2-2-26 Board Meeting

001Okay, we should be live. >> All right, welcome everyone. Let's go ahead and call the meeting to order. will have the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for its government [laughter] and justice for all of Uh item four, adoption agenda. The chair will obtain a motion to adopt the agenda the February 2nd, 2026 regular meeting as presented. Do I have a motion? Motion. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Uh item five, minutes from the January 5th, 2026 regular meeting and board of finance meeting executive session minutes from January 13, 2026 and work session minutes from the January 26, 2026 meeting. Do I have a motion? >> Wendy, a second. >> Any discussions, questions? All in favor say I. >>

002I oppos. Okay. Item six, champion mullet. Mr. Brown's going to present the middle school champion moment. >> Thank you, members of the school board and members of the uh central office administration. Thanks for letting me have this time before you. Thanks for allowing me to recognize the the accomplishments of our seventh grade boys basketball team and their coaches who are here with us this evening. Uh we couldn't get all 15 of the boys here because many of them are in other sports at this time, but we do have nine of them here tonight as well as their their parents. And I think that's one of the things that is reflective of this group of kids. It's one of the things that makes them so special. It's the the built-in support that they have from their

003parents, uh moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles. It it truly makes it a unique group. Uh the boys who composed the seventh grade basketball team this year have totally bought into our belief that uh one of the things about being a Knoxville Middle School student is that you're going to become well-rounded. We're going to develop the whole child. And development of the whole child starts in the classroom. One of the things that I want you to recognize tonight is that of the 15 boys who composed the seventh grade basketball team, uh six finished the first semester with straight A's. nothing but straight A's. Four, in addition to that, qualified for the the honor role, not the high honor role, but the honor role, and that was all A's and all B's, nothing less. Uh those students

004who didn't qualify for either of those two, trust me, are working hard uh to better themselves, participating in tutoring on a daily basis, and uh getting the support that they're going to need, and we're confident they're going to be there in the not too distant future. Uh the overall GPA for the team was equivalent to a B+. That's pretty impressive for for a basketball team. Uh at this time, I want to introduce my son, Keith Condan. He's the head coach of the team. He's going to talk to you a little bit more about the amazing accomplishments of the team on the court, but he's also going to talk to you about uh what it is to be a student athlete at Knox Middle School. >> Thanks, Mr. Conan. Uh, like you said, I'm Keith Condan.

005Bob Howard, uh, coach is with me. I guess you could say the title would be assistant coach, but we've been coaching this group for years now. And I think there's a head coach or an assistant coach. We're pretty much a team just like these guys are. Um, I'll announce them real quick and then I'll talk a little bit about them. So, uh, Carter Connan, Matt Mclofflin, Lincoln Waters, Noah Fear, Braxton Nance, Josh Shyman, Landon Elm, Mason Howard, and Silence Breast. Uh, we're missing Braxton Gray, Ethan Poff, Will Goens, Brilan Sers, and I think that's it. Tyler Mox is not here either. Uh, Tyler and Will are at and Chris Whittis. Uh Tyler and Will are at a wrestling meet in Breamman and the other two were sick and went home from school today, so they

006couldn't be here with us. Um as far as the team goes, uh conference champions, uh 5-0 in the conference play. We also had a conference tournament and they went 2-0 in that, so technically 7-0 versus conference opponents. So they won the conference tournament, won the conference outright, they won the caston tournament, and they won the Culver tournament. finished with a season record of 19-0. Um, which is the first undefeated basketball team that I have ever had the privilege of being a part of. So, thank you guys. Um, as far as statistics on the court, uh, we outscored our opponents 933 to 347. So, we averaged just shy of 50 points a game and our opponents averaged about 18. So, 32 point win margin per game. Um, you know, when we started with this group, that

007wasn't always the case. Uh, Tippy Valley is in our conference. They come to mind. In fourth grade, Tippy Valley hung 40 on us and absolutely killed us. In sixth grade, they beat us by four. We played them twice this year, beat them by 23 the first time and 20 the second time. Part of what makes this group special is their work ethic and their desire to excel and to win or just to be the best they can be. Right. As we moved along through the years, uh teamwork has been, you know, an outstanding um accomplishment for this group. We move the ball well. Everybody knows where they're supposed to be and it's just been a delight to coach them. Uh Mr. kind of wanted to talk to me or wanted me to talk to you

008guys a little bit about, you know, some of the things we talk about student athletes and what all that means. Um, like you said, six of them high honor roll, four of them were regular honor roll. Uh, I think the six that had high honor roll are all in the top 10 of their class as well. Um, which is pretty cool for a basketball team to be able to stay that. But, uh, we demand a lot of these kids, right? They've got to be at practice. They've got to be accountable. They have to work hard. And we stress that we're going to work harder than anybody that we ever compete against. Right? Every day practice is how can we push ourselves more? How can we work harder? I think this teaches you um one drive.

009Two, it teaches you to be a part of a team, teaches you to be accountable, and teaches work ethic. I mean, those are all things that we take forward in life when we're working for whomever that may be, whatever company, whatever profession. you know, we all have bosses and we all have co-workers, right? Those are our teammates and and we've got a coach to look up to, right? So, those are all all things that I think are good to instill in these kids now. You know, they've got to be responsible. They've got places to be and they've got people to answer to and they've got other people beside them that are are counting on them to do their job. Um, that's pretty much all I've got. Any questions or comments? Coach Bob, do you want

010to give a speech? >> No. No. I do appreciate everybody. Uh bookkeepers, bus drivers, uh Mr. Conan, people at the games. I mean, that's that's good stuff. And uh one thing about Knox is everybody comes together. The parents in the back. Uh if we had away games, some parents couldn't make it, other parents were picking up for those kids. Uh that's a big deal. And uh these guys don't know how lucky they are for that. So we appreciate all that as well. if you get a picture of them outside rather than moving in here. I would appreciate that. Parents, thank you very much for a bringing them and for everything you do for them throughout this evening. You know, I I know as a parent it's it's a lot. So, I we definitely appreciate that.

011Parents, when you go out that door unless you're staying, boys, come with me. >> Good job, boys. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. [laughter] You want to make this thing work? >> Get back to it. You want to jump over? Yeah. While we do this, while we're having a technical difficulty, uh, the band boosters, because Mr. Fitz, I know you can connect to that thing and I can get you where you need to be. We jump to number nine on the agenda here. Um, and we will get you guys taken care of. That way we can keep things moving while we fix our technical difficulties. >> Number nine present represent. [clears throat] Absolutely. We can also do the Apple TV. >> Oh, there you go. Okay, there you go. >> Thank you. >> All right, so

012um uh I'm going to start off tonight uh by saying thank you for all the support over the years. Um it's been uh crazy in my time here u the ups and the downs and how the program has grown uh and the offerings that we've come to make. Now, um I've been in front of the board many times, um but there's only twice I've ever come to ask for money. Uh and this being the second. Uh the reason that I'm asking, uh is because, uh it's time for us to get new uniforms. Um we have, if you go and go to the next slide, uh and everything that I handed to you is in this presentation. So if you want to watch here, um everything is it's the same stuff. So, our current inventory of

013uniforms um is we want to maximize uh the time or the the uniform that we have and we have done very well with that. Our uniforms now, if we start this next season with them, we'll be entering their 19th year. Uh the last time that we purchased these, George Bush was still in office and Derek was still in elementary school. [laughter] So, uh the industry standard for uniforms is approximately 7 to 10 years. and we've strived really hard to take care of them and push them beyond their their life. One of the things that we did when we purchased the uniforms the last time was made sure to design them in such a way that they were very forward thinking uh and that uh we could uh not have to use uh dry cleaning and

014chemical wash so we could just wash them ourselves that elongated their life and uh we've done a really fantastic job of that. But now is the time that they're starting to just simply fall apart. Most of us don't even own cars that are 19 years old. You can go go ahead and go to the next slide. Uh the operational challenges that we're having right now is from a distance the the uniforms look okay. Uh the color because the way the material was made um the thread is actually the color that you're looking at. It's not like it wasn't dyed. So from a distance they look really really strong, but when you get up close to them you start to see some of the issues that they're having. For example, uh they're dealing with zippers breaking.

015Uh we have uh elastic that is no longer elastic. We have to pull it all the way up. And in many cases, if you see the kids, they're using bobby pins to hold them in place. Um, in some cases, the the especially on the bibs, the pant bibs, the knees have worn to the point where we're actually using fabric spray paint to uh make sure they stay black because they're starting to wear to the point where they get uh that frayed white look, if you know what I'm talking about. Um, and we've had a couple instances over the last few years where kids have had accidents where they go to bend over and the the seam rips right out of them because it's just their the material is starting to uh show its age. Go

016ahead and go to the next one. So, uh, we've had some impacts on performance. Uniforms are a major major component in visual in the visual aspects of our show. If you've ever been to one of our marching shows, you can the easiest visual aspect to see is the uniform, whether it be the uniform that the the marching students, the instrumentalists are wearing or that the uniforms that the guards wear. Um, and they're all they all have a a very big impact on the show. Uh, recently in the last couple years, we've started to notice comments from judges when we go into visual critique. After a contest is over, we get to go sit down with our judges and they can ask us questions and we can ask them. And we've had a few judges over

017the last few years start to comment on the age and outdated look of our uniforms. As I said before, when we purchased them 19 years ago, they were very progressive. They were uh cutting edge and pushing the envelope a little bit. But as you send a trend, other people start to follow that trend. And now we're we're kind of behind the envelope because, you know, most people have replaced or or moved on to a new style of uniform. And here we are with the same ones from 19 years ago. Um go ahead and go to the next one, please. So, uh, planning for growth. Now, the last time we went to get uniforms, uh, in 2008, uh, we were at the height of our recession. And if you remember correctly, those of you who were

018around at the time, Mr. Ames had just left. We were at the smallest that the marching band had ever been. At that point, uh, we were at 58 members. Currently, this last marching season, we were at 58 members. Now, following those 58 members, um, I worked very hard to build the program back up. Prior to COVID, we were at 92 members uh before that COVID year. CO comes along and smacks us in the teeth. Numbers drop and we're fighting back from that. If you look at our if you look at our u retention middle school wise and you look at the trends that we've been having as far as as far as uh attrition moving forward, um the numbers are starting to do exactly what they did from 2008 to 2017. They are growing again.

019Middle school numbers are all pre-COVID. So, in the very near future, our band size is going to be back where it was prior to COVID. For that reason, uh we're we're uh looking to purchase 100 uniforms. Now, yes, our size is not 100. We don't have 100 students in the marching band. But the problem that you run into is if you buy the exact number of uniforms for the exact kids that you have, within a year or two, you're going to start to run into issues because kids aren't all fit the same way. It doesn't matter whether you have a kid who's 5'2 or 6'4. you have to prepare for them and we're preparing for the kids that are down uh you know 10 years down the road we need to make sure that we

020have uniforms that fit them. Go ahead and go to the next one please. So uh the proposal uh we have a collaborative process going right now. Uh over Christmas right before Christmas break I attended a conference in Chicago. I met with three uniform manufacturers and I chose the one that gave us we've worked with many for many years. They gave us the best deal. Um they're the ones that know NOX. they have an identity with us uh and uh have actually used our concept designs in their cataloges before and um met with them. We came up with some designs and I'll show you those momentarily. Um but in order to make the final selection process, we're going to include the students uh yourselves even if you have opinions. I would love to hear them. Uh

021parents obviously myself uh and so that we can come up with that final design. The package would include coats, pants, the Shico, which is the hat, uh, new plumes, and this time around, we're going to get new hat boxes and new garment bags. The reason that we're going to do that is because the last time we purchased garment bags and hat boxes was 1997, and they're all starting to fall apart really badly. Um, so it's it's it's time to improve those. Um, the total investment obviously is going to be $70,000. Now, this is worst case scenario. Um, I asked him, I said, "I want to know I want to know the possible worst number because I would rather prepare for that and it come in underneath than say, "Oh, it's going to be here and

022then we need more later." Now, when we break that down, it's going to be it's going to be much more palatable if I can show you. So, go ahead. So, this is the design. We've actually got four designs that we're looking at. Uh, the first one all the way over to the right was the original design that we worked on when we were when I was in Chicago. And then, unbeknownst to me, they went back to their shop and they worked at three more designs. Uh some unique features with this design that uh I wanted to include is if if you know me well, you know that legacy and tradition are important to me. I did a show a few years ago, a few years ago called Legacy Rising because um tradition is so important.

023So I wanted to bring some of the features of our old uniforms forward and continue some of the features that we've used over the years. So, a couple of the things that we continued, uh, we wanted to keep the the three button design, and we kept that because that's been since going back to 1997, we've had those, we've had the buttons, and we kept that. We also like the angle design because of the uh idea of it used to be if you have marching band uniforms, they put their names on their on their arms. Nobody really does that anymore. That trend has kind of gone away. Now, they use subliminal ways to um tell you who they are. One of the ways that uh I that I've included that we included with our last uniform

024and we're reinforcing here is the use of the letter K in the uniform. If you look at the uniform, you see K starting to pop out at you in in the uniform design. Uh we wanted to make sure that we we kept that as as our as our signature. Uh if you ever see uh Carmel High School, which is one of the uh strongest marching bands in the entire country, they have they have a looks like a buckle on theirs that's a C to identify themselves. Um rather without overtly saying caramel or something like that. Um you see colleges do it uh I'm sure we all watch the national championship game. If you see the the Hooers, their uniforms literally say IU right on the front of them. So we do this so that we

025can uh we can still identify who we are, but they're much much more functional. Go ahead and go to the next one, please. Value breakdown. Let's talk about the math. So, uh, this is based on $70,000. Now, the industry standard is 10 years. So, if we if we were to make the $70,000 investment, um, that cost breakdown for 100 uniforms is uh $7,000 a year over the span of 10 years. Um, that's about 70 uh $70 per student based on the 100 uniforms. Go to the next one, please. Now, based on our track record of we push these to 19 years because we try to take care of our equipment, um I I made a conservative choice to say if we even push these for 15 years, um that breaks that that cost down to

026uh 4,600 a year, uh it costs per student about $46 a student per year. Go ahead and go to the next one, please. Thank you. So obviously our requests uh we respectfully request uh that this that the school board would uh uh help us fund uh 100 new uniforms for the next year of the of the brigade. And uh you know it it's uh it's one of those things that uh when you go to a marching competition or you go to a you know we've had students that go down to the Indianapolis 500 pre-ra or not the pre-race parade the the 500 festival day parade that national parade that we do. Um our uniforms are who we are. It's our it's our identity. Uh because when you see kids out there they have no idea

027who you are but when they see you in uniform they know exactly who you are. And uh you know when you're when you're around the marching band circuit uh or you're in these parades, when you travel around um you can tell who the band is just by the way they look. And we're hoping that this will be our new signature for the next 15 years. So um thank you for your time. Uh would does anybody have any questions? >> I'll just say first of all, thank you for the presentation, but to the team behind you. I know how much work they've done to keep those uniforms, the the stitching, the extra work that you guys have had to put in to keep them updated so that they look good during those performances. So, so thank

028you guys for that. Um, and it's it is time. >> Yeah. >> So, that that's something we'll definitely work on together. >> Yeah. >> Um, and any input that you would have? I'm sorry. >> I just I had a couple questions. >> Um, so how does that work? because we have middle school students now in that high school marching band sizing [clears throat] those uniforms different now because you have obviously black >> interestingly enough um that's not a new trend um we've always included uh going back even before I was here middle school students have been included in the marching band um for years and years so yeah that is that is something that we take into consideration the way that they do the sizing is um I was actually on a phone call with

029him earlier tonight uh they will come out and they will size all of the students that we currently have probably the eighth graders who will be coming in as freshmen and then all of our current high school kids. So, they'll size all of those kids. So, for at least one year, these kids are going to have a uniform that fits them perfectly and then they'll use those numbers to kind of differentiate [clears throat] out sizing because interestingly enough, uh this was something that I didn't realize and he explained it to me that depending on where you go in the country, um the size of the people that live in that area is unique to the size of the places that they're at. So um they try to use use our sizing ranges to get a

030better idea of how to how to differentiate for the the total number of uniforms. [clears throat] >> Um when when does this when do you guys have to >> obviously soon is better but like when's the drop dead like >> so it takes about 165 to 180 days uh from yes go to uniform delivery. Um, if we were to move fast, I'd say hopefully by the middle of March, we could very easily have these at the very beginning of the season or close to the beginning of the season. Uh, if not, um, you know, later in the season or even the start of next year, uh, would been would be when we got them. The last time we did this, if I remember correctly, now keep in mind it's 20 years ago. Um I believe

031the proposal was made in April and we were going within a week and a half, two weeks and we re we received them right at the end of our marching season was able to do our do one show. We actually marched in them in semi-state that year. So >> and are is this a request for the full amount? Is the band boosters paying for any of this or >> Well, that actually Thank you for that. That actually segus us into our next next portion of it. Uh yes, we are asking for the full amount. Um reason being is um as costs have gone up for everything we have um the boosters have been taking on more and more and more and um so we're actually gonna >> Jason are you guys >> happy to discuss

032>> I'll step out of the way and let them >> I have I have a question >> um [clears throat] how how were they funded before do you do you know >> the last time we did it >> uh if I remember correctly uh it was it was a split between uh school board and and boosters Um, and I don't remember the exact split. I would have to go back and look at my records. >> I was just wondering if of how that worked. So, it was split somehow. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> I got one for you, Craig. Real quick. >> Um, so are these You said um the old uniforms you could wash, you know, regular. Are these new ones going to be the same type? >> Absolutely. Yeah, that was that was

033one of the things uh prior to prior to the last era, I would say the last generation of uniforms, uh all uniforms had to be dry cleananed because they were wool based. Um they were built literally like a suits build. Um and that was one of the problems because you know when you're out in our area, you know, we've got ladybug cleaners, but not everybody does that. Um so you're tra you you got travel, you've got that extra cost. So, one of the things that uh schools started asking was, "Is there a way that we can make washable uniforms?" And the industry responded and said, "Absolutely, we'll we'll see what we can do." And they came up with a style of uniform that we could do that to help keep cost. So, now we can

034wash them in a house and save the money on that. The other thing that's nice about that is because we're not worrying about that, you're not worrying about getting harsh chemicals against kids, you know, if they don't get them clean like that. So, it's Yes. >> When you wash them on site, does that mean you you do you keep them here at the school then? >> Yeah. the kids. We never let the kids take them. I shouldn't say that. Occasionally, if a kid has, you know, like if we get five or six kids that are going to go down to Indianapolis to march in that festival parade, we'll let them take their uniform with them. Uh, but we never let them take them and keep them. They they all return here and we we manage

035that inventory. >> Thank you, Rich. >> I have a quick question. We're talking about I'm sorry, just kind of general here. uh uniforms for like other extracurriculars, how are they how you know how often and >> how are they funded like as well or athletics or school department through the ticket sales ticket sales. So band does not have any ticket and things like that. So they're just it's there it's the boosters or the school there's no [clears throat] okay to clarify that. Thanks. >> Good evening. Um so as far as that goes basically we are once again requesting the full amount from the school board. Um our obviously our numbers have shrunk some working back toward that. We do have of course a lot of expenses that we we have broken down and have I

036think in in some visuals here with some pie charts but basically that would allow us to continue to fund the dayto-day. Um, obviously with a lot of uh contest fees, we have a lot of expenses beyond that with, you know, uh, feeding the kids and continuing to run the program. Um, obviously we work as hard as we can with as many fundraising efforts as we can possibly come up with and that still pretty much just funds the program. In 2025, um, our total income was just over $88,000. Uh, that basically was the incoming. Um, about 50% of that was football concessions. that's our largest uh our largest fundraiser and we've tried to to maximize that as much as humanly possible in hopes of being able to continue to fund different things, equipment, uh the the

037ongoing pretty much the ongoing running of the program. Um obviously ban fees that we again try to keep affordable but we have we feel as high as we can have and still make it manageable for the families and and and the students hoping to meet them on that. You know, obviously there's a lot of there's a lot of other uh things on a on a chart right there. A lot of other things that go into that. As far as our expenses expenses, we we take care of a lot with, you know, obviously the school does participate in some of the uh expense of running the band, the boosters. We cover a whole lot of things as far as the, you know, uh pretty much just running running, getting the maintaining a lot of equipment. Um

038we have trailers that we continue to uh keep on the road and that's another thing that we're we're working toward uh repair and replacement. But basically this is a breakdown of our expenses for this year. Again we brought in around 88. Uh we do have a small endowment that we've that we've started uh interestbearing endowment that we're trying to continue to grow in order to get us to the point where we are able to do more for the kids and offset some more of those expenses in the future. Um but this is basically a breakdown of what our expenses look like uh for 2025. I don't know if anybody had any questions or if anything we can we can certainly clarify or answer there. I know the the numbers are a little large on the

039on the pie. I can't see why you did percentages. So, that that's pretty much what we're what we're hoping to do. Um, you know, again, as many as many fundraisers as we're able to do and as many efforts as we're able to have, we do not have ticket sales or other set revenue that comes in, that's enough to offset a cost like this. This is just this is what we need. [clears throat] And we're we're we appreciate you hearing us tonight. And you have any questions for me that involves this or anything else with the boosters? And we I also have the um revenue >> right >> the revenue slide which expenses. So the 22 the green 22 that is what I >> that is no that's concussion supplies >> that's basically our >> buying

040supplies for the the >> that's >> buying the food food supplies that we're able to resell um all of the equipment that goes into that the the containers the all of the stuff that we need tents tables things like that ongoing things there are items that do obviously last more than a festival but we have bought uh tables tents coolers larger supplies that we We had to replace a couple of the grills. Um there's a lot obviously that there's a lot of things in there that are not broken down completely. >> Many of these numbers could be differentiated even farther to break it down so you can see it. We just tried to keep it as >> Yeah, I know. I just the biggest obviously 25 25% is supplies for the town. >> Our largest

041our largest expense >> that is our largest revenue >> that coincides with our largest revenue in 2025. Our uh the >> I have a couple questions where you go. Are you going to the next slide? Are you still on this? >> Oh, we're right here. >> Okay. >> Um, what what does that mean? Like staff, like the marching show staff and the >> That's a great question. So, um, the school the school does, uh, obviously they pay my salary and then there is a stipen that goes for the um the percussion director and then there's a stipen that goes for the color guard director. Uh, however, we do have other staff that the boosters hire for us uh that we use so that we can get as many faces in front of the kids as

042possible. Um, think of it like assistant coaches. Um, there's me being the head coach and then you have and then I have my two assistants and then we hire uh camp staff so that say during marching band uh in the summertime when when they all come in and we've got, you know, 60 kids in front of us. Um, we have, you know, we can say, "Okay, uh, trombones, you're going to go with this person and clarinets, you're going to go with this person. I'm going to take these people." And we can break it out that way. So, that type of staff. Um and you have that that same type of staff breakdown for winter drum line and winter guard. So >> okay. And then the um registrations and insurance for the trailer, >> right? >>

043So the the trailer belongs to the boosters. >> Yes. >> And so that's why it has to be on the insurance has to be carried by the boosters. So how how does that work with our like that's okay with our because it's just taking their equipment so it doesn't separate. >> Gotcha. >> It would be it'd be very similar I would think to like SCYC or something of that of that nature. >> Yeah. >> I have two question. What's raise? >> Yeah. >> So uh raiseight is it's a program that uh we've instituted. Um, I will be honest with you. The one thing I hate more than anything in the entire world is fundraising. It is the worst. Um, and, uh, raiseight is basically when I found out about this, uh, the idea is, have

044you ever gone into um, CVS or Walgreens and you see they have that gift card kiosk? How do if you spend $50 on a gift card and you pay them $50 and you get your $50 out of it, how do they make money on it? It's because they get a percentage of that sale. So, there's a program for nonprofits called Raisite that um and it's actually an app that I have on my phone where I can buy a gift card and my my whoever I sign my students or my children in my case, they get a percentage of that profit. So, like for example, I use it mainly for gas um and they get 1.5% >> profit. Okay. [clears throat] >> SNAP I think is another >> script. That leads me to another question, but

045let me ask one before I forget it. is the endowment through the community foundation, Northern Indiana Community Foundation. >> It's a endowment fund that we have through financial partners. >> Okay, back to Raised, right? [clears throat] >> How is that something? Because I had other people, nonprofits ask me to donate to buy my gift cards, like my gas, etc., and I went to like that school I supported. >> How do we know about that here? I've never heard of that. This is the first. >> Um, [laughter] it's actually relatively new. We've only had it now. I think this is our >> second season, I think. >> Second or third season with it. Maybe it's something you could promote among especially your staff here. >> We we and the nice thing the nice thing that I

046that I like about raiseight is it doesn't matter where you're at. It's not like um you know we've all bought the football >> Sure. >> the football discount cards. Um this is different than that. These are actual gift cards. >> I get it. I'm just saying I think it's something to promote. >> Yeah. And and the thing that's really great about it is my mother lives in Florida and she uses it and the profit comes to my student to my children. >> That's great. I think it's wonderful. I think a lot more people would do it if they knew about it. That's >> we've started primarily promoting it through band parents families. That's been kind of our launch and obviously in hopes of of continuing to grow it. We're still working on helping people build

047the habit to use it. No, we appreciate that. We're definitely would love to for more people to use it because it does if used at its full capacity based on the number of people who could potentially be related to the band, it would eliminate the majority of our fundraising and obviously grow our our numbers to the point where I can I can tell you with us with with our family um we use it about every time we make a purchase. and did you know about it? >> My sixth grader's marching band fees are paid for his first two years. >> That'd be great. Okay, >> so those are the expenses tied to having these cards. You're saying that 9,000? >> Um, it depends on the gift card that is ordered. There is a shipping cost

048with some gift cards. They get shipped to the corporation rather than to the family. It just depends on the gift card that the family wants. And so the raise right is because the shipping cost of those gift cards. So we we try to we try to uh absorb that shipping cost to make it easier for the families to use. >> And the race expense is $940, right? >> Yeah. Which one of the blues is not the 9,000? The light >> I thought it was the 9,000 940. Yeah. >> 940. >> Which one's the 9,000 >> that would be? Yes. Sup for the banquet fund. Uh their fundraisers. Um it's interesting fundraisers um having an expense because we pay for the fundraiser but then it's also shows up in our revenue. So it's just kind of

049a balance and obviously you want more revenue from the fundraiser than the expense but um it shows up on our books because I write a check to them so I keep track of how much they're getting and that what comes the fundraiser is also kept track of. Ready to see the revenue? >> There we go. >> Definitely an amazing year. Football concessions. Highest year we've ever had, which makes sense because it was such an exciting year. Um, such an awesome awesome time. So, um, that the most I've ever seen, but we had sectionals, we had a regional, so it makes sense that that one's going to be the highest. Um, it was 51% of our revenue this year, which is amazing. So, we're super grateful that he can um continue working there. And then these

050are these other things. Um fundraisers are the ones in the blue, the turquoise. It's the ones that we've have submitted like the poinsettas, the um >> blue wine popcorn, just the ongoing ones that um you've seen and I can show you again if you need that for sure. And then fees. We wish fees would pay a little more, but they don't always all get paid. So, it's not as much as as we would want um in the budget, but that's just how it goes sometimes. You know, with families, we want everyone to participate and it's hard. And then just different things here and there. Ribey tent, that's primarily during the summertime and a little bit of fall. We're getting a little bit better at at fall riby tents. >> Oh, yes. >> Definitely during the

051summer time. And sponsorships is something that we um have built up a little bit. that is the I think 2500 one um to sponsor students so their fees can be paid and students have a um application process and then the executive board meets and uh make sure that it is going to a deserving student >> how much are the student fees right now like how much >> 250 >> we've uh >> leave discount of like the whole or is that just marching >> just marching band >> and we have um implemented you need your marching band fees paid to be in the extracurricular of indoor percussion or winter guard. We make it completely mandatory but with an eye on keeping every student giving every student the ability uh to go out in March and part

052of that has been some amount of that has been the raise right in hopes of getting more raise right funds because we are allowing people to use their raiseight accounts to pay for other students and there's been some of that to where if students cannot pay they are still >> we've tried to make it where they can we've also given graduated seniors um if they if they so choose um any any leftover balance es that they might have and there's never anything big um if they want to give it to you know a younger sibling or pass it on to somebody else and we've had quite a few parents that said oh I would like to donate it to this student or I'd like to donate to that student so we try to be as

053fiscally responsible with it as we can >> we have some of the lowest fees >> so your question about how much were band fees um to give you an idea I spoke about caramel uh earlier uh caramel's band fees last year were uh $2,000. So, we we tried we did not follow the trend. Uh we just raised our fees last year. I think was the first time we'd raised them since I've been uh employed here. Uh and it wasn't it wasn't because we wanted to. It was because uh we we had to >> and in hopes of continuing to cover the expenses and not have to seek as much. And that's part of what what our endowment is for is hopefully, you know, if we can get that if we can get that endowment going,

054um we can bring we can keep those prices low for the next 25 years. So that's what >> and we do have a um in the bylaw that 10% of our football concession profit, 10% of that is motion into the endowment. We should be giving you >> anything else questions about the revenues or anything else I can answer. >> Appreciate your your guys presentation. We'll we'll have some more more dialogue here as we move forward. >> Absolutely. >> And feel free to email at any point if anybody has any questions. I'm happy to answer anything. And and if you have any ideas or thoughts about uh or opinions about a uniform, you're like, I like this one but not this one, please let me know. All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Thanks.

055>> Okay. Well, I'll let you start going back where we were. >> Go back. Uh to number seven, site logic presentation. from site logic will update the board on upcoming project for atas. So before before we start, Chris, if you can get this for me slideshow, um before we we get started with them, um we had a conversation about a year ago about a feasibility study. Um I think in 1819 uh we went through um and had a feasibility study of all of our buildings. Um that this thick worth of paperwork is sitting in in my drawer. Um and the question that we had is this stuff gets out of date very quickly. Um and you guys ask me what can we do to to help keep this document live? um so that you know

056when we spend money um it just doesn't get outdated um and we can keep it updated. So um this is where uh Chris comes in and Carly comes in. They are with site logic. They are doing our middle school project uh but they have a platform called my site IQ. Um and this is what I want to show you today as long as we can get the slides to go from one slide to the next. So I'll turn over to you guys. >> All right. Well, I'll stay while he's getting that. Thank you for letting us come and talk tonight. We always enjoy all of our visits to Knox and this community and >> we'll go ahead and do this slide while we're waiting. I'm Chris Walker. I'm an account executive with Site Logic. I

057retired in 2003 after spending my career in public education at the district and building level. And here's Karly Wheeler. She is our engineer. She's outstanding in what she does and she'll do most of the talking tonight. want me just spin it around and you can go with that way rather than put it up on the TV. >> Sit over there in advance like we did in plug in. I've got mic. You're welcome to use mics. >> Yes, that's what I appcate. >> We'll allow you to go up and down just from that screen. >> You just click on >> Yeah, we just click on that. We're gonna talk about bice IQ tonight and how amazing of a digital platform it is. Really cool. We could show you, but we could talk about it too. It's

058okay. [clears throat] Just try to plug in that. too. This >> Yeah, [laughter] [cough and clears throat] I know. should be >> we were plugged into the black one. I don't know that makes a difference. >> Yeah, I knew it was on there. I think Hey Christian, just turn on on the Apple. >> You have it up. >> Yes. >> On yours. Okay, here we go. All right. >> All right. Well, thank you again for letting us talk tonight. U tonight, next screen. All right. We're going to talk about prioritizing and the planning process. um the asset condition review summary that we've been working on uh high priority summary uh and our next steps. Again, I'm Chris Flocker and uh I have been in education my entire career with Karly Wheeler. She's our development engineer

059and she's one of the best I've ever worked with. So, first let's talk about prioritization and planning. Uh we've been working with next screen. We've been working with you guys already um with the prior project in the last 12 months on your visioning identifying your vision goals and objectives for your facilities. Um we're now at a stage where we just finished the assessment. Um we're ready to identify physical needs, educational needs and functional needs with tonight mainly focusing on the physical needs, the quality of environment, asset conditions and reliability, safety and security and your site evaluation. We'll talk about energy optimization at a later time. Let Carly talk now. >> Okay. So, we're going to start with going through basically an asset condition summary and kind of what the process is for all three school

060buildings. And then there's a little bit of information that you'll see in here about this building. So when I start walking around, we basically look at these 16 categories. And I call it black top to rooftop and everything in between because we look at everything above ceilings and everything underground on drawings if we have them or we have to make our best educational guess at some times. And like Dr. Rick said we are working in a tool called my site IQ that you will see screenshots from. In the tool we look at everything from like a grading perspective from excellent to alarm or also known like A to F if you want to look at it that way where alarm is more of the past to useful life and excellence brand new. This is another

061standard we compare to that is the life expectancy of ashray standards. You'll see like it's picking out the boilers. If you have an electric boiler, it doesn't mean that on the 15th year it's going to blow up, but it also means like around that time you should start like planning for replacement. This is a snip from like my set of quue. This isn't your building. It's just a to explain the average life expectancy plus the observed condition that I put in there equals the age adjusted. So like the 20 years average life expectancy on a LED LED lighting system at 12 years old or 12 years left. It's going to average out acceptable in my eyes and in age adjusted asset where other ones are like caution to alert in some. This is just another

062view pulling out snips from just general schools to show like what is shown to compare life expectancy in my set AQ. There's a list of all of your assets and in the blue that's its life expectancy. In the orange that'll be like the age of your asset. These are your four buildings compared to each other. You can see the like minor, moderate, major lines in there. Minor is like where we put like you it's compared to like pricing. So the bigger the areas, the larger amount of money that that section is going to cost. So like roofing is normally a number one like really high cost and like at your middle school most of the roofing has been replaced. So it's in like that caution section. So that's why that section is bigger. When you're

063looking at like the moderate and major sections, those are when you start to if you have your alarm get close to that major section. That's when you're looking at maybe replacement of the building completely instead of just remodels. From there, um, we're going to jump into the elementary school. And if there's any questions along the way, I'm trying to do this very quickly so nobody gets that bored. [clears throat] Um, so at the elementary school, we do age maps. So, like this one was built in with an addition for like the kitchen area in 2015 and then the cafeteria and classroom edition in 2021. And then for each building, you will see a flooring map and you'll see that there are some of them are like divided into that just means there's two types of

064flooring in that room. There's also another layer in here that has like a highlight for the condition of that space. So, it might have carpet that's rolled, but it will be in like an orange color because it's original and past its useful life. And then this is just showing that we also do ceiling maps. And then that one also has the opportunity to be colored in alert, alarm, caution, acceptable. And then for mechanical, I find it easier to just show you pictures of what's going on in the buildings instead of an HVAC map that most people are like, "What's an air handling unit?" Where like the big unit on the left is an air handling unit. All of yours in that building are original to 1991. The vertical unit vents in the middle there are

065part of that 2021 edition. And then the chiller was replaced in 2021 when the addition went in. And then all of your cabinet unit heaters are original to east editions for the most part. So at the elementary school, this is a pie chart that is shown in my site IQ and I have kind of pulled out areas within that. So you can kind of see what is in the alarm section, the alert section, caution and acceptable with most of your alarm assets being like the air handling units that are original and some exterior doors. And then this is just like that snip that I showed you before that shows like the age of asset plus asset condition to get your age adjusted. This is like a 14page printed out thing. So I wasn't going to

066make you look at 14 pages. It exists. I promise. [laughter] And then we'll jump into the middle school. In the middle school, we're going to show the age map. This one's more of a puzzle, I like to call it, with anywhere between 1943 and that front entrance being redone in 2021. And then this one, we're kind of just jumping into that same pie chart with those breakouts showing what it was before the current project that we're getting ready to start over there. So in the alarm section, you have your horizontal unit vents, your fan coil units and your blower coil units, ceilings, and then some roofing sections. And then if we go to the next slide, I believe that's going to show what is in the current project over there. So, upgrading all of your

067classroom horizontal unit vents to vertical unit vents that you basically saw pictured at the elementary school and then upgrading the blower coil units in like the science rooms and a few other classrooms and then replacing ceiling tiles and also all of those spaces. So, you will see that pie chart change at the end of this year when that work is complete. Then over at the high school, another view of the age map. If you saw like the middle school HVAC was an interior view where I did the high school and elementary school as an exterior view to show that we have both views within my site IQ. Original building 1975 with three additions 2002 2001 or sorry 2021 and 2022. This is the main screen that you will see when you click on like the

068asset condition assessment and then you'll click on like facility details that will show each building. We go to the next one. It should show my mechanical stuff. So, at this building, you have pretty new. All of your rooftop units except for one. And then all of your cabinet unit heaters in the lower leftand corner are mostly original. Some have been replaced since the original build in 1975. Boilers are around like middle of their life, nearing expectful, useful life. I believe they were 2007. Don't quote me on that. It's been a fun adventure looking at all of these. [snorts] And then the domestic water heaters are nearing useful life as well. So as we look at the pie chart for this one, your alarm assets here are like the pool rooftop unit audi auditorium interiors. So

069ceilings that have staining going on over there, flooring that's original to 1975, and then your almost your entire building electrical components except for like the additions are all original. Then from there, we'll quickly go through the high priority summaries for each building. And this does not include the middle school one as we are currently doing work there. So, the high school high priorities, we're changing door hardware from knobs to what you see in this room that are more ADA compliant. The auditorium interior, some flooring upgrades [clears throat] around that same end of the building that have the original LV or not LBT, BCT tile, um the pool dehumidification unit and then gym bleachers in the gym at the elementary school. All of those air handling units that are original door hardware again, exterior doors for

070the ones that haven't been replaced, and then there are six boilers that are reaching or past their useful life that are about time to think about as well with gym bleachers over there. And then in this building, the only thing that we've really caught is like temperature controls to help update that stuff. >> I'll add some just a few things. Um, door hardware. People always ask, why do you have to replace door hardware? Well, in a school setting, a lot of people don't have the strength or the ability to turn a knob. ADA requirements now require um that you have a a handle that anybody can open. Um, so that's common. You know, you saw air handling units. Um, I can tell you from my own experience as a district leader, educational leader. We've all

071been in buildings. We've all been in classrooms and students in that classroom that is either always too hot or always too cold. Definitely creates an educational challenge. So, it's always very important to stay up on that and make that kind of heat. And um, you know, if your boiler goes out, that causes a great deal of stress for your students as well. So, >> can we answer any questions? >> Sure. So, you guys, you do these studies and on the alarm stuff. Do you guys like recommend I mean like you know to change it but do you get the bids or does the school go out and get bids or do you guys put prices to? >> So basically the second part of this is in that high priority summary section. We work with you

072guys on like what are your guys' high priorities and we will put prices on all of those. They are rough estimates that we come up with. It is like a mixture of I have an estimator in house plus we call people and get quotes from them. So it's like we're doing our best estimated guess to come up with these numbers and we usually escalate them be for the safety of like we're normally looking at referendums. So I'd rather you have more than enough money than not enough that bond you can't go over it. You always got to stay under. So we always make sure >> and then from there we have also in my set of queue there's a tool to like create scenarios for like the 10-year plan and then you can when [clears

073throat] it gets into that like bidding process we work with the district depending on how you actually want to handle that. Usually most of it is all done under us with your guys's final decision on what happens. >> Just real quick the myite software is cloud-based so you can pull it up from any computer. Um, as she was talking about, we work with you to build out these projects. One thing that really sets this U software apart from the spreadsheets and the the paper ones we've had for years, uh, like your 2019 one, is that, um, let's say you you have an X amount of dollars and you want to see what it looks like to spend 3 million and 8 million and 12 million and you can take those projects, rep, we price it.

074you know that uh that HBAC units u six units are going to cost whatever $1 million and you could stick that in let's say you want to tackle it in 2027 you can tackle it here and you're like you know I know we got more money let's see what else we can put in there you can take the boiler you can take windows and doors whatever and you can plan out for 15 years when you should tackle each of these items based on your debt and your ability um to do the projects. So what it does is it takes 2026 prices and then based on the last 5 years you can take that HVAC unit in 2026 of $1 million and you see in 2027 it's 1 uh1 million in 2030 it's 1.5 million. It

075allows you to budget out your facility projects. And again it's all a software that you guys can pull up right away. When you have a spreadsheet, it's typically expired within two years, but when you use the digital software, we keep you updated and work with the district to keep it updated so that you always know alert alarms. Another thing, as she pointed out, you saw the orange over here and the blue over here. Our goal after we finish these projects is that we keep everything in the blue. And then you have a 15-year plan to do everything you have to to keep it in the blue versus the orange. And I will say this is one of like the nicer school districts that I do. I have one that you know how I was talking

076about that major problem line when I have to go to later this week has that major problem line at their elementary school. Like it's kind of a decision whether they're going to keep it or not. >> We have a lot of buildings that are under um 24% efficient, meaning 80% of the building needs to be replaced. So you guys, >> and this is something that Derek can get in here. um I can get in here and we can make adjustments as as we fix things. You know, we have access to it too. Um and that's part of the the project that we have going on. So, it is a useful tool. This is something we can have conversations. I can share this PowerPoint with you in your weekly notes also so you guys can see

077that PowerPoint and you can study a little bit better. I know it was kind of quick going through it. >> And each one of those spaces like on the ceiling map or the flooring one, you can click on that space and it'll show you pictures of the ceiling and flooring. and everything >> in majority of the build in the rooms there's here and there if they were the exact same I didn't go through and take a picture of the ceiling in every single room but >> when you want to know the the age of a HVAC unit or whatever it is you just click on a picture age brand who installed it everything you can think of >> so how often or so we update we do something some things we We update that in

078the system. >> Yeah, >> you guys do. We do, right? >> We we work with the district. >> Yeah, it's like a mixture of both. At the end of every project that we assist with, we will make sure we have an FA or myself, which FA is a facility analysis. It's I call them my buddies. Um they follow me around mostly. We come in and basically make sure that it matches now what is new, but then when you guys update things like Derek has done some flooring, so he'll go in and just change the date. >> So, do you guys at that point in time once your initial assessment's done, >> it it's kind of a living document just continues going. It's not like, hey, every four years got to come back and go through

079again because you're constantly going through that. And I'm assuming it updates it year to year to year to year. So >> the asset condition summary says what year it is. So those numbers will all change in there. Like since I put it's 2014, it will say 2014 as an air handling unit when you installed it until it's decommissioned or updated. One a great feature again is that we are working right now with a big project in another county um right next to you and their maintenance man is amazing but he's been there 52 years and when he retires he has all the district's information right here. So using a a living document like this um allows to expand the life of the knowledge >> basically helps Derrick not have to remember things forever. Do you

080recommend coming back and doing another evaluation at at a certain point or no? >> Um, if [clears throat] Derrick's pretty good at using the tool, we've worked with districts where we have like a plan to come in once a year or something along those lines. There's we have programs to come in every other year or do a big assessment every three. It's just up to whatever kind of the district wants to work with. I'll come in once a week if you're going to do that many changes. And you would tell us what our critical priorities are, the things we need to get done, like >> and that thing will more so tell you. It doesn't really need to come from me, but yeah, >> but that would tell us what we need to get done

081like within the next year. >> Yeah. >> It will tell you how far past their useful life everything is. >> Okay. >> In that wonderful chart of lots of information, it will give you like the math and say this is 30 years past it useful life, which normally that's a flooring thing and that's okay. flooring lasts a long time. It just useful life's 15 to 20 years. >> But there's some things beyond useful life where we're stretching ourselves. Yeah. >> Creating additional risk. >> Air handling units cost way more to replace than like flooring tiles. So when those ones start to reach their useful life, they're more of a major let's get them scheduled to replace. >> And being proactive versus waiting for something to blow up is probably a better way to do things.

082>> Yes. Especially if you're trying to like update air quality or anything like that. You can't just do a like for like replacement or at the elementary school your air handling units are up in a mezzanine like next to the gyms. You're gonna have to blow a wall to get those things out. >> You're not going to get them out from going down the stairs out a door. >> It'll take a few years. The goal is to get everything out of the wall and keep it out of the >> comment that we I know Gary's been on and Wendy. This one of the things that I've been asking about I think we've all been talking about for many years but not had a tool >> like this because I mean obviously if you're manually someone

083trying to the 52year-old veteran person there that's trying to keep track of all this and doesn't and something that concept it's uh what a what a positive thing for us to be able to keep on top of like what's next like you said air handlers those things that are we experienced that we don't want that again those kinds of things that it gives us the ability to look that and go we need to need to prioritize. So I anyone else have any questions? >> Like to leave, you're more than welcome to. We're going to keep moving on. So >> all right. [laughter] [clears throat] >> All right. Uh we're going to go ahead and move on to principal update. Um building principles will update the board on activities and events in their representative buildings. So

084>> go ahead. >> All right. Well, good thing we all were at school on time today. Didn't slide our way to get here. Um let's see. Some just little things happening. We did celebrate the hundth day of school milestone. For those of you that are not aware, we do count not because we are unhappy, but because we do that as a math thing in the calendar skill, but it was very cute. We have our kids come as a hundredyear-old, what do they what do you call that? Centarians, maybe. Um, oh my gosh, darling. And one even walked with like an oxygen tank cart behind them without the tank, but like hooked up. Darling, they were so cute. Um, but anyway, on one of our snow days that we were doing virtual from home and doing

085different things, that was a day, a Friday that we were scheduled to have uh some Pey after school with Melissa Gil and working with her and switching around with some teachers. We still had it. We were all in our homes. We all got on virtually and we still had it from there. And it was great. This is part of our writing PD that I've talked to you about and um I won't go too into the weeds with it, but you you can remember from your your days of writing um 19 years ago, right, when you were doing it. Um you know, when you take on a writing task or you're teaching or you're a student, you're going to do a writing project, you know, a lot of times it's sort of, you know, you've got

086to think and plan something, you've got to write it, we've got to revise it, you know, the typical steps. and we don't spend as traditionally um a lot of time in that think this through and plan. So, like an example I kind of thought of is, you know, if somebody said to me, "All right, here's your writing prompt. Please write about um, you know, the benefit of electric cars." Like, I could maybe wing that. Like, I've seen them. I kind of get the idea, but I don't have a lot of knowledge. And a lot of times we feel like our kids often it's it's the writing piece is not necessarily the writing or the sentences. It's connecting to the topic and figuring out how does that what do I have to say about that? How

087do I connect with that? What's my experience with that? And so really what's kind of recommended now is 40% of your time when you do a full writing project, 40% of the time is first in that think and planning. getting those kids to connect to that topic, getting them um to have something to write about and some personal connection to it, some interest in it, all those kinds of things as they then start to plan what to say. Um so our our learn teachers will often say that that it's the kids just really struggle of what do I need to write? Well, how do I get this off the ground? And so she did a great job with our staff um teaching us how to really do a better job developing that and it's worth

088the time because once they have those ideas and some connection to the topic or understand it, electric car or whatever it might be, um it's a lot easier to write about. So that's how we kind of spend our time. Um let's see, we'll move on. We'll we'll have another session with her um on the 20th of February. Moving on to the planning and writing steps. Uh we have an upcoming family glow night with uh first science night. I did bring a little flyer if you want to take one and pass it around. It's it's the not the fancied up one, but you'll see a list on there of the different activities. Um that will be on Wednesday from 5 until 6:30. Um Mrs. Shyman has really spent a lot of time working on that and

089some of our other teachers. We have volunteers that are come, our teachers, our staff, uh, that are coming in to run those activities. It's just a fun time. It's a fun time. Parents bring in their students. They just go from spot to spot. There are science related activities for them to do together. If you flip to the backside, you'll see kind of the science concept that they're really kind of working on or what they're playing with at that time. Um, so just kind of a little background that'll be really fun. We had our first one last year. It was really well attended and everyone walking out said what a great time they had. So, we'll be doing that on Wednesday. Uh Mr. Mason and I are starting our one-on-one data meetings with uh teachers as

090their middle of the year um data starting to come in reflective of those goals that you saw, our building goals. So, we're just kind of meeting. We meet as teams all the time, but we're just going to take some time to talk one-on-one and kind of celebrate a lot of the wins and just um you know, for things that maybe didn't turn out how we wanted, what what specifically can we do different? Um those are the main highlights happening here. Do you have specific questions with the elementary at all? [laughter] >> Peanut gallery. >> [laughter] >> Good evening again. Thank you. Uh give you a January update of things we accomplished. We did our second quarter academic award simplies for each grade level. We recognized students for multiple things including but not limited to attendance,

091classroom performance and academic growth. So we recognized more than just the top performing students. We also recognized the kids who grew academically. Uh we recognized students of the month based upon their ability to model the character trait of leadership. Uh professional development efforts for January included the following. For our new teachers, we continued with our book study over the Robert Robert Marzano book classroom instruction that works. That's a study of the nine most effectful or most impactful classroom instructional strategies. For January, the strategy that we covered was non-llinguistic representation. You're all thinking, "What the heck is that?" It's imagery. So, using imagery uh to promote learning. Uh our faculty as a whole heard about the benefits of conducting a learning walk. What that is, I talked to you a little bit about that's the opportunity

092for them to go in and observe uh some of their colleagues teach. And then immediately after that observation to sit down with that individual and give him or her uh feedback, immediate feedback. We work in groups of three to do that. uh we had our first team practice it and we'll be doing more of that in the upcoming future. Looking ahead to February, we've begun uh iLearn checkpoint testing in English language arts and math is just around the corner. Uh we have junior achievement day on February 4th. We're excited about hosting some business leaders to come into our classrooms and connect connect learning with the working world for our students. uh professional development will continue our new teachers uh book study and our faculty will be working on some curriculum review and revision for February.

093Questions, comments, concerns. >> Thank you. else. >> That >> I got I got stopwatches. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> All right. So, looking at January, I would say the one word that we can describe January is cold. and where cold where the positives came from that was on virtual days we I got to see a lot of my teachers in a new environment getting on their Zoom or Google meets with the students watching the kids interact with teachers virtually you can definitely tell that the teachers have been spending that time >> over the course of the last semester getting to know their kids and really developing that positive relationship because there were many classes where you had 75 80 90% % of students in there at home learning with their kids from school or from home

094and that was absolutely phenomenal. Uh want to say appreciation and thank you to Mr. Mick and Peggy uh transportation dear custodian crew um with with everything going on with the weather um getting kids to school having the buildings ready to go. Thank you Nikki and second crew shift. You guys have done a phenomenal job. Um, you know, it it definitely takes a welloiled machine to to keep a building running and we got a great oiled machine at the high school. Um, tonight I wanted to highlight a few of the successes of our students. Over the course of first semester, I had 45 students earn high honor role. I had 110 students um earn um honor role. Um, in February, the Harlem Wizards are going to be um performing at Weineberg. Uh, it's going to be

095a great opportunity. February 18th, correct? >> All right. It's going to be a great night. I believe uh Mr. Mick, you're going to be out there playing. >> That's what I'm told. >> And I'm going to be refing. So, >> we go. >> There we go. [clears throat] >> I love it. I love it. Um, we have just gotten our musical play selected. We will be doing Mean Girls in May. I'm excited to see the uh students um prepare for auditions coming up which will be phenomenal. Um for the Indiana Association of School Principles, we did recognize four of our current juniors with the Rising Star recognition for the class of 2027. Uh those are Harper Hazelton, Zoe Buyers, Kaylee Brown, and Ariana Cybo. um they each represent strong academics leadership um in the building

096and we're incredibly um happy for them and all the successes they've had. Speaking of academics, we've had five uh football players uh on the Indiana academic all-state team. Kane way uh Weber, Isaac Singleton, Keegan Everidge, Tucker Burns, and Eastston Min. Um and then finally, Alex With. Um he was our Tyler Roth um athlete of the week. Um he was first team all conference and for the last conference meet he was first place in 50 and 100 freestyle. Um every single one of our athletes is absolutely phenomenal. Every single one of our students is phenomenal. Our students are phenomenal. So that's what I had to say for tonight. >> Thank you. Thanks. >> Any questions? >> And two quick things. Thank you Mr. Ellis for that. Um between Friday and Monday, uh Micher and I are

097meeting with each team and their their assistant principal um to talk about not only our district goals, but their individual building goals um and how we're doing, asking questions. What are we doing with students who aren't getting it? How are we remediating them? Talking about our programs. And I do have one other update here from uh Heather Reese, who's our special education uh coordinator. She says, "First of all, I'd like to thank the board for approving the additional special education teacher priority uh to start the school year. Uh that proactive decision was greatly appreciated as our department was already stretched thin and had begun to experience an increase in special education enrollment towards the end of the previous school year. For the December 2004 count, so a year ago and a couple months, uh we

098certified 316 special education students, which reflected an increase of 15 students from the prior year. For December 2025, which was just a couple months ago, we certified 339 students, representing an additional increase of 23 students. As of January 19th, uh we have 13 more pending evaluations, not including speech, which um many of them are third grade students. Um and Miss M and I, we've been in discussion with this. Um she just want to say thank you, you know, for the continued growth. uh she wanted to highlight the increasing needs um you know within the district and the importance of maintaining adequate staffing and support to ensure that we can serve our students effectively. Um so she just wanted me to share that with you guys um in the principal update and again we're having conversations

099of what that looks like and how we can support um our kids because again we have a phenomenal special education program. Um the word is out and and we we keep getting more and more kids which is fant fantastic you know we'll keep serving them. house. That's all. >> I I have a question like overall like the the virtual days, is there a way to tell um how many kids were able to or were not able to? >> Yeah, it's tricky. Um so we we the way it works, we hope everyone's there that day, right? I put out that video that I showed with you guys trying to promote our students being there. Uh the the reality is we know that not every kid's going to get there. They actually have the two days to

100make up the work I believe um to be counted present. Um so you have a couple dipsticks. You have who's there that day, who's not there but makes up the work for that day and then really who doesn't show up at all. Right? So it is it is very tricky. It's not ideal you know learning for our kids. I think we all say that we thought we had 100% attendance. you know, we wouldn't be telling the truth. Mr. Conan, >> so we use Google Meet, I think, in all the buildings, too. And at the end of every Google Meet, uh the teacher gets a report back identifying how many students participated were logged in uh to that class period, etc., etc. So, you get an engagement report uh similar to what uh would happen if

101Greg called a meeting virtually for the administrative team. he would know at the end of that meeting how many of us were logged in and were present. There was just candid conversation I actually heard in our building last week about just teachers being pleased how many kids were really um they were doing what they were supposed to be doing and and everything was, you know, submitted and they were better numbers. >> I I would say I was able to get into most classrooms um our last virtual day. uh the the percentage um when you have multiple virtual days close in proximity goes down a little bit. >> That's what I figured. >> But I was still pleased. I was still pleased in most of the rooms that I that I visited if we had 20

102students. Uh you know, we had we had 15 16 students present for for an average. There were some exceptions u but for the most part pretty pretty solid. >> I dig in the weeds just a little bit. I'm just curious. So, typically a typical day, what is the students requirement as far as is it will it take them two hours, three hours to do their work? Do they have to be logged on? I mean, I mean, obviously each grade level's different by building. At the middle school, we start our day at 9:50. >> Judy, what time do we end? >> 3:10 typical day in terms of ending. Class periods are >> 40 minutes each. >> Yep. Class periods are a little shorter. We have one common lunch break since we don't have to walk kids

103into the cafeteria. um you know we expect instruction and learning to take place in real >> I didn't know if it was if there's way that they >> so virtual though they have to that like it's live so yeah so >> they have to be it's very different from an e-learning day which is probably >> that's I guess that's what I'm that's what I was I'm sorry I was loaded and they can you know get their things done >> I guess that's what I was asking about >> the state allows us to have three of those e-learning days where teachers just put work on and say go. Uh we've used one, we have two more that we kind of keep in our pocket. We we've had discussions about that as a team to say what

104do we want to do in some of these where you have two, you know, or three days back to back to back. Um but again, our expectation that we expect learning to continue. Um so we're making it happen. >> I guess uh you're saying uh like if a student does not get on, >> he's got two days to make it up, >> right? Uh if they don't then they're counted absent. >> Yeah. >> Okay. And I I got a question I think for Michelle too. Uh all the you know uh the delays the two-hour delays and everything where you where you don't have any you know no preschool. what how do we you know what do we do for those kids to kind of you know make it up or you know get them moving

105forward because you know we had two delays and then the virtual days you know we had quite a bit so >> yeah it's a good good question I don't know if we have an answer to that because that those kids do miss um and they can't make it in the afternoon you already have those other kids so it is just kind of that >> and the preschool staff does get on they record themselves teaching things doing things activities for the kids to do should the parents want to get on and and help them. We try to at least give something that they can be doing at home that's still connected with with things they [clears throat] would be doing at school is one thing. >> Thank you guys very much. Appreciate it. >> Thank you.

106>> If you want to get out, you're more than more than welcome to before we continue. >> Public comments number 10. Uh we do not have any public comments on the agenda items. >> Number 11 is personnel report. Uh item A, resignations, item B, new hires, and item C, maternity leave. Superintendent recommends board approve items A, B, and C. Do I have a motion? >> Motion and Gary. >> Yeah. We'd like to thank uh Angela, Don, and Elizabeth for their time that they had here with us. Um we'd like to welcome Kristen who's a new comes to teacher. Her and her family did move in um at the beginning of the school year. She does have her teaching license. Um so she's a very valuable sub to us and we look forward to getting with

107her kids. >> Is this bus driver that is that make us on the ground routes? >> Yeah, right now we have kind of absorbed that into the buses. Um and we're kind of deciding which which route we want to go. Um, so we we have it covered as of right now. Um, and that's a conversation that u this offer and I have to have >> and these were just run-of-the-mill leaving. Nothing special going on here in terms of the people that left. No complicated factors or anything? >> No. Any discussion? >> All in favor say I. I opposed. Uh item 12 business we have a the treasury report. The treasury report is provided on page 22. I believe vendor usage report is provided on page 42. Item C claims superintendent recommends the board approve the

108claims is listed on page 44. Do I have a motion? >> Motion. >> Wendy. Second. >> Second. >> Jason. Any discussions or conversations regarding the claims report? Anyone? Okay. All in favor say I. >> Opposed. >> Okay. Item D, donations. Superintendent recommends the board approve the donation of $50 for the middle school choir from Sarah and Richard Richie Richard Morgan. And we'll pause on that one. I'll go ahead. And then so explain it now. >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Um so the um >> let's have the minute show that we're going to strike that donation. That donation actually is going to um the North Central CTE program. Um our students are using those grinders. Uh but it's actually a donation for the CTE. Um so that's not going to run through our board. >> Oh,

109so this >> the second one? Yes, the second one. Okay. >> Correct. >> Well, we were going to the second. >> Okay. >> So, we are just only >> Yeah. Do I have a motion on the first one? Superintendent recommend >> second. >> Very good. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. >> I didn't hear the motions. I don't know who did. >> I did. And then >> Aaron Wendy made the motion and Aaron second it. >> Thank you. >> Um affidavit payment. Superintendent recommends the board approve the affidavit for payment as listed on page 75. Do I have a motion? >> Motion. >> Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> So this is the typical thing that we have um each month coming with our bond project over at the middle

110school with site logic. Um the main part of this was the bid process uh which we're going to talk about that here in a couple items. Um so that's our our main portion that we had site logic this month. Questions or discussion? All in favor say I. >> Item cancellation of outstanding checks. The superintendent recommends the board approve cancellation of outstanding checks that are two years old. The outstanding checks are listed on page 76. >> Motion >> Jason and Wendy. >> Yeah, I'll second. >> Okay. Any discussion on those? Casey, >> they're basically it's a standard process that once they're expired over two years that we have to re put them back in our accounts. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. >> G. Overnight field trip. Superintendent recommends the board approve the

111overnight field trip for the welding class to attend the Skills USA state conference in Indianapolis. Details the event are listed on page 77. >> So we're excited about this. has Knox students, Culver students and North Johnson students, all welders uh state conference that is a high school welding competition. Uh it is located in Indie on April 10th and April 11th. All in favor say I. Item H, site logic, letter of re recommendation. Superintendent recommends board approve the letter of recommendation from the site logic to as list on page 78. Do I have a motion? >> I'll second make a motion and ger Jason second. So, we were really excited about this uh bid process that we went through and this is what I was referring to earlier. Um, we have three main trades. The general

112trade, mechanical trade, and the electrical trade. You know, when we do bids, sometimes you get one contractor come out and bid. Sometimes you get two. Um, for our general trades, we actually had four um contractors come out and bid. Um, Larson Danielson was the lowest bidder, which we've had lots of, you know, project with with them, so we're happy with that. Um, they did not include the removal and replacement of some ceiling tile. So, it does add 95,000 to their bid price, which uh then brings them up to 466. Uh, but that's still under the next bid, which is 570. Um, so we're excited to get Larson Danielson back here with us for the general trades contract. Mechanical uh had three businesses come out. EJ White, um, which is a new contractor to us. We

113have not dealt with them before. Um, Tim, who is with Sent Logic, he's done a very good job of doing background checks, um, and reference checks. Um, so he's he's confident um that their bid is good and that they're going to come out here and do good work for us. And the last one is the electrical trades. Uh, we had two people for that. MCORE was the one that had the winning bid there. Um so as you see those are the three companies that will be doing uh the work for the middle school uh HVAC projects on that say I >> I number 13 public comments on items not on the agenda the board president want to take comments from patrons items not on the agenda patron three to address questions regarding items not on

114the agenda and Jim Brown floor is yours. >> First of all, thank you for the opportunity to address the board. Uh, one question I have is uh that middle school basketball was fantastic and it was great hearing about their grades, but I'm wondering would you have recognized them as champions if they'd only won six games? and everybody had straight A's because that would have given them a 31% win rate. Please remember that number, 31%. All the statistics I'm going to cite come from the Indiana State Board of Education website. That's why 31% is very important. I came before you a year ago and accused you of failing the students, parents, community, employees, employers, and taxpayers of the school corporation. At that time, you assured me that you were aware of the corporation's shortcomings and promised

115much improvement due to the plans that you and the superintendent had in place. I come before you again to inform you that you have failed again. Your plans have not provided improvement. You have wasted another year with the youth of our community. You appear to be a shift without a rudder, hoping to achieve a destination by sheer luck. Your inability to provide the needed leadership to improve the academic standards of this corporation is a blight on our community. A cursory review of academic success indicates a willingness not only to accept underachievement but to reward it. I would like to take this opportunity to make you aware some statistics that are readily available from the Indiana Department of Education website. Number one, the Knox Community School Corporation School District has an average math proficiency score of

11631%. That means 69% or below, they're not up to standard. Number two, the Knox Community School Corporation School District has an average reading proficiency score of 32%. That means 68% are below proficiency in reading. The Knox Community School Corporation District is rated in the lower half of all schools in Indiana. the lower half. The Knox number four, the Knox Community School Corporation School District has a graduation rate of 92% when only a third of the students are at proficiency. Please explain how any school district with a math proficiency of 31% and a reading proficiency of 32% could possibly have a graduation rate of 92%. And the diploma be worth the paper it's written. All these statistics are a direct reflection on you, the school board. If you're not willing to make the hard decisions to

117achieve results that are needed, then it may be time for each of you to look at yourselves and ask if maybe you don't belong on the school board because you're failing the kids. How many more years do you plan on being negligent in your responsibility? >> How many more students will you graduate that are unable to meet standards? >> Mr. Brown, please wrap it up, please. Your time is up, so please wrap it up. >> May I make two more comments, please? things that you're in the bottom half the schools the state of Indiana that that should be an eye opener right there and that you're graduating 92% with students that can't meet standards. >> If if you're ever interested in sitting down, I'm more than happy to have some conversations with you. You're more

118than welcome to contact Billy and and I'd be more than happy to sit down with you. >> I I mean no disrespect with this statement, but it's the same one I made a year ago. You don't work for me. They work for me. I'm the taxpayer. >> I can just help you understand. >> They work for me. Their job is to get you to do what they >> Let me with all due respect he is offering the opportunity to share with you what we are doing if you would like to meet and understand that because we do we understand what's going on and I think it would be beneficial for you to take the time to come in and find out what is being done or not. So again thank you for coming in Stephen

119>> being done as well results that's what I'm looking at. Thank you for >> we'll move on number 14. Comments, questions from administrators from the board. Uh Dr. Brown, >> nothing. >> I just want to thank everybody who came in and gave presentation today. Um and uh the band they do an excellent job the boosters to support the band and uh we've been semi-state and state formers and that does take a lot of work. So >> I just thank you everybody for coming in all the information principles and and pilgrim will speak. >> I once again great presentations by our admins and um I want to congratulate all the kids that uh contrary to Mr. Brown. There was a lot of kids that made straight A uh honoral and honoral. Uh the principles uh I

120appreciate them acknowledging that. >> Um yeah, I appreciate the parents and the parent and the children students coming in the, you know, the administrators sharing with us uh what's going on and the hard work that's being done. And I'm I'm tickled. I think with what we're doing with site logic is is really great a great step for us to move forward just to continue that on so it's it's there. It's trackable. We know what do we got to do to keep the facilities in in shape to go so we don't hopefully run into the bugaboos we run into you. So >> sure I just want to congratulate a general congratulations to our uh choir students who went to solo and ensemble contest. We had some gold and silver ratings at both middle school and high

121school. Some advancing on to the state. So that's wonderful from this past weekend. And I want to publicly thank K Valley REMC. They donated $3,000 through Operation Roundup Grant to pay for bikes, help support bikes for kids. That's all. Thank you. >> And just thank thank you for all of our presentations, but you guys also a little longer meeting tonight, but a lot of good information tonight. Matter of fact, we were able to get out, have great conversation. I think that's one of our goals as the board is to to hear our people, right? And um you know, I appreciate your guys' time. motion and all favor being