001thank you all right this time we'll go into public comments we have one person signed up to speak I'm Stephanie York good evening my name is Stephanie y i a teacher at Bailey Elementary School I currently teach kindergarten and have been with the district for 12 years I'm attending this meeting and speaking up about concerns I have in regards to the two e-learning days that we have to complete every week when I first went into education I always said I will never get into the politics of Education I will stick to the four walls of my classroom and just worry about what happens in my classroom boy was I so naive I understand the situation our district is facing when it was mentioned in the spring of last year that we were expected to do
002two days of e-learning I told my husband well this is it I'm going to have to leave the district that I am in it was my husband who told me that I should really tough it out and wait and see because he knew how much I loved it here and how much I would regret my decision so just as we do with family we stick it out the tough times and we try to push it through I love working with the families of this city and I love working with their kids so I just said we have to get over this little bump I'm just very curious though as to why the teachers were not asked about recommendations for what we could could do to help for this upcoming school year then when suggestions were
003brought up we were told the deadline has passed and we can't submit a change what was the time frame and why couldn't the teachers families and administration for the Lake Station families have an open for to discuss these concerns and see if we could reach a resolution there are so many conversations we could have had to discuss possible solutions to make this easier on the families teachers and most importantly the kids I also want to mention the number of hours that these children are required by the state of Indiana to sit in front of a computer I made the comment to another teacher that we would be livid if we heard a parent say yes I allow my kid to watch TV for seven hours or play on their iPad for six hours we would
004be so mad about that it is hard as a teacher to keep 155 year olds engaged and actively listening and participating through a computer for that length of time I can't control the events that are taking place in their home and I can't monitor their level of understanding or provide feedback the way a 5-year-old needs to hear it it doesn't matter how many breaks I give them and trust me I give them a lot of breaks these kids are not motivated to learn through a screen I am the first experience of school for most of these kids and they are already hating school I have parents telling me they are crying when we come back from lunch because they just want to be in school how am I supposed to explain that to a 5-year-old
005that this is what school's supposed to be like for two days a week please I encourage one of you to come to my classroom and explain this to them because I can't this isn't what school is meant to me to be we learn from covid that virtual learning is not effective I mean you all are grown adults and you're sitting on a board and you're expected to listen to me for three minutes do you you remember every word I said can you recite any word for word what I said I don't mean that to be disrespectful I'm just really trying to make this an eye openening experience for you guys I really hope that in November the ref the referendum passes for the sake of our Lake Station kids the teachers of Lake station are
006being made to feel like constant failures since we are unable to reach our students like we would in a regular setting they deserve better than this because I sincerely can't keep doing it through a computer screen thank you um I understand it's a little unorthodox to respond to the public comments right away like this but I would like to take this opportunity to respond first of all thank you so much for coming tonight and for sharing your comments secondly I understand yeah of course yeah of course um so naturally this is not what we want to be doing for our children um some of the decisions that were made for it are in part because we had to give a certain amount of notice before we could cancel Transportation because there had to be a
007two-year notice before we could cancel transportation and with just to be on the safe side if the referendum were not to be continued we had to put that in place then financially speaking I understand that ma' it sounds like your concern is more towards the state than us listen well and if if I can yes and if I can if I can finish explaining I'll I'll no it doesn't but what I wanted to explain is that in case the referendum failed in case we couldn't get it to continue we had to put that notice in place two years ago because otherwise the alternative would be to have waited until November of last year to see if the referendum passed and then start the notice now which then would mean that we would be legally required
008to provide transportation with no funding to do [Music] so the meeting it was a public meeting and publicly posted man I understand your frustration believe me I don't I I don't want to we don't want to make these types of decisions I have I have three kids in the schools myself that take I I have three kids in the schools that take the bus this is not what I want to be doing okay if I could interrupt for just a minute this really isn't not meant to be a question and answer session and you know we're happy to respond to some of these things but the bottom line is this every month we have meetings we've had meetings for as long as I have been representing these this board and long before that once a
009month at a minimum since Co these meetings have been broadcast online to where if you are working you can watch them at a time that's that you're available we are required to give the public information and how we do it is through these meetings we've this was something that was voted on two years ago in a public meeting that meeting was broadcast you know this has been something that has been discussed meeting after meeting after meeting in the financial meetings that we have so you know it's unfortunate that some members of the community are saying we didn't know we're trying to let you know and how we let you know is through these meetings and we're giving you every opportunity to see the meeting you can watch the meeting in the middle of the night
010if that's what your schedule allows ma'am well I I no and I and I completely understand that but what I also want to point out is that we didn't just vote on it two years ago and never talk about it again we we we well right we well and if you don't mind I just I just want to explain a couple of things just to give a better understanding of what's going on a little bit too so part of the reason for the change to e-learning also and not just allowing the kids in the school building five days a week regardless of our transportation sit situation currently is that requirement for the two-year notice so if we were to allow kids into the schools five days a week or if we required it we would
011be breaching that notice so that is the reason for the the e-learning because we can't require kids to be in school five days a week but not provide transportation or not no we did not no we did not that is that is not what he said you're not understanding and you know we we gave the notice for cutting Transportation two years ago as the law requires the decision to change to the two days e-learning was just made recently in the last few months here while we you know were trying to figure out what we could do with the money that we have available and with what remaining referendum funds we have until the end of the year because starting next year we have no referendum funds and that's why we made the cut so that
012we can afford to provide that Transportation through February where we won't have referendum money to do so no we did not no we had a we we it gets spent every year to operate the schools there's no there's no savings account there's no extra money it all gets spent on Transportation is about $850,000 a year is that 800,000 $800,000 a year the referendum brings in roughly 1.3 million so the referendum money it's not broken up this way we had to budget it out there's a whole plan for it that we have to present for how the the funds are used each year but just to lay it out here in a way that I think is easier to understand is that almost the entire referendum money is used up could be used up by transportation
013and nip go alone so when we lose a million and a half dollars almost and we have to figure out what we need to do that's that's where the difficult decisions come at so come February when we can cut Transportation entirely if the referendum does not pass children will be back in school 5 days a week with no Transportation if it doesn't passes we will cut transportation in February entirely for our general education students but the kids will be in school five days a week at that time well support the referend hopefully in November and and I and I'll be happy to help you out with that too absolutely right and and we do have well and we do you can't you can't do that to the children and right and and this is why
014I encourage you all whether you're sitting here today or whether you're listening online or going to watch it at another time to to watch these meetings come to the meetings be informed because if you are not informing yourself or in it if you are not allowing yourself to take in the information that we are giving within the parameters that we're allowed to give it because we cannot give it home in the book bag the school the state law doesn't allow that we have parameters and things that we can do we're going to have meetings coming special meetings in September special meetings in October a few different times we'll advertise those you can come they'll be broadcast online if you if if you're working and you don't have the opportunity to come we're going to give
015you every opportunity to just like we always do to continue to inform yourselves well and and I'll tell you right now too obviously we have other business that we have to get to tonight as well but if you have a few minutes after the meeting I'll gladly stop and take some time I have some paperwork here that I could show you some things too so I can explain it to you uh it is not our intention to make uh the the people of this city make a decision without information of course and I'm happy to provide as much as I can and explain it to you more in detail um that's super job yeah we we we cannot be distributed at school it's against the law you're you're upset with us because we're not breaking
016the law we can't break the law you said that's well as board members we have talked about the referendum meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting for years that's again you're upset with us because you didn't know you you needed to educate yourself on that okay so with that being said and I'm not trying to be disrespectful if you're taking it that way it's your responsibility as a parent to know what's going on within your child of the school and the school meetings and all that that's your responsibility I'm not gonna I shouldn't have to go to every door and knock on there and say hey we're having a meeting tomorrow there's a school website that post it we have talked about the referendum for at this point years because we
017talked about it previously when it fa failed last time if we've talked about it all year this year all year last year we've given as much as a notice as everything that they possibly can of the referendum and of these meetings they're publicly posted on the website you can't you say you work at dangerous well then you're not looking at it so you say you work 12 hours I'm in the same page I work you work a dangerous job so do I but I'm here person and when I can't be I'm online you have to do your part you can't be mad at us because you're not doing your part our meetings are the third Wednesday of every month at 7 p.m without fail there might be one or two that are are different but
018the entire year that's what they are um Miss TOA could you identify yourself because a lot of people online wouldn't know who you are sure I'm Tara Tober I'm an attorney with Tober law offices and I have represented the school board in the district for many years and so like I said I I know we have other things we have to take care of but like I said if you can stick around a little bit after the meeting I want to go over it with you and fill you in okay okay at this time I'm gonna turn the me to Dr CRI okay thank you Mr President good evening everyone thank you for coming to tonight's meeting and those of you watching us online thank you for watching us online we have to do basically
019two meetings tonight so let me explain what we're doing for tonight's meetings we are going to put the scho board meeting on pause for a moment because by state law we need to do a public Hearing in regards to collective bargaining negotiating with our teachers the teachers contract has expired this past June so we need to meet to renegotiate that teachers contract in the coming months before we can engage in formal negotiations with the teachers we need to have public hearing so we'll pause the Schoolboard meeting for that purpose at this time I'd like to introduce to everyone this evening Mrs Cynthia mcnight who serves as the president of our teachers union and she will join me at the table for our public hearing okay we'll call the public hearing to order at this particular
020time the purpose of the meeting we will talk about and explain to everyone right now with Mrs mcnight beginning that narrative for us okay thank you uh Dr cripper and I would like to take this opportunity to um welcome everybody to this public hearing the purpose of this hearing as Dr kpp said is for the school corporation and the Teachers Association to take public testimony on the subject of teachers bargaining these topics do include teacher salaries teachers wages and teachers fringe benefits which include accident sickness Health dental vision life disability coverage retirement retirement benefits and paid time off as permitted by the bargaining unit or bargaining under Indiana code 20 28- 9-11 thank you Mrs M uh this is a time that is not a question and answer session rather it is a time to
021provide the opportunity to our public to give input as to the topics of teacher bargaining anyone wishing to make a comment May stand and do so at this time once yes thank you I understand thank you for your comment anyone else have additional comments pertaining to collective bargaining the teachers and the administration School Board going twice three times all right thank you for coming to participate in the public hearing and we will at this time adjourn the public hearing in and resume our school board meeting at this time thank you okay Mr President if I may continue yes always do we will begin the school board business at hand this evening M oh um I have it streaming on line as well just to make sure there are a lot of people saying that they
022can't hear I don't know if there's a a volume adjustment or something we can do just reading the comments that's all no I appreciate that we'll see if we can make those adjustments so our audience can hear so I appreciate that thank you okay we will begin with our consent agenda this evening under under the consent agenda we have approved approval of minutes Financial fiscal extracurricular resignations extracurricular hirings and donations and at this time I would recommend to the board that they approve the consent agenda as presented this evening Dr CRI could you read off the donations please yes thank you under donations I would like to recognize and express our sincere appreciation for the donations that are being made this evening to the varsity football program those donations are coming from Glass City of
023$500 an anonymous donor is making a donation of $624 N3 Dean orange Auto is making a donation of $300 Luna local 81 is making a donation of $500 and Al alusa and I apologize if I mispronounce that name is making a donation of $100 and we greatly appreciate our community members and our community businesses for supporting our football program as well as our schools and our athletic programs thank you Dr ker have you heard the recommendation Mr chairman make a motion to we pass moot have a motion to accept do we have a second second motion a second is there any discussion on the items he we'll take the vote Mr Bigs hi Miss Curtis hi Mr music hi Mr Wright hi and I vote I going on to items and the Personnel I'm recommending
024to the board regretfully that we accept the resignations of the following staff members Jessica camer Title One facilitator Susie Daniels health assistant Robert Ashby a fourth grade teacher and Amelia Thurman our band director Bo pleasure so move second motion a second for a discussion um obviously uh hate to see any of our teachers go um this has been a tough year for it obviously um I wish them well in their future endeavors of course though um and uh as usual hopefully we can get things on track here and uh you know get some get some more attaction in the right direction so thank you Mr music any other discussion take a vote Mr BS hi Miss Curtis hi Mr music hi Mr R hi and I vote I item number two I recommend to the
025board they approved to hire the following Lake Station police officers as our SRO for the 2425 school year those officers are James Richardson stepen Peak Noah friselle Angelo rera leis Flores Luke Shaw Daniel Perryman Kyle Olen Isaac agular and Jesus Alvarez so Mo motion second we have a second second yes any discussion take to vote Mr Bigs hi M Curtis hi Mr music hi Mr Wright hi and you vote and I vote I I I saying about the buying I can ask you is the buying better now they are saying okay great all right that's where my thought went I'm sorry thanks the third item under Personnel I'm recommending to the board this evening they approve to hire the following staff members Angela Krueger fourth grade teacher at Bailey Andrea defier fourth grade teacher at
026Hamilton Elementary and ginger Bailey instructional support specialist Angela we're putting over at Bailey recommendation so move second motion and we have a second by somebody any discussion on the item take the vote Mr Bigs hi M Curtis hi Mr music hi Mr Wright I and I vot I there you there item number four I'm recommending to the board this evening that they approv to hire the following PA professional staff and I'm pleased to say that these uh PR professionals that are listed this evening with the exception of one has been a pair professional in our school district working with our students and working with our teachers and only because of increased funding in title one which is a federally funded program are we able to do this and I'm I'm very very pleased to be
027able to bring these pray professionals back in our district working in our schools those pair of professionals are Stacy jimie Sher Kennedy Ivon McClendon Kathy langman Samantha Hudak Alexandria day Teresa alorn and the newest pair of professional to join that list is Chastity Martin I recommend to the board that they we approve hiring these par professionals Mr chairman I make a motion to we accept we have a motion to accept do we have a second second motion the seconds or any discussion um yeah briefly as uh Dr KP liver had mentioned um this is as a result of Title One funding so it is a federally funded program um this is something that I mentioned a while back on social media if you noticed any of my comments there is that we were going to
028look and see how many of our PA of professionals we would be able to bring back or hire new ones based on that title one funding which obviously we didn't get until closer to the the start of the school year so that's why we are able to bring them back and bring someone else on and my understanding is that we are looking for more as well because the title One funds are there for it and we want our teachers to get as much support in the classroom as possible so yeah I was GNA say how how glad I am that um that we are hired the prayer professionals they're so important in the classrooms um they're basically the teachers right right hand and uh they're almost like another teacher of classroom I'm very glad we
029have them but I'm also going to take an opportunity here talk about school financing because it's very confusing you have all different kinds of pies that you can only use money out of that pie for certain things Title One is federal money you only use for Title One funds operational that's our buses our superintendents our maintenance a bunch of other stuff have the educational fund our teacher salars and so forth and then people asking why we able to redo the track those were federal funds from es basically Co funds that could only be used for maintenance we could not use that for busing so you know all these pieces of pots that we have of money can only be used for certain things that's why sometimes you can hire per professionals but you can't have
030get busing so I I just want to make that clear why some things get paid or hired or redone because the money comes out of different pots and you can't combine them and and there and and if I can add to that when you receive federal dollars from the government if you do not use them in the way that the Federal government says You must that's just money that's free money that's lost and so we had this money that was expiring and it had to be utilized by a particular date otherwise it was just going to fly out the window so you have to use it you you'd be silly not to in a way that's prescribed by the federal government and this the redoing the track was one of the things that we could
031have used that money we to give the money back we could not use it for transportation or teacher Sals or for just a moment going back to the title One funds and you know partially with our pair professionals here the other thing to keep in mind is that Title One funds have a few different uses that they can be used for and by using the title One funds for our pair of professionals that's kind of we're shifting some of what we would have used it for towards bringing those people back so it's there's a give and take to all of this and you know for example something like the referendum where it does help us fund our schools we could we could bring people on board with using referendum funds and that title one money
032could have been used somewhere else so that's the the the the tug-of-war we're playing with the finances and where they come from and how they have to be used so uh keep that in mind as well when when we make some of these decisions it's about where we can use it and what we should use it on what's going to be the most impactful but there's always a trade-off there's something that we could be missing out on because of the decisions we have to make to to shore us up in one way or another thank you Mr M any other comments yeah our hand our hands are tied where we can only use money certain places everybody thinks it's one big pot and we just draw from that that's not the way it works the
033state's got it set up to where you got different separate funds for different things you cannot cross Mr pigs any other comments we Tak a vote Mr pigs hi Miss Curtis hi Mr music hi Mr Right hi and I vote I we be on to items under new business item number one I'm recommending to the board this evening that they approve board policy 6325 titled procurement in regards to federal grants and federal funds and I'm recommending to the board that they approve policy 32201 titled teacher appreciation Grant and these policies are annually reviewed and annually voted upon by the board at this seat tonight I'm recommending to the board approval of these two policies for the superintendent's recom recommendation move we have a second M K can have the move I'll take the second thank
034you any discussion on the items take the vote Mr Bigs hi M Curtis hi Mr music hi Mr Wright hi can I vote I we have a facility request for the board to consider this evening and that request is coming from the Civil Air Patrol to use Edison Junior Senior High School gym track and classroom on Tuesday evenings between August 27th and June 4th 2025 from the hours of 6: PM to 900 p.m the Civil Air Patrol this would be their fourth year of using our facilities here at Edison Junior Senior High School they have been good partners and good positive relationships with the Air Patrol leadership and those Civil Air Patrol Cadets that have participated in that program so at this time I would recommend the board approval so move second I have a
035motion and second any discussion vote Mr Bigs hi M Curtis hi Mr music hi Mr wght hi and I vot I Mr President that is all the business at hand for the board for this evening I do want to announce to our audience online as well as here this evening that our next school board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday September 18th here Edison Junior Senior High School in the community room and that meeting will start at 7 pm thank you Mr President thank you Dr k Mr BS have any paron comments yeah uh thank you Mr Stover for hosting us again uh I need the public in the audience out there too in the on our web page but I need people to understand that we're doing the best we can do with the funding
036that we receive it's not like we make decisions we want to make it's because we have to make the state law makes you follow their order that's all I got to say I just want everybody to realize we're doing the best with your funds Financial money as best we can thank you thank you Mr B Curtis yeah excuse me well Miss York I agree with you uh it was well done I don't know if I could get up and make those statements like you did tell your husband that you um absolutely are un Target about your concerns and you have a right to be as an employee for parents uh thank you very much for your comments I hope we can come to some understanding about our struggle and how to communicate with you more
037and and the parameters and what we can do to help you get all the information that you need so we've had previous comments about our transportation 32 we've had uh individuals stand up and say it's not data driven I'm telling you a lot of work went in so that we could take our time and look as a board on our decision it wasn't done lightly we didn't capriciously just throw it out there to inconvenience teachers and parents it was done for a specific reason and I think that as a community we'll be more knowledgeable about this vote coming up so I appreciate the time to make that statement and this is lovely to have people in the audience I know it's under strenuous circumstances um it's under circum ances that I would like to have
038go away but we as a community have to work these details out and we can do it we can absolutely come in from the teachers union perspective Administration perspective parent perspective and individual desires to get this resolved I did post onb on and I didn't just invite just the school I invited the whole city okay it's not just about us it's kids absolutely everybody in the so it's not just school yeah I agree with that wholeheartedly thank you very much and this gentleman hopefully will be able to answer all of the minute questions that you have that's a little bit beyond what I've taken the time to look at the only thing that I've looked at is the the property tax environment of our family but he in his discussions has talked about other families
039and other situations so he's helping educate me as well thank you thank you Mr mus um so yeah a few things that I want to address obviously circling back for just a moment um on why the students can't be in the classroom so again you know this is partially because of you know the legal requirement for the notice um it's also you know the transportation decision in general was also made in part due to us wanting to keep as many teachers as possible because obviously I mean e-learning is hard enough as it is imagine e-learning with you know 30 or 40 kids in a classroom you know um so that was part of it too we wanted to keep as many teachers as possible um so that was part of the financial decision behind that
040as well um once again you know we had to give as much notice of the two-year notice and that's why we've kind of had to go with this hybrid situation for right now um I will reiterate I've said this a bunch of times already before but if the referendum is uh if it passes in November we will be getting right back to the five-day Transportation as quickly as possible obviously probably won't be the exact same week that the the referendum passes but within you know I would hope you know the next week or two afterwards we'd be back to five-day Transportation as quickly as possible um there is another note on Transportation with when when it comes to special education students so um if their IEP requires that they receive transportation we are required by
041federal law to provide it tell what IEP is uh so I don't know as much about IEPs but it's a plan it's a plan it is a plan for you know student that we must follow to yeah individual educational plans um I I you know as far as that goes there's different different verions of an IEP but if if their's requires that they receive transportation we are required by federal law to provide it so that's part of the reason why we've had to make the adjustments on Transportation as well is because we still have to provide that Transportation even if our funding gets cut in half and now we have to figure out how we can juggle things to make sure we're still providing those those students that are required to have transportation that Transportation
042so that was another part of it as well um couple of other things that pop up a a little bit here and there so I wanted to mention them is um I've seen a few people online that are mentioning you know their opposition to the referendum and such and they don't actually pay our referendum so I want you to make sure that you you know if you have a question about you know what school district you're in you may be living in Lake Station but you could be in the River Forest school district and you're paying a different referendum so um that's just kind of a general you know knowledge thing there so if you have any questions about about it I'm more than happy to to help point you in the right direction to
043make sure you know which referendum you're paying because honestly at this point you know most there's plenty of schools in the area uh in Lake County that have referenda in place so it's not just here um but just so just so you're aware of your own tax situation if you have any questions about that I'm happy to help you know point that out to you I know sometimes it could be our school district layout between River Forest and Lake Station it's a little bit of a weird map so um it can be a little hard to read at times but I'm happy to help if I can um but please make sure that you know if if if you are you know a part of the River Forest School District understand that you will not
044be paying the Lake Station referendum on top of the River Forest referendum uh I I've seen some concern about that as well um other than that Tara Tara also mentioned that we do have these meetings every uh third Wednesday of the month at 7 o'clock so please make sure you you know catch them online obviously they're on the Facebook page so you can catch them after the fact too so please you know show up or log in or watch it the next day or something like that um also you know make sure that uh you know you go online and check your voter registration um you have to be registered by October 7th I believe to be able to vote in this election and you know vote in favor of the referendum ideally um we
045really want to get back to normal for these kids that's what they deserve and that's what we're here to do is you know provide the best learning opportunities and experience for the kid for the kids so um please you know again if you catch me online or something like that um you know you can always ask a question and I'll do my best to answer and then like I said if you want to stick around for a few minutes I would be happy to explain some things and help you out with that thank you thank you Mr music start uh yeah Mr thanks for hosting us and everybody in attendance and online uh thank you for joining us um as it was stated earlier you know it's for the whole community that is absolutely right
046I would love to have to move these meetings to a much larger room I'd love to have to have it in the auditorium I'd love to see hundreds of people here asking us these questions um they they're great questions to be asked so uh I think everybody up here is for that um the donators I just want to send a special shout out to you guys thank you so much for donating to our um I believe it's the football team correct our football team um welcome to the new teachers and staff that we have and welcome back so Air Patrol it's awesome to see you guys in uh Miss York that is correct right thank you for your comments it takes a lot to stand up in front of a room um and in front
047of a community and and and speak your mind um I agree it it's not easy it's not fun and when we all had to vote on this uh we were we all had the same thing in our head and I apologize that it puts you in a hard spot I really do I wish there was a an easier answer unfortunately with everything that was thrown at us um at that time this is just what was decided was the best option was it a good option no it was just the best option at the time so I apologize that your job is not as fun or as easy um or as awarding as it should be and I hope it gets easier for you effective as well yes absolutely um again I just want to jump
048back a little bit I know it's almost like a [Music] um a record here but the referendum has been talked about for years um it if if you don't or haven't heard us talking about the referendum in the last two years you haven't done your part um we talk about it every meeting it's online plastered everywhere it's on Facebook plastered everywhere uh board members are active on Facebook we comment back as much as we can excuse me as much as we can so to say that we haven't put the information out there um it's not true um we have to do our part as a community it's not just people who are in this in the school as a community to make our community that we live in the best community possible and everybody will
049tell you when you go to move to a community one of the first things you look at are the schools strong schools make a strong Community a well-funded school is going to make a strong School the referendum will put us back into that position of being a well-funded school the State continuously and year after year they come to us with cuts here and cuts there and it's like again like like Mr music said we are not the only school on a referendum there are Mr cripp are you aware of how many just in our area are lo I mean numbers I mean I I don't know even know if that's a number you could know to be honest with you there's a lot there's a lot of schools that are on referendum um our our
050neighbor schools River Forest they're on a referend like it's it's it's a common thing now um and unfortunately it has to be common because that's the only way schools are being funded anymore so please come out to our meetings come out to we're gonna have special meetings like it was mentioned earlier that are going to be speaking just facts and and educate people on just a referendum September and October we're gonna have quite a few is that correct yes that's correct so again that'll be posted on the website we cannot send it home with your kids cannot do that ma'am I am I apologize if you think I'm bashing you okay I am not it was mentioned to send the information home with the children I was just reminding that we cannot do that if
051somebody you're fine for problem when ites everybody information properly and I understand that but there's there's parameters we have to the only reason I was mentioned that again was not personal to anybody but if somebody heard that online earlier saying send it home with the kids and they did not hear that we cannot do that that's all that is for there are more people than just this room right now that are that are in attendance of this meeting um if anybody thinks we can send this information home to your children we cannot do that um please come out support your schools support your community and let's grow as a whole that is all I have thank you very much Cas it's my turn um just the the whole thing about the two-year busing we have
052to give two years notice before we can stop busing okay we did it two years ago just in case referendum failed and unfortunately he did so it's not like we really planned for it or wanted it but we knew we would not have the money if the referendum failed so we actually did our due diligence in a way two years ago and said hey if that referendum fails we will not have the money for busing uh Tammy I'm going to throw you on the bus here a minut or ask you a hard question hope you know the answer you don't just tell me so our we have four basically three budgets right we got title funds we have an education bud and an operating fund the operating fund is our administrative staff's uh salaries and
053benefits our our uh maintenance our custodians Mr President if I could interrupt and answer that question because I'm probably doing something wrong no you're doing fine the operation fund and and in the title of its name is really what it is and operates the schools and that's the fund that we're asking for a referendum to help support and that operating fund pays for transportation bus replacement capital projects Capital Improvements repairs and maintenance the school administration Center the business office Human Resources custodial staff maintenance and grounds utility bills nipco water bill property Fleet and liability insurance for the school district and for the school board and those are the only things that can be paid out of the operation fund that also is the only fund that is property or property tax supported so when we
054talk about the education fund there is no property taxes that you pay that go into the education fund that fund is 100% supported by the state of Indiana the operations fund that's supported by local property taxes and that's the fund that due to circuit breakers property tax credits to the tax creditor or to the taxpayer it's the same thing just different terminology and to the 1% 2% and 3% increases in your net assessed evaluation all of those come into play in funding the operations fund and that's why we need an operating referendum to help supplement that fund it's not a windfall it's not extra money it's simply replacing money that the state has taken away from the schools and the majority of our school districts in Northwest Indiana have operating referendums Chesterton has two of
055them monster has more than three referendums communities in our central part of our state that are considered affluent communities such as Fishers Hamilton Southeastern School District they ran a referendum for the very first time last year carel a very affluent Community as one has considered it they ran a referendum last year so it isn't just small school districts or tiny districts it isn't based on poverty or enrollment or city size it's simply how the state has chosen to fund public schools and I'll be the one to tell you it's inadequate and it's unfair well that's cripper I could have said better myself by the way but but Tammy the question I was getting back to is so we but when the money comes in is this is your education fund this is your operating funds
056what have we been receiving the last couple years in our operating fund that we get from the state approximately I mean don't hold it to the penny or this is for approximation please well the last six years of our referendum our entire tax levy which is dollars we receive in the operating fund are are taken up by the circuit breaker meaning we receive zero property tax dollars in our operating fund for six years so the referendum that 54 cents per 100 dollar net assessed value was chosen specifically to subsidize that exact amount that we lose and our tax L and the operation so we get zero I thought it was we received zero property but how much we actually get almost per year in our operating fund from the exis and some other things there's
057exis there's a approximately I know one year is 150,000 right it depends but anywhere from 100,000 to about $300,000 a year our operating budget is $3.2 million that's what we need to run it so what we normally do is we take 15% out of the education fund because we're allowed to do that not a anyen more we put it in the operating fund referendum fund referendum money we put them together and that's our $3.2 million that we need to run the operating without that we're expect to do it with $150,000 to make a $3.2 million operation fund work that's what we're dealing with I just want to explain that to you that that's how difficult it is and I hate that we have to take 15 out of the education fund that should be more
058for our teachers and and so forth but that's where the facts are that that's what we have to do if we had more funding from the state we wouldn't have to do that the the education fund would have all that money and our operation fund would be fully funded by the state but it is not that's just the fact of it and uh we're trying to do our best we can with that so Mr y thank you for your comments is my grandkid in your class yes he is I've seen some of your classes you you do very well yeah and the everybody knows I have four kids at home e-learning so again I have some skin and that call it four kids and I'm usually watching two younger kids so there it's chaotic M
059house I know I want this over as much as anybody in the public I four kids e-learning it's it's it's rough good news is you do the meth I think there's only 20 e-learning days at this passes so believe me I know it's rough I know it's rough on everybody it's rough on me too and know I had to support because you hear the numbers there just really wasn't any other option for us and again that's why we did the whole two years ago if the F pass we we will have we're g to do busing we just can't I was just not there so um but anyway um yes ma'am go ahead to the school on Tuesdays and Thursdays on those days no M it comes back to what K was started talking about
060the law if we if we allow that then technically we're not busing them so somebody could seal us and saying they they able to go to school come get my kids or you're not busing if we allow we allow have some to come then we we we could get sued for not busing kids because you were in school learning and they had to e-learn because we wouldn't bus them and then we get Su I know it's conf I know yeah just got to be fair across the board for all all the so but um the referendum is coming U we we're getting the campaign mobilized and uh there will be a lot of information forthcoming and I sure hope everybody will uh support it because you see the numbers and there are people out there
061who will put Mis information on the internet like they really know what they're talking about and they don't I really wish they' come here and ask questions but they don't um so I'll leave that to somebody else to discuss um the other thing I want to mention is that we're still providing breakfast and lunch that's you know parents that have kids that need F they don't have money to pay for food then they don't have money to for gas H maybe I understand I understand some some are Walkers some are I I get it but yeah I know it's it's not perfect it's definitely lot a lot that I'm concerned this of it's not you know I'm a grandma I'm not me too aent Grand I have my grandson so it's another level so for
062me not to be involved I've been involved but in different districts you know my kids are there during the 30s you know so I got my grand kids you know for things that I don't want them for but they're here that's right understand and it's it's reality for all of us and you know for those who can do it though they are still serving lunch and breakfast there's no in school learning but Tuesdays and Thursdays you're more than welcome to go to the schools they they are serving lunch and breakfast every day so um that may help a little bit for ones who can do it on but can't um and by the way you can go to any school so if you have an Edison student live in the Hamilton District or the Bailey
063District that Edison student can go to Bailey or Hamilton and have breakfast or for lunch do they have to eat here yes they have to eat it here well good question and we're trying to work with the state to see if we can uh do some other things to make it a little bit easier for our parents all right well that's pretty much all I have thank you for coming it's really great to see everybody here I wish we had more participation like this you know we all get participation when it hits the fan so you know that's when they come so I don't know but that's the way that's the way it works um Mr do you have anything you like d i do I don't usually but I do today um as Dr
064kpp and some of the board members have said our schools in Indiana are grossly underfunded and they're underfunded because of our lawmakers and things that are going on down state which make referendums necessary unfortunately in this day and age and the only thing that I can tell you is if you don't like seeing districts in this position vote for different lawmakers and that's the only option that we have um Lake Station is one of the hardest hit communities in the entire state in terms of underfunding because of the circuit breaker and so you have a double whammy here because not only are you just underfunded like the rest of the state but it's worse for you because of this circuit breaker and and the tax situation so that has drastically affected your community um I
065can tell you that there isn't a single person sitting up here that isn't going to bend over backwards to answer any question that any person in the community has about this referendum this is so very important and if you ask Mr tenorio a question and he doesn't know the answer I guarantee you he will ask somebody else and get the answer for you and that's going to go for anybody that's sitting up here um there are a lot of legalities in terms of how we were even able to run this referendum this year because we had a failed referendum last year our lawmakers have said you're not allowed to run them backto back however there is a way that you can uh petition the state to be able to run them back to back and
066that is what we did it took a lot of hard work it took a lot of feet on the ground a lot of people getting signatures a lot of people um getting the petitions together working with the election board when I'm telling you this took months and months of work to be able to get to this point this year it did it took Dr cripp liver and myself working with the election board I have worked Direct ly with the Indiana Department of Education I have worked directly with the Department of uh local government Finance um we we have done all these things to be able to meet every deadline that needed to be met in order to place this on the ballot and and that is what we did if anybody has a question about
067any of those procedures you can feel free to contact me directly my office number is 21986 56666 I will be happy to answer any question that you have regarding the statute and how we were able to run this um but we have gotten approvals from every state agency that we needed approvals for and we've met those deadlines so if there are any other questions in that regard please feel free to to ask us and we will be happy to answer them I know that there has been a lot of Mis information on social media I have seen some of it um and again any questions that you have whether it be Mr trewick or anyone else that has a question please feel free to contact myself or anyone else up here for the correct information
068we'll be happy to give it to you also I just want to reiterate that like Mr Torio said not every taxpayer in Lake Station is going to be affected by this particular referendum if you live in River Forest districts you're paying River Forest referendum taxes not ours and I know that years ago when this referendum was first run and this board made up of some different Folks at the time some the same they sat down and they decided upon what kind of a tax burden to try and ask you taxpayers for in order to properly fund our schools and this was not a situation back then where they said let's ask for all kinds of money to run to have a windfall in Lake Station that that was not the case here it was at
069the time what can we get by on what can we get by on that is not going to overly burden the taxpayers and that was the rate that they went with at the time since then I will tell you Lake Station has lost more funding over the years based upon certain decisions that have been made down state that have affected Us Lake Station did not now go back to the taxpayers and say because we lost money we need you to pay more they do need you to pay more that's the reality they do but they're not asking you to pay pay more because they know that you're hurting too everybody is hurting right now and so they're going to get by or trying to get by just to have you pay the same the same
070amount that you've paid and been paying over the past seven years or or however much it's been is that going to be a hardship for the schools even still yes but they will they will make it up somehow they'll figure it out okay for some people we've been talking about this is going to I think you may be paying $7 a month some may be paying $14 a month you're paying that now and they're asking you to continue paying that okay that's what we're talking about here we're not talking about hundreds of dollars a month we're talking about in in many cases $7 $14 a month just to keep your schools operational and I and so I hope that as people on online as people in the community are talking about this you folks that
071are listening are asking the asking the questions you're getting the information from us you're writing it down you're you're telling people in the community who are saying things that are not true no you have the wrong information that's not what it is that's not the truth because the consequence of you not passing this referendum is going to be horrific for your community it in in comparison to the amount that it's really affecting your pocketbook right now and that's what they're asking you to continue and and and so just to reiterate please reach out to anybody up here at any time we'll get if we don't have the information that you need we'll get it for you because it means that much to everybody sitting up here to H to have you have the right information
072so that this can be successful for your kids and for your community thank you I know it's been a long night I got one more thing I want to say before we go when St talking about the people down state making laws that change everything the question that's going to be on the ballot is so misleading and I think the legislators down state do that on purpose I truly don't believe I don't believe they they want public education they want Charter Schools the question on the ballot going to make it seem like we're raising your property taxes 65% it is not they're gonna say exactly the same the question is is worded very strangely and I think they do want do that on purpose they don't want us to to do well so when we
073get our information out there please look at it on on what the question is actually stating because it sounds like we're going to raise your property tax is 65% it is not true going stay exactly the same as long as your house assess value stays the same you're going to pay the exact same thing you're paying today if it passes now they come back and say oh your house was worth 100,000 it's worth 200,000 now it will go up some but that's just because of the private tax not because of the referendum so so make sure everybody understands that it's been a long night anybody else that M peip sure uh we lost that last referendum by 14 votes uh somehow you guys figured it was not even 14 Vols and all this is because
074of 14 vots or less and the thing is now since we lost that res referendum last November this coming November if we win we have to share with C Charter Schools that's your lawmakers that's what they decided we have no no choice I just want that to be out there like Charter Schools that's it thank you good evening thank you all for being here um my microphone's a little louder obviously than everybody else's or I'm just a loud mouth one of the two first I want to thank the parent Guardian for coming in the grandma for coming in and and expressing yourself I think you provided an opportunity for a lot of uh good information to be brought out to everyone and uh I appreciate your passion so no I just don't apologize I think
075it's it's fantastic you you're speaking from the heart and and we all appreciate that so thank you for being here and and and voicing your opinion um I appreciate all of you being here and and for expressing your concerns and um the heartache I know teachers have it rough I I understand that especially um for little ones I was high school math that's heck of a lot easier than a five-year-old so thank you for all you do every day um whether we're online or in person I appreciate you uh with that so much great information has been given out this evening uh we are going to be having open forums where you can come in and ask questions um like I've said from the very beginning please please learn about the process understand what's happening
076so that you can make an informed decision for your family u i I don't have an issue with anyone who disagrees with what I may feel is what's in the best interest for our children as long as you're making that based on facts and not misleading information please take the time to to gain all the information that's available to you ask all the questions I have yet to H have people come to me and ask me uh I'm available Dr cripp is available all the board members are available our attorneys available and any time that works for your schedule you can call and leave a message and we'll call you on the weekends we'll call you in the evenings I will make myself available whenever I possibly can for you because I want to make
077sure you have all the proper information to make the best decision for your family I appreciate you being here I hope more people show up and ask when we have the forums please come out and ask the questions thank you Dr with the final word yes please if I May continuing uh to share very quickly additional information on the referendum Miss peip is correct we are going to have public forums and they will be starting in September after the Labor Day holiday and that will be a time where we will share information answer your questions repeat information whatever it takes we will be there to help you because as she said we want you to make decisions based on fact not based on rumor or u missteps in what people are saying we also are
078setting up a website for people to use that website is under construction as I speak to you this evening so as soon as that is up and running we will make that available to you so look at social media Facebook pages we can't we'll use our personal Facebook accounts and social media accounts to get that information to you also on the web page that we were setting up there will be a frequently asked questions where people will be able to write their question and we will respond and and provide the answers to those questions and in so doing uh as Miss Tober answered one of the questions from Mr trewick this evening that was a good question and I'm glad he asked that and I'm glad we were able to provide the answer to that
079question this evening his second part to that question was since we are only busting three days a week is there a savings that the school district is seeing from transportation and if so what are we using that savings for well the answer is yes we will be seeing a savings we have calculated and recalculated and we'll recalculate again as to what that savings amount is but uh there will be a savings because we busing three days a week and those savings will be put back into the operation fund to be used for those operating expenses uh we still as you've heard tonight we are still under legal obligation to bust our special need students that have transportation as a related service in their individual educational plans IEP so much of the savings that we will
080see we will need to make sure that we can continue to provide the funding that by law we are required to do please ask your questions there is no such thing as a bad question we want to answer them finally tonight I want to end my comments by reminding everybody that this Friday August 23rd is our first home football game and it is again South Newton here at Edison starting at 7 pm and prior to the game there will be a tailgate party in the school parking lot starting at 5:00 and going until the time that the game starts so you're you're welcome to participate in that activity and my last announcement the girls varsity volleyball team will be participating in the Hobert invite this Saturday the 24th at Hobert high school starting at 9:00
081so we want to wish our student athletes much success in good luck in their athletic competitions thank you Mr President thank you Dr ker I'd like to thank everybody for sticking along for this one of our longest board meetings this year so thank you for sticking it out meetings baren