001I know screen. Jason, that's all. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Um, I'm asking for a unanimous approval to add Mark Crom retirement notice effective the end of the 2425 school year contract under the personnel report. Are there any objections? None. Then we're going to add this item to the agenda. Um, all in favor? adoption of the agenda. The chair will entertain a motion to adopt the agenda for the July 7th, 2025 regular meeting as presented. All in favor? Motion. Oh, I'm sorry. Motion. that motion. All in favor? I opposed minutes from the June 16th, 2025 regular board meeting. Motion motion. Kirk second. All in favor? Any opposed? Public comments. The
002board president will entertain comments from patrons on any agenda item during the meeting. No action will be taken on any item presented because we don't have any. Correct. Uh personnel report a new hires b extracurricular appointments. So, the superintendent recommends the board approve item A and B. Do I have a motion? Kirk and Dr. Brown. So, a little discussion um on that. First of all, Christy Back is with us. Miss Tarno, would you like to introduce her? I do. You have to stand up. Star of honor. So, this is Christy Back. And if she looks familiar, it's because she is. She worked here um in our special ed department as a pair professional for we think seven years. They're all blending together, but we think around 2009ish for about seven years. She left us and
003decided she wanted to go back and get her license to be a special ed teacher. So, she's been in a neighboring town um and and has done a wonderful job, but she lives here in Knox and is really excited to be back with us. And so, she's she'll be taking on that new um special ed teacher that you were able to give us this year. So, we're excited to to have her on board and I'm excited to be here. Also, what Chris, you had um approved last week Katie Filipass uh the last not last week, last meeting. Sorry. And she was planning to be here today. I wanted you to be able to meet her as well. And she had a family situation came up this morning. So, she sends her apologies. It was an
004unexpected event, but just wanted to make sure you had a face behind the name. Well, first of all, welcome to the Knox family. We're very excited to have you and also to the board. You know, thank you guys for approving that position for the special needs. I know that we had lots of conversation about that and the need for this. So, we're we're definitely excited to have you here. Okay. Busy. Thank you. Thank you for coming tonight. Welcome. We also have on here Kelly Austin, uh, who's going to be our new transportation director. She comes to us. She was with Portage for 11 years. Um and then she was in Mid Michigan at St. Joe's for um for a year there. Um you know, we spent many hours interviewing for this position. Chris Co did
005an amazing job. Thank you for coming tonight. She really held the fort down for us during that time. So, we really appreciate you and everything that you've done um in talking with Kelly. She's definitely excited to work with you, you know, as as a team. Um so, we're we're definitely excited to uh bring her in. she had by far the most experience out of all of the candidates that we had. Um, and you know, the hope is that she's going to take our transportation department to the next level. So, we're we're excited to have her. Um, also, you know, we added Mark Crom to the um list tonight. Um, he did stop in today um and is wishing to retire. That kind of popped up out of nowhere. Uh, so we will be looking for
006a new high school science teacher possibly. we got to see what we're doing internally, but Mr. Crown has been amazing for us. Like, he is still going to coach because he coaches tennis. Um, so he's still going to do that. Um, you know, nothing but great things to say about him. And congratulations to him on retiring, you know, and being able to move on to the next part of his uh his life. So, definitely excited for him. And then also, uh, Lily is already a teacher with us. Uh, she's going to be a volunteer assistant um, at the high school level. She'll also do some middle school basketball for us, which that approval will come later. Um, and then Brock is actually joining the T tennis team as an assistant coach, and that is where
007Mr. Crom was, but he's still going to be coaching the girls tennis team. So, that's our personnel report. Okay. All in favor? Any opposed? Business. The superintendent recommends the board approve the claims as listed on page 12. Do I have a motion? Motion. A second. Kirk. Nothing. Just normal routine business. Okay. All in favor? Food service bid renewal. The superintendent recommends the board approve the food service bid renewal as listed on page 28. I have a motion. Motion. second chair. So, this is our our annual contract we have with these. There's 13 schools that are involved in there. Um, and they go out and they do a bidding process for all the schools with this. The kind of the way our food service works um is they have a a dietitian um who they come
008in, they make sure we're uh have all these state regulations and we're up to date on all the policies that the state needs. They order all the food. uh we supply the people, you know, that that's our our role in this. Um so this is just the uh annual annual contract with them. The one thing they did change this year in the bidding process was uh milk. They were changing vendors there. Uh we got a better deal with different uh company for our each um little carton of milk. So uh we did make a change there, but normal normal business with that food service. Okay. All in favor? Any opposed? Rainy Day fund resolution. The superintendent recommends the board approve the resolution for rainy day fund as listed on page 29. Motion Aaron second. Second.
009So, we've had a big push to look at all of our policies, right? That's that's really what we've been doing over the last what six monthsish. Um the rainy day resolution hasn't been updated since 2006. Um so, it was time to update that. uh we collaborated with M Mr. Kaminsk's office uh to uh draft up a new policy um it it mirrors um not only what we had but also what other school districts are doing. So what you're seeing there in your packet is just the new resolution for rain. All in favor? Any opposed? Transfer of funds. The superintendent recommends the board approve the transfer of $1.5 million from the education fund to the rainy day fund. Motion motion. Second. So, what what we have here is uh with all the middle school um HVAC
010system that we have problems last year, we were taking out of the rainy day fund to pay for all of those those upgrades and needs that that we had. Uh so this is there's two parts of this. A uh we are reimbursing the money that was in rainy day. Uh but then part two of this is the next construction project which we're working on tonight with getting the bond moving forward. Um is all the vertical units that are in each individual classroom. Um and what's going to happen here is is the plan is this summer we have to get those ordered. Uh so we will order those through this rainy day money that is in there and once the bond is complete and we receive that money we will be reimbursing rainy day again. Um
011so that's that's the plans there for that. So this we're transferring it from the education correct from the education to the rainy day. So just if we needed to transfer that back for some reason, we are able to do so or I know we can only transfer certain things certain times some some things. Yes. Um you can transfer back you you know the the nice thing about rain ready day that's kind of your your big savings account right we can we can spend that you know um for construction projects and things it's kind of like your savings account. So yes it can be transferred or we can pay for different things out of there. That is correct. So, what uh what do we have in rain now? Um it was 22 2.5 I believe. I
012believe it went down to 1.6. I would have to double check that. Um 1.2 something like that. So, this is that that reimbursement um with a little pad to buy those vertical units. Is there any recommendation as to how much money should be maintained in a fund like that or what? Um, off the top of my head, they they give I forget exactly what the recommendation is. Um, but we're right at at that point. I I forget exactly what what it percentage of it is. I I can follow up with you on that. Okay. And that doesn't have any consequences on the educational fund if they've done it's got less money in it. No, because we we have a budget that the state approves in in the education fund that we're only allowed to spend
013this much in there. Um, and then there there's a little bit of that savings in there and that that's what what we moved. So it doesn't affect our education budget at all. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Do you know how much a rainy day what you should be off top of your head? No. Okay. All in favor? I oppos discussion. The superintendent will discuss with the board numerous revisions to several policies along with new proposed policies and replacement policies. These will be voted on at the following board meeting. Any questions, comments? So, um, you have 17 pages of Neiola policy in your packet. I'm not going to go through each individual one. Uh, but I will tell you a story. Dan from Neiola, he's been absolutely amazing. Uh we met for boy what was
014it three four hours um right right right right right right right right right right right right right right at the end of school um and basically what we did was all the new legislation that came out these are all the updates um from that that legislation um session that that they had um you know you can look at at all of the things that are in there I could go through and list them but there's there's a ton um the other thing that we have going on is actually next Wednesday. Um we asked him to look at all of our Neola policy and kind of do an audit of every single policy that we have to know that we are compliant uh with where we need to be. Um so we have two dates um
015set. The first one is going to be Wednesday where we're spending another three to four hours of time going through our policies to make sure everything is up to date. Um so there's kind of two two parts of this. You're getting 17 pages of Neola policy now. We'll approve that at the next meeting, but also look at the next meeting. You're going to have another 17 pages of NEO policy. Uh but you know, the idea is that we get this done before school starts. Um so that uh we we have a clear path of where we're going and he'll make sure we have all the mandatory policies that we need. Correct. Correct. So what you're seeing today is a lot of the new legislation. I think we have a little bit more to go, but
016this is the bulk of it. What you're going to see next time is anything that has been missed over the years because we want to make sure we're we're up to date and then we're going to continue to do that on some kind of rotation like so what they do anytime there there's anything new that comes out they give us so uh Jared and I work very well together on this they send us a uh here's your update right and then we get um I want to say it's two hours from the from Dan our rep um every time they do an update um so as long as we stay compliant with those two hours and those updates, we will be good, right? I just don't know what has happened prior to me if everything
017was was done. Okay. So, that that's what we're revealing. Very typical, Dr. Brown of of them that part of the service they do is as things change, they they're very good about they are very good and now we in in the past we've been very good at following up with something's changed with the state laws and it's been done. So, so if you don't have to unlike a year from now, if you don't have to have a policy, they would catch that, too. They would take it out. And in your packet, you'll see some where where things just got stiped out. You know, this this policy is no longer here. It got moved over here. So, this one is wiped. Um, so yeah, it's it's quite a Okay. extensive monster, so to speak, with everything
018that they do. Any other comments or questions? Hearing on lease and hearing on additional appropriation. The chair will entertain a motion to open the hearing on lease and hearing on additional appropriation. Motion second. All in favor? Any opposed? Public comments regarding hearing on lease and hearing on additional appropriation. Motion motion. The chair will entertain a motion to close the hearing on lease and hearing on additional appropriation. Discussion motion. Second. So, just to kind of give you an update, this is and I'll go through some of these with you guys. This is all the paperwork for the bond, right? This is um comes from uh Baker Billy and Ice Miller and all them. They they arranged this. This is typical protocol anytime we do a bond. This bond is very similar to what you guys did
019back in what 2019 2020 uh for the career center. Um actually it's pretty much identical to that of of what you guys did. Um so it's very as we go through this this is the protocol for it. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Proof of publication. The chair recommends that approve the proofs of publication for the notice of this meeting with respect to the proposed lease and the hearing on additional appropriation of funds published in the leader on May 22nd, 2025. Motion motion. Um second. All all this is is the the receipt that we have sent it in. Um and what they they charge us to this is kind of our way of saying yes, we did publish this um to make it active to the public. All in favor? Any opposed? Resolution authorizing execution
020of lease. Page 49. The chair recommends the board adopt the resolution authorizing execution of lease agreement as listed on page 49. Exhibit A. Motion second. So all this is anytime you you go and get a loan, you gota have a lease against something in the middle school's building that we we did it against last time. Um so this is just saying that we're going to continue to use the middle school as uh as part of the lease. All in favor? I opposed. Resolution additional appropriation. The chair recommends the board adopt the additional appropriation resolution as listed on page 51, exhibit B. Motion. Motion. Second. This is all this is saying is that when you put the middle school building up, um the bond will be for 6.6 million. Um and that's that what this is
021stating is that that's the agreement that that we have. All in favor? Any opposed? Resolution read approving building corporation page 52. The chair recommends the board approve the resignations of the previous building corporation members and approve the reapproving building corporation resolution as listed on page 52 exhibit C. Motion. Motion. Kirk Gary. So, back in 2019, I believe it was when when you guys did this, you had a um a team of three that was kind of the board um that ran ran this lease. Um and we were advised, it's always good to refresh those those people. Um so, what you have here in your packet um is the resation of those three people um who who were on that that committee. Um and then we will be bringing you three new ones here um at
022at the next board meeting um as the new representatives for this. Well, they're already in there. Well, there you go. So, you you the three people are um Jen Condan, Chrissy Linhardt, and Jake McIntyre. So, those are three people that uh will be now part of this team. Um, all in favor? Resolution assigning construction bids and contracts, page 57. The chair recommends the board approve the assigning construction bids and contracts resolution as listed on page 57, exhibit D. Motion. Second ground. What this talks about is kind of the scope of work that we have. The big thing being the H tech, the middle school, and those individual classrooms. Uh we're looking at the bleachers at at the elementary level, you know, and then there's other little projects that we want to do, but this just
023kind of defines the scope of work. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Resolution approving third supplement to master continuing disclosure undertaking page 58. The chair recommends the board approve the resolution approving third supplement to master continuing disclosure undertaking as listed on page 58. Exhibit E. Motion motion. Second. This is kind of the final stamp of approval. That's that that's what that is. All in favor? I opposed. Uh construction update. The superintendent will update the board on the high school construction project. Okay, so uh here we go. See if I can do this. Oh, okay. We're getting somewhere. Um where did my Here it is. Okay. Technology is awesome, right? Hey, look at this. Uh, so what you're looking at here, this is our construction. Um, what we have I can even see. Let me see
024if I can actually move the camera. Oh, look at this. Huh. High-tech stuff. Chris, our our tech is going to be proud of me. Um, not that you can see that exactly, but what you're looking at here, this is on the this is our counselor's office. Uh this is on the north side of the building um where this is the sidewalk. So there used to be the siding right here that is completely ripped off um and into the classroom. We do have the big tarps as you guys drive uh through there and see. But uh we walked through it today. Uh Gary and I walked through it and this is Gary. This is exactly what you see, isn't it? When you when you when you walk through there. They're putting out balcony out there for
025uh Yeah. Yeah. Walk balcony. That would be really nice, right? Just like that. Uh this is again a picture of the north side. You know how they are they're tearing off that sighting. Uh this is a picture of the south side. So this is the roof. You know they had this big big boom lift right here that that had had to come over. This is right on the inside of our classrooms here. Um which I think you'll see in the next photo. Yep. So you can see the glass right now is still in. The plan is for all this glass to come out but they want to wait till the glass people are ready. Uh, but as you can see, I mean, that you walk in those classrooms and you can see right out right
026out the classroom, right onto the football field. That's just a zoomed in picture there um of the construction. They currently are putting the metal studs in u to put the drywall and the new siding on. Uh they're starting on the souththeast side and moving to the southwest side. Um so those brackets are going in. Uh we're right on time with with construction. Again, this is the north side uh classroom. There's a sidewalk right right here. And that's the the top of that awning. Um I think that's Yeah, that's the last one. Um so question for the glass I kept here. Is that just because it's all going to be new like energy efficient glass? Is that I mean still going to be glass, correct? Still going to be glass upgrade. Yep. you know. So, what
027stories stories that we found out um as they were taking off the sighting um it snaps in like you snap in a floor, right? You know, you give it a head and snaps in. Um I apparently there was supposed to be some caul that went down there before they snapped them in. Well, I guess there wasn't any there. Again, that was back from the 70s, you know, so that it is what it is. Uh, but I guess the panels came off very easy. They were expecting them to come off very difficult because of that reason. I guess it's just like taking apart a puzzle. Um, so we are going to be much more energy efficient um with this. The glass will be better. Um, so we're we're excited. We're we're right on target. The plan
028is that this whole south side um the interior walls will be up. It will be drywalled, mudded, taped. the siding will be on it by the time school starts. When school starts, we may have to do some painting still, but we still can have kids in classrooms. Um, and that's the entire south side. Uh, this right here where the counselor's office, this part here, uh, this will be finished up in August. Okay, this is on the north side. Um, so you'll have a couple classrooms here that won't be available along with your counselors. Um, and then once this gets close to being complete in August, they're going to move over to this side. So, we'll have a couple classrooms here that will be down for the month of September, uh, a little bit into October,
029and then by the end of October, these classrooms will be up and running, and they by November won't want to be out of there. Um, so that's kind of the the process. Um, Mr. L's and I, we've already had some conversations about what this looks like, you know, for our our kids and moving teachers around and obviously the teachers are aware of everything. So, uh, as of right now, we're we're in a good spot. We're we're in a good good spot. We're pretty happy with where we're at. Uh they've been working through the heat, you know, which has been been challenging and difficult uh for them. So, uh now, do we have room like for them to be temporarily or that's what you guys are? Yes. No, we we we have room for them to
030be we have a couple empty classrooms. Um I think we have three empty classrooms anyways. Um where we can move move people around as needed. Um, so that's that's not a that's not a problem because that's roughly you'll have the whole southside will be ready and there's roughly about three classrooms there that that we'll have to adjust and move and um we're we're okay on on rooms for everybody and the the glass. So I'm assuming that you know because with safety nowadays like they recommend not a whole lot of glass but I'm assuming that this is probably I mean obviously better than what we did have. Correct. Correct. This is, you know, it's that shatterproof stuff that, you know, and it is a bulletproof. I I can't I don't know. Um, but it it is
031better glass and it is that spider glass that, you know, like like your windshield. If you hit your windshield, it'll spider. It just won't crack out everywhere. Okay. Yeah. Any other comments, questions? Okay, that's exciting. Public comments. on items not on the agenda. The board president will entertain comments from patrons on items not on the agenda. Have any so comments or questions from administrators and the board? I just want to uh wish Mr. Crom the best. Miss short. Great. That's all. Dr. Brown, I'm good. Still still sunshine over there. Doing my best. Autumn. Uh, welcome aboard. Uh, and uh, when he says that, uh, the building, uh, uh, will be ready. I'll believe it when I see it. So, that's all I have. Yeah, that's that's the plan, right? Um, I just want to thank
032you, Chris. It sounds like it was a smooth um transition and I'm sure that it still will be with with the new director. So, thank you very much for stepping up and and doing all that time. My pleasure. Um and then thank you too for participating in the family day this weekend. That was nice to school day. Oh, I'm probably nice for you. You're always free. It's a little too much. I did the don't take at the fair. Don't Don't take at the fair. Uh, it was actually really fun. It was really fun. I I you know, I enjoyed that, right? It was good. It was good to see the kids and the parents and all that, but what I enjoyed even more was just walking around the fair, seeing all the kids, seeing their
033projects. You know, I walked through each individual building. I saw our kids and and you know, whether it was a Lego or quilt that they made or whatever. I mean, it it was really fun to see um all of their projects um the the animals that that they have, you know, and again, you develop that bond and that um relationship with those kids that you come in contact with over there because now you got a you got a talking point with them, you know. So, uh as much as fun as the dunk tank was, which went over very well, um it was just as fun to see everything that was going on. It was nice to see some teachers volunteer as well. Yes. Yes. That's all I got. Okay. So, I have two items for
034the board. The first is I need to inform you that we will hold a public hearing uh concerning the ED flex waiverss. We did this last year in November. It's annual now, but the state has decided the deadline is July 30th for me to submit everything. And they just sent this out in time for me to announce that we're having this on July 21st. So that's where parents, educators, and any other interested community stakeholders will have an opportunity to comment on the waivers. We will be requesting once again two waivers. We are required to request waiver number two, and I'll go into it more next time, but just to let you know, that's for our pair of professionals to be highly qualified. And to do that, they have to go through special training. So I
035will talk to you about that. The other one is for the title four grant and again I'll explain more but that is so we can use our money. There are three focus areas they're called. If you get a waiver you can use it the money in only two of the three waiverss which is what we're going to request. So this is just an official announcement which we have to do an upload to the state documentation that I announced this that we're having the hearing and at the hearing we'll open it up and comments will come and then that will also be uploaded. So that's the first item. The second item I we received apparently our AP scores. Now, I haven't received them all cuz I just heard today apparently your son did quite well. He
036did statistics, but I haven't received those. I have only received the AP English scores. And I would like to present those to you tonight to tell you that um this is for AP English. If you remember from before, you can score a student scores a 1, two, three, four, five. Any student who scores a three, four or five can earn college credit. So rather important. And we had 16 students take the test. We have 14 of 16 who now can receive college credit. That is phenomenal. And much congratulations to the students and to Mrs. Mattisac. Michelle Mattisac is our AP English teacher. Um she didn't know I was going to present those tonight, but she always shares them with us. So that is great. Additionally, for one of the first times for AP English, there
037are three content areas, three domains. In all three of those, it was poetry analysis, pros fiction analysis, and literary argument. Our students, Knox students, scored above both the Indiana and the global average scores. That is huge. It is that student. So I wanted to present the good news to you. Thank you. The because those teachers to do that they have to take additional schooling, right? Yes. Between AP and dual credit. Yes. Not just anyone can teach that course. For AP you have to have the additional training. Dual credit you have to have your masters and additional training from the university. So yeah. So so we're blessed. We're blessed that we have people who are still certified. Shall I say that's the that's that's going to be, you know, we struggle in those areas as people
038retire because the younger teachers do not have to have a master's degree like in my day. We older ones had we were required that. So, so to actually and you have to keep it up. It's not you just get your masters. Oh, now do dual credit. You have to go through enough hours to up that and they do that on their own. So, kudos to all of you. Yes. So, that's much appreciated. So, okay. You're up. That's it. All right. Fair enough. Um, Miss Code, I just want to again thank you. You've been phenomenal on this. You're not going anywhere. Uh, you're still going to be involved in uh some of the process that's going on, but um I can't thank you enough personally for what you did for us um during that transition period.
039Uh you were phenomenal and I just I just want to tell you thank you. Thank you. You too. My pleasure. I do it for my people. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Um what I want to touch on with you guys is our strategic plan. I don't want to forget about this. I want to keep this this moving forward with us. Um, and I kind of want to talk about where we've been over the last past six six months or so. I'll give you back in a minute after I read it. Um, where we've been, you know, we started this process in January. Um, and we really started working on our kind of our collective norms, right? Our school board collective norms. What do we believe in as a board? Um, and we identified five things, right? Prioritizing
040student success. That is number one. That's where we want where we want to put our focus on. Um, uphold fiscal responsibility. Focus on governance, not management. Maintain professionalism in all interactions and positive active or excuse me, practice active listening. There you go. Sorry, I stole those from you. Um, so we really focused on those for about the first three months or so. Um, and then we turned our attention to to really three parts. Our goals, our vision, and our mission. Um and as you guys saw in your notes, um we really we set on we wanted academic goals and we really wanted to challenge our teachers, our admin and our students um to improve, right? That's really the conversations that that we had. We know that 3 to 5% ideally each year is good if
041you can make that grow. Um and we kind of wanted to to reach for the stars with that with that 5%. Right? So I I do want to read these goals. are not set in stone yet, but this is what what we're what we're presenting. Uh the first one is the percentage of Knox students in grades 3 through 8 who demonstrate proficiency on the ILR ELA assessment will increase from 33% in the spring of 25 to 48% in the spring of 28. Right? We want we want we have three-year goals, right? Ideally, three to five year goals is where we want want to be. Um, so these are kind of these three-year goals that we want a 5% increase uh each year. The second one is percentage of Knox students in grades three through eight
042will demonstrate proficiency on the I learn math assessment going from 37% in the spring of 25 which is now to 52% in the spring of 28. And then the last one is the percentage of Knox students in grade 11 who demonstrate proficiency on the SAT math assessment uh will go from 10% to 25%. Again, it's 5% each school year by 2028. Um, so those are we have to we're very close to those. If we want to refine them, we we can, but that decision needs to be made here so we can get that information out to our to our admin team. Uh, we talked about our our vision statement um, you know, of what that looks like. Where we're at right now is KCSC will be the school corporation of choice, setting the standard for
043excellence in every endeavor. We will lead the way and redefine what's possible to make success our trai our tradition. Um so that's I like where we're at with that. If there's anything that you guys want to tweak, you know, let's have that conversation again. That's something that I would like to um have in stone here um before school starts. And the last big thing we have to do is the mission. I'm not going to go over that right now, but make sure you guys read your notes on that. I do want to have a good healthy discussion um here in the future of of what that looks like um from your guys's perspective. Um and again, I would love to have that in place by the time school starts here. So, we we'll have to
044do some conversation here at the next um probably have a little work session or something after the next meeting. Uh but in the meantime, um think about what that looks like for you guys. Okay. Any questions about the strategic plan that we have? I am good. Okay. Second favor. All in favor? All right. Thank you guys. Appreciate it.