but we had to add an elementary bus. And so we are out
028of drivers now. We have no subs except for the mechanics. So and because I have a that driver that broke her leg right after school got out, but she is on the bus 80. Thank goodness. But um my goal is to get more drivers. We did get some aids. We have gotten some aids. So, we got our aids on our special needs buses. Um, but just need to get a few more drivers. We're running, but everybody is. So, >> but really that's about it. >> All stops on county or excuse me, state highways are door side. We reported that last meeting. >> Yep. >> Couple years ago. >> Yep. Unless you were behind the bus Friday night, it was not. Found that out today. The same bus that we had all those problems with. So,
029um, >> do we have older buses that were ordered in 23 24? >> Not 24. We just got the >> We just got the activity bus. We haven't gotten the four big buses yet. >> That were ordered in 24. >> 24. Yeah, >> we've ordered 25 buses. >> They're ordered. >> Yeah, it's uh it's been over two years now, I want to say. >> Yeah, we ordered 25. Yeah. >> And then we'll try and order again to try and stay ahead of the whatever it is that supposedly they're not that far behind, but they seem to be on our buses and we really need our special needs buses bad ones each day. We just have had a lot of kids come back onto the bus this year in places we haven't gone in a really
030long time. So, we're traveling six miles out of our way to pick up one student who we haven't picked up in years. So, I think that is part of our problem too with roads. I mean, I've got a kid. I'm trying to figure out where to put right now. And I don't even have a bus that's close that vicinity at this rate. So, >> at this time, we don't have any additional drivers to add routes. >> Exactly. Exactly. So, and you wouldn't think it would be so crazy because the elementary numbers are a little lower, but those are the ones where I'm from, the elementary route. They've all decided to live in separate corners across our district and I can't very easily >> any items for them. >> I mean I don't I don't have
031a question. I just I do have a concern when time changes about the kids especially elementary getting off and it's going to be dark. >> I know. I know. >> So that concerns me. You said that last bus today was home at 5:00. The bus driver was back home or the last kid was off. >> No, the bus driver was home at 5. >> Okay. >> So, you figure the last kid was probably off at 4:45, but that's the late. >> I I would agree. I was just Yeah, you never know what that distance was. Time changes. It's going It's dark by 4:30 like dark dark. when few years ago it was kind of the 430 445 but as we get going things start working their way out or you know >> kids quit riding
032because parents start picking up it it's just it just depends but I don't know with the economy being the way it is >> how many parents are going to do that so I think that's why we've seen that influx come in on our bus trying not to but to what we saw today compared to Friday. It moved much quicker than Friday. >> An hour hour earlier today, >> middle school is getting to the high school at the time or a little bit before what they anticipated >> and high school left on time today too with the new time, >> right? And the high school on Friday compared to today and I was out there today. It amazes me how many kids do not know their 911 address at the high school level. >> Didn't pay
033attention to what bus they got on. Had no clue it was a man or a driver. >> So, our people are there to help, but that slows it down a little bit, but they got out of there on time. But as Rhonda said, she's uh the transportation is the buses are delivering kids further than what they had before. Yeah. and without drivers consolidating routes, that's into that. So, I think we need to look at where we are this week and then determine if we need to make some further adjustments. >> Well, I heard I mean like obviously I'm on the east side of the county and I heard from a kid on our bus that it would have been Friday that a kid from Damat got on our bus at the middle school. >> Not
034the only one. >> Yeah. And I'm like, and so then that driver had to go >> there was at least back partway. I don't know what the deal was, but you know, I'm like, >> this is a middle school kid. >> I have a question. So, the kids have the the elementary kids and the intermediate kids have their cards that scan on. Correct. >> Like the driver had them scanned >> if they had them scanned. >> So, >> that was a frustrating Friday. The ones that were looking for didn't scan all the other ones. There were a lot of buses that had them scanned. >> And the middle school did bracelets. I don't Maybe just the sixth graders. >> No, it was the drivers the drivers were supposed to hand them out. And then when
035>> Okay. >> Jen got the new ones in the office, she handed them. Um >> I don't know where it is. That's exactly what they would say. I don't know where my bracelet is. >> Yeah. I mean, the kid that was talking to me and I'm like, so where's your bracelet? He's it's after the fact. and he goes, "I put it in my backpack." And I'm like, >> "Yeah, I uh" >> Well, he knew where it was. >> Wouldn't have ended up over there on the wrong side of the district, but >> the kid that I talked to ended up at his house, so we're good. >> I had one that ended up from the Wefield that should have went to We got back here. >> Yeah. So, >> that happens every year. >> Absolutely.
036>> It does. And you know, a couple of them were because the driver that they seen was their driver from last year >> and they changed routes. >> Yes. Was not their driver this year. And so they >> Yes. >> went for a ride, >> you know. >> Thank goodness none of those parents were upset. And the one that did call and really was not happy did apologize to the driver first day. I get it. We have those issues, but >> every like I said, I mean, it was a good idea. We we had buses waiting for a half hour between, so why not? But then they take in all the other variables. I guess >> we'll monitor it how it is and meet this week. >> Y >> thank you Ron. >> Yes. Thank
037you. >> Thank you. You're welcome. >> Eric technology. I thought our first day in IP was uh our summer projects uh went along very well. Uh we installed cameras, new external cameras or exterior cameras at the high school corp office and at the mont. Uh they do have the live stream uh board meetings uh set up and operational. Uh we were hoping to upgrade our c our second camera server over the summer. We didn't get the server till the last July and just got the hard drives on trial. So that's still an ongoing process. Hopefully soon. uh Wi-Fi access points. Uh we updated the ones at the high school gym and added additional access points at both Deont and Wefield gyms. Uh also on our V-Ray schedule, uh we had our current firewall firewalls going
038end of July at the end of next year. So we got that one in place. It also didn't arrive till the end of July. Uh, but that also is on our to-do list here coming up short. And then same thing with our older switches throughout the building. Now, we didn't get the ones in Weakfield upgraded. Now, we just going building by building as we get opportunities to go in and replace switches. Uh, the guys also this summer created training materials uh for onboarding new staff and also have them available review for existing staff. Covers a lot of the software and hardware we use. So if they have questions, they can refer to those. They added sound capabilities to the video walls of the high school cafeteria so that things that are going playing there can
039will have audio included and set it up so administrators can open their laptop, project it up to the video at need. So the we also upgraded our IER server. That one did come in. have it is complete and in place. Uh we're in the middle of moving from Zoom to Google Meet. Uh the accounts have all been moved over. Uh teachers are now going in and familiarizing themselves with the difference in software. Uh Windows 11 upgrade is ongoing. We are down now to I think just two labs, PTLPW labs and a couple of offices, but probably less than 30 to 40 computer is now finished. I shouldn't say that we have administrator laptops still on that list that update to Windows. I think that's really about it. Very successful summer. Well, we did the roll
040over and registration and those things here and we did add the new valley online into Skyward. So, that's up and running. Any questions for Eric for technology? >> Eric, thank you. Thank you for your team. [Music] >> I don't have anything else. Does anyone else have >> I just have a question. Circling back to the new um online school. Do we know are those students that were existing Katie students or were they from outside our physical district? >> Four that were existing and then we have four that are from outside. >> We would I would probably say overall I had 30 to 35 that reached out to me. >> Okay. And um well that has to do with not being able to do extracurriculars but that I think that would have been a number of
041our students who would attend >> question [Music] the board meeting or the work session. Thank you so