001recite the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America to the for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you very much this time we about public comments um Kim c um my name is Kim micophone for you there if you want my name is timage and I am a retired teacher I taught in mville community school system for 36 years I have lived here all my life I am a product of uh East Gary Lake Station um Community Schools actually all East Gary time um my daughter also attended Lake Station schools graduated from here as well and proud to say currently is a teacher in Wisconsin changed careers with that so um I also serve as the worship leader for a Community Presbyterian
002Church here in Lake Station and I supervise student teachers for C College St Joseph and we've had the pleasure of having students placed here um for their clinicals and for student teaching in Lake Station schools um when I was asked by my supervisor for suggestions I suggest station I spoke with Dr criver and he and my supervisor have worked together in order to get students into the community um my concern and I understand that this is a difficult situation for the board and for the administration in dealing with having to make really what I would consider severe changes to the school year the school day the school week for the children um I feel for the teachers as well but in particular for the children because they are the product of the school corporation that
003you are doing your best for them but I've got some concerns right now as to the three-day in person and the two-day virtual or e-learning my concern is we've learned from we've learned through research and I've done a lot of reading on the subject that inperson learning is the best it is the best way to go it is the best for children that are high achieving it is absolutely the way to go for students with special needs as well as all students in general it's what the students need to have is that in first instruction not only for their education academically but socially as well they need to have that social interaction they don't need the social interaction from social media they need it from iners socializing found there's been much research done I've read
004quite a bit of it dealing with the effects of Co and students not being in school and of course they're coming out now that oh gee that might not have been what was needed to be done well that's just a little bit too [Music] late what data was used to determine this type of a schedule that would be one of my questions um for the administration and for the board and you know I know that this referendum did not pass in nov this past November um you know how long was the work going on in order to determine that this was the best schedule I understand the busing situation I get that um when I went to school here we didn't write bu um your parents either took you or you walk that was you
005know unless you lived in a certain uh area so many miles away you walked to school or you got rides from your parents I can't even imagine the hardship that this will place on parents because in this day and age that both parents have to work if they want to survive both parents unfortunately have to work so now what do those parents do I also know that the referendum in terms of the tax money it's not huge by any stretches the imagination if you're paying it within your mortgage I think it comes out to maybe $20 a month if you're paying it in a lump sum you know obviously whatever that amount would be um is what the amount is for your taxes my other question would be so if the referendum doesn't pass is
006that taken off the tax bill or does it stay there and go for something else that's not something you can really readily find an answer to and I'm guessing that would come from the county I'm assuming I'm not sure on that one that when I really haven't researched while um I mentioned that I work with student teacher and we've had students here for clinicals as well as student teaching I will be quite honest obviously I'm not speaking on behalf of the college but if someone were to ask me if I should place or if we should Place students here I would honestly have to say no because three days a week in person for students learning to become teachers is not it's not good for them and at this point I have to look out
007for my students as well so I would actually I would like to know where the data came from the research came from to go with this type of a schedule um I would also like to just leave you with one thought I had a principal who used to come into our class to my classroom to speak to the students and it was usually prior to standardized testing time and he would always tell the students that you wanted them to do their best not only for themselves but for their parents and the students would just kind of look at him and wonder well why for my parents because if the schools if the students are successful the schools are successful if the schools are successful the community grows and the community is successful I hope the
008referendum passes for you all in November because I would love to to see school buses or even children walking to school five days a week not thank you very much thank you Kim K K go right into this time I'd like to turn the meeting over to Dr cripli okay thank you Mr President good evening everyone and also good evening to those watching us online uh for our regularly scheduled Schoolboard meeting at this time we will move into the business of the agenda for those of you that do not have agendas we do have some available on the table for you if you would like to follow along our first item of business is the consent agenda and I'm recommending to the board this evening that they approve the consent agenda as presented with the
009approval of minutes Financial fiscal extracurricular hirings and extracurricular resignations and the donations that we have listed and if I may take just a few moments to talk about the donations the Flying J Truck Stop is donating $500 to the Eagles educ or Eagles football program excuse me Tranco Industrial Services are donation of $300 to the Edison football program George's gyos a don donation of $300 to the Edison football program Midwest Family Credit Union a donation of $500 to the Edison football program and the parents and audience members of the music spring concerts donated $60 to go toward our music department so I want to thank all of those agencies and businesses and individuals for making those financial donations to our Lake Station Community Schools and those specific programs with that I would recommend to the
010board that they approve the consent agenda as presented to you this evening president motion we have a second second we have a second any discussion on the item BR none we'll take a vote Mr Bigs hi M Curtis hi Mr music hi Mr R hi I vote I moving on to items on the Personnel item number one I recommend to the board that they approve to hire Mark Chavez and Mia weinand as teachers in our summer school program that we have going on if I could also add that Mr chabz and Mrs weinland are special education teachers here at Edison Junior Senior High School during the regular year and they have been with us for 15 plus years so they are well known not only to our teachers parents but also to our students but
011because those teachers are hired by the northwest Indiana special education cooperative and are not teachers hired by Lake Station schools we have to take that step to hire them to work in our special or excuse me our summer school program so that's why even though they are well known to us that's why I'm recommending that we hire them as Lake Station teacher for our summer school program sport pleasure Mr chairman I make motion we pass motion second motion a second any discussion take the vot Mr Bigs hi M Curtis hi Mr music I Mr Wright I and I vote I item number two I recommend to the board this evening that they accept the resignations from the following teachers effective immediately those teachers are Julie Mills Ambrosia Peterson Brooke STK Danielle patch Tammy tidy and
012Fabiola gimz there a motion second any discussion yeah I would uh just like to say that um I I really wish them luck in their future endeavors really difficult to see so many teachers leave and I won't pretend to know all their U motivations or anything like that but um I can understand where they may be coming from with some of the uncertainty and things ahead and um I'm just so sorry that uh we're seeing them go I wish it wasn't the case but good luck to them thank you Mr music I agree with you 100% any other discussion here now take a vot Mr Bigs hi M Curtis hi Mr music hi Mr r i i vot i item number three I recommend to the board this evening that they approve the reduction in
013force of the following teachers effective immediately Dan Madden Lissa mavic Judy Mitri and Rebecca Henderson a motion do we have a second any discussion on again I want to Echo the same thoughts in a way um this is not a decision that we want to make at all this is not the type of uh vote that we want to have pass not what we want to be going through in any way shape or form um we greatly appreciate all of our teachers I I personally appreciate everything that teachers and staff here have done for my children and for all of our children um so this is a very difficult decision to make we don't take it like LLY and I'm you know so sorry for the the situation that we're in but I do wish
014them luck and I hope that they um you know find a good spot for them to land than you any other discussion perfectly said horrible that we're in and just counting I mean basically we have one two three four five teachers that are getting reped that's that's horrible you don't want to do that but the number would be so much larger if we wouldn't have the resignations before that so just want to make sure that everybody's aware that we did only had to rip five because of the resignations and it's all those things teachers are leaving us because of the uncertainty and then the ones that we have to rip it's just not a good situation but it's because the referendum failed so um I wish there was a better answer for it but I
015wish them all well um hope they can move on and find Steady employment so any other discussions take the vote Mr Bigs hi m c m c Mr music hi Mr Wright hi can I vot item number four under Personnel I'm recommending to the board that they accept the resignation of Deborah Cruz Bailey School secretary effective May 22nd 2024 Mr chairman make a motion we pass speak motion do we have a second second second by m Curtis any discussion um yeah uh so uh my my kids have a lot of good memories of Miss Cruz and uh I'm sure plenty of other kids and parents do as well so uh I am sad to see her go but I do wish her luck um she's a a wonderful person we really appreciated everything that she
016did for us while she was here thank you Mr music any other comments discussion take the vot Mr Bigs hi Miss Curtis hi Mr music hi Mr Wright can I vote on item number five I recommend to the board this evening they approve to hire Brianna Alderson as the new Bailey School secretary starting in the 2425 school year for pleasure I make a motion I motion we have a second second second a motion a second any discussion bigs hi Miss Curtis hi Mr music hi Mr Wright hi I moving on to items under new business the first item I recommend to the board for information only not for a vote to receive for first reading the board policies and bylaws from the special updates that were issued in June of 2024 due to legislative changes
017this is information given to the school board for them to review at our next regularly scheduled school board meeting that's when I will ask the board to consider those revised and new board policies or bylaws but this simply is for information this evening moving on to item number two I do recommend to the board for consideration to approve the changes to the 2024 2025 school year the changes being the elimination of the early release Wednesdays and e-learning days on Tuesday and Thursdays for the first [Music] semester superintendent's recommendation what's what's the board's pleasure motion Mo a second is there any discussion um yeah just to make it uh clear for everyone obviously uh this is REM removing the the Wednesday uh early release this is Shifting to as uh Mrs concate over there was talking
018about the Tuesdays and Thursday's e-learning now I want to recognize that I understand that this is not ideal and this is not what we want to do um unfortunately this was something that we we have had to prepare for to some extent in case the referendum failed so uh I believe it was February of uh 2022 we signed uh the notice uh stating that Transportation was going to have to end in February of 2025 so we had to give a three-year notice on that we're already having to make some adjustments to you know offset some of these uh the costs and make sure that we can keep as many teachers as possible and staff as possible to make sure that the schools are running this is not what we want to do and if there's
019any other Solutions we're working on those we're hoping to to get somewhere with um you know assistance from other parties as well but we don't have anything conrete yet um but hopefully we can find some solutions and at the very least um I would highlight that this does say that it's for the first semester um so come November um if we are able to put the referendum on the ballot and it passes we will be able to almost immediately transition back to full full five-day Transportation full five days in school uh I want to make sure I make that clear to everyone that that's the the 100% the intent that's 100% what we are going to be doing should the referendum end up on the ballot in November and pass thank you Mr music any
020other comments discussion take a vote Mr Bigs hi M Curtis hi Mr music hi Mr rght I I I moving on to facility requests I recommend to the board that they approve the to patio company of Northwest Indiana to use the Edison Junior High School auditorium October 4th from 8 to 300M and October 5th from 12 noon to to 900 p.m. for their his exping Heritage event heard the recommendation have a second second any discussion take it to a vote Mr Bigs hi M Curtis hi Mr music hi Mr right I vot I item number two I recommend to the board that they approve the Lake Station girls varsity basketball team to use the Edison Junior High School gym on June 29th 202 4 from 10: to noon for a youth basketball camp that they
021will host motion second second we got a second any discussion no Mr Bigs hi M Curtis I Mr music hi Mr Wright I can I vote I Mr President I have no further visit to come before the board this evening except to announce that our next regularly scheduled school board meeting meeting will be on Wednesday July 17th 2024 here in the community room at Edison Junior Senior High School thank you Mr President thank you Dr killer Mr Bigs you have any parying comments yeah first I want to thanks for hosting uh being here at the high school again and Miss K thank you for your comments and I know we take it to heart what you had to say so and thank you for the public that showed up today and the ones out there
022on our viewing people so thank you Curtis absolutely I hope everyone can um hear me I heard a lot of things from Facebook and personally people saying our last last meeting the sound system did not work well so I'm hoping that holding it and speaking clearly everyone can understand uh the first thing I want to say is that oddly oddly enough the change that has occurred in the last 20 years has got me just dumbfounded regardless of whether we want to accept it or not Indiana is what is called a referendum state they're trying to give more power back to the communities however legislators are preventing us from operating schools appropriately we got that stuff piled left and right so it's very confusing we want to be able to have all the adequate resources for
023each student and I guarantee you each person sitting up here on this board wants what's best for the student we just have different perspectives on how to look at it often times I hear once they see us having these board meetings that were boring I got to tell you serving on this Schoolboard is not boring trying to understand why even legislators do not call us back when it's becoming urgent regarding the money we need to educate the children they don't call us back and then they make what I consider bonehead decisions about trying to operate a local school district so I'm down off of my soap oper there my soap box and uh thank you very much thank you principal Stoner for having us and uh I really do appreciate each one of the people
024that are serving this district teachers parents people working hard it is really an honor to serve here thank you thank you m Curtis Mr music um yes so I have a few things that I want to address and I apologize to the gentleman to my right in case I take something that they were going to bring up but um there were a few things that I wanted to make sure that I mentioned um obviously uh with all the discussion U whether it's on social media or questions that people were asking me personally or just around that we've heard I want to try to answer some of those I can't get to all of them obviously I try to keep an eye on things and I'll do my best to you know get answers for questions
025that I don't have yet um so one of the first things um I wanted to mention was of course that we have not sold pulk school we are renting it to the Boys and Girls Club um that rent money is used to basically help pay for the the upkeep on the building doesn't cover all the cost of us still having the building under our umbrella but it is a very useful resource for the families and our community so that's part of the reason why we made that decision um I think that a lot of people would agree that the Boys and Girls Club is a very helpful organization it gives uh students somewhere to go after school if they're waiting for parents to get home or anything like that but I just want to make
026it clear that we have not sold the building um something else I wanted to mention was um of course I already mentioned that we our goal is to of course bring back the full Transportation should the referendum be the other side of that too is that of course with some of our person and everything we want to bring them back as quickly as possible that might be a little bit more of a a struggle in the middle of a school year like that but of course we want to bring back Personnel teachers anyone that forun on recently our goal is to bring them back as soon as possible as soon as we [Music] have again I miss Mrs con I appreciate you coming up and expressing your concerns um obviously I'm concerned about it as
027well I've said it multiple times now I've kids that go to school here at Edison um I have a little one that's getting ready to be making her way into school as well these are all decisions that affect my family as well so I I I'm not it's not like I don't have any kind of um skin in the game to so to speak or anything like that these are all decisions that affect my family my kids ride the school bus to to school every day so um it's not something that we want to do um to give a little perspective as well um as you mentioned you know there's a lot of households here that if there are two parents which some families don't even have two parents in the household um but if
028there are two parents they're both working and how are they going to make this situation work for themselves work for their family and so to mirror that I I kind of wanted to use that as an example for what we do here for our operating budget half about half of our our operating budget comes from our education fund about the other half came from the referendum so it would be similar to that two income household all of a sudden losing one of their incomes and the difficult decisions that household would have to make to make ends meet so it's not exactly the same but that's just one way I wanted to frame it for you to give you some idea it would be like you you know if both parents were working at home and
029all of a sudden one of them lost their jobs that's what we're that's basically what we're dealing with now we we've lost half of the operating uh budget money that was coming in and now we have to try to figure out what we can do to make sure that we can still stay above water as much as possible and still try to help the kids as best as we can um again e-learning is not ideal I do think that going Tuesdays and Thursdays is our best option so that the students are in school before and after an e-learning day so that if there's any confusion or if they need extra help they have that inperson instruction following an e-learning day so I think that will help I don't think it's going to be perfect of
030course but um like I said ideally as listed here this is for the first semester if we can get that referendum on the ballot and pass you know we can we can shift gears and start making those changes as soon as possible um other than that I do have one other question before I shut up here um I know some people were mentioning how the children aren't able to bring the Chromebooks home right now and that is of course because of a safety issue we did not want to have those Chromebooks going home and end up with a a student or their family being harmed because of the the safety issues we are resolving that um we are most of the way to the resolution on getting the new Chromebooks uh through an agreement with
031HP to replace some of them things like that so uh we don't see any reason why we won't be able to have Chromebooks for every student to take home with them come the start of the school year but we will update you if something changes on that but I don't foresee any issues with that so I'm sorry uh this is this is really difficult for us um it's going to be difficult for everyone I'm sorry that we're in this position and I will continue to do what I can to try to help in any way um and if you have questions or anything like that please feel free to come to a meeting and ask them uh I'm paying attention to social media um and trying to make sure that I answer questions there and
032clear things up I can't be everywhere at once but I'll do everything that I can so thank you so much thank you Mr music sure right yes um first thank you to uh Sten for having us in your building appreciate it and I know I mentioned it I'm going to continue to mention it I love it thank princip here support I love what uh I'm gon lot of stuff Mr music said uh he went in De with that I planned on to I'm not g to record here but I do want to say some things jump back real quick to the whole thing about the rumors on social media say we sold it that money um and there was an additional rumor of we had multiple offers in these rumors you're hearing on social media
033select people two that I see it's just there's no facts or knowledge behind they're just pulling random things out that they want to trying to convince all of you that it's true um we're not hiding anything I promise you come to a Mee talk to us we'll tell you what you he well may not what you want to hear but we'll tell you the truth I I I assure you we are not Hing anything we're not turning down sales we're not selling the building and hiding the money here and there it's not going so I'm not going to get crazy deting that but I'm going to go back to statement I I can't agree with any more than I feel the same right and it's unfortunate uh and when all of this was a discussion
034[Music] um many times we back and forth and back and forth what about this maybe this maybe that uh where your research came from me personally okay uh our superintendent our assist assistant superintendent and in education apologize not saying this but probably as long as I've been alive right um I put all my faith in those those positions I am here to support them and make sure we do what's best for our community our district our buildings microphone issues was anything said do I need to start over uh quick recap we didn't sell the building of pulk we didn't turn down offers for pul we're not hiding money we're not hiding anything from you um I apologize I don't know what the issue was there but hopefully we're back up and good now um M
035K Kate again um those two down there I trust everything they do when it comes to education in our students I have their back 100% um and and I continue to support them and believe in them that we're doing the right thing is it the the best thing no obviously the best thing would haveen five days right but it is um at this moment and [Music] um where my decision was made um for me me I'm speaking for me personally um they did their research they did their homework they did their brainstorming they presented us options and uh I have faith in them that under our circumstances we're doing the best we can right now but thank you I I it needed to be said it was nice to hear and I I agree with
036you um the whole walking back then and now two households back then it was a lot easier to live so you had two parents you had somebody that could take the kid unfortunately you said it both parents are working if they have two parents so that that's not an option so it's it's hard um go back to a little bit of uh social media again I don't know what was heard and what was not from what I've seen on social media um there's two main people that are just calling us liars and this and that and her fabricating everything um come come ask just we we'll tell you everything I promise you it's not a board member up here that I know that's hiding anything um or or administrator or Finance or anything like we're
037giving you all the information everything we told you you're now seeing is coming true because the referendum failed and it's horrible it's it's it it's I don't like it but unfortunately we have to work through it um I know myself and and the board here we are going to do everything we can to be successful uccessful if this hits the uh ballots again um donators thank you so much uh especially in a time like this donations are huge so we appreciate you guys still out there supporting our kiddos um I feel like I'm forgetting some things but uh I'll close it at that so all right so anything left to say k i i i really um admire your family your husband your your father you guys been in education a long time and almost
038everything you said I agree with e-learning is not the best solution it it is not but we have to start cutting somewhere then you have the solution well it's the best of the parent that can stay home and e-learn their kids or the ones that can't bring them to school there every household is gonna be different which one they can do um but unfortunately money situation probably tilted that the way we went with the busing just just flat out that's because of the money because of the referendum so um that's that's where kind of the research was and in February if it doesn't get put on the ballet pass we won't have any busing at all so I'm not sure how that's going to you know that's really gonna affect the families worse but I
039truly appreciate you coming to take the time out um I have four grandkids in this in this that I'll be probably e-learning with three of them myself okay so like Kevin said I have skin in the game My 80-year-old mother will be e-learning with a five a seven-year old so um yes I know it's not going to be easy and uh we didn't take that decision lightly so but I do appreciate you coming here and expressing your opinion which I would hope more people would do and I'd really appreciate you being here okay um so that I'd like to go back into a little more into the Social Media stuff because everybody has their their opinion whether the referendum whether they're forward against it but the people who put out false information on social media
040it just angers me um there's a gentleman named Gary triek the Lake Station troll I think he calls himself he put out a uh Instagram or whatever it was saying that the board lied he shows a slide saying look right here bus transportation was $466,000 President Greg Toral said it was almost $800,000 that slide actually said that's how much $466,000 is what we're going to use from the referend the rest of the money was what we we transferred from the education fund so for him to say that we're just lying and putting that slide up there and makes people believe that what he's saying is just it's just not true and it angers me um so that 466,000 is shown in that slide that's what we use from the referendum money the rest of the
041money to get you $800,000 we took from the education fund public transportation does cost almost $800,000 a year for our busing um he went on about Pok Pok school and what we doing with all that money I what what we charge Pok school is $1,500 a month and the reason it's so low is because of who it is it it is a program that we desperately need in this city and I don't know if I'm gonna let the cat out of the bag but we're in talks with them about opening Tuesdays and Thursdays during the during the school year so hopefully some parents that can't stay home with their kids will be able take them the boys and girls that's still in the works hope I didn't let the cat out of the bag Dr
042C L we we're hoping we're going to finalize all that but uh so that $1,500 a month Mr trewick basically so the building doesn't fall down around us they're doing all the maintenance all the cutting the grass they they put $300,000 into it um they're they're they're maintaining the building for us that's a cost that we don't have to incur plus the $1,500 so I'm not sure what we do with that $1,500 probably change trucks I don't know it's not very much money I guess is my point and uh there's another gentleman saying that we had several offers to sell poke school we did not by state law we had to list that building on the doe website. crippler if I say anything wrong please correct me for 90 days if any Charter School want
043to buy it we had to sell it to them for $1 $1 we did that and nobody wanted to pay $1 for that building now we are in the market of trying to sell it for market value and that's what we're going to try and do so anybody out there that's saying that you know Pok School whatever whatever that's where we're at we're g to try and sell it hopefully to the Boys and Girls Clubs but we're not sure on that but if not we can sell it now we can sell it for the fair market value of the school so the these people that go online and just spew these lies I wish they would come here and and ask questions and get information Miss Gade com comes here that that's why I really
044appreciate you being there SK come here ask questions and don't listen to these guys that are lying you know that this Gary he was very convincing he shows you that slide but it's not the full detail it's not the actual truth um so I I just want to make that clear um so again I'm very sorry about all the teachers that resigned because they're not in a stable um School District um sorry about the teachers we had the ri I'm glad that number is lower but it's lower because of the resignations um s time we really need to get that referendum passed and uh if anybody really has any questions they want to be asked please call me any School Board number call Dr liver come to a meeting and get the real information and
045don't listen to the people online that are basically lying to you so with that I am gonna get up get done and uh turn it back over to Dr prpp for the last say oh miss P do you have anything I'm sorry that's okay the one thing I would like to add to to go along with what what's been said I want to make sure that there's no misunderstanding uh we mentioned about the transportation and that if the referendum passes that we would look to going back to uh five days a week of Transportation as quickly as possible and there'll be people out there who say oh well see they're trying to scare you and because they can do Transportation right away then the next day the reason we could do that was because our
046last referendum payment is in December so right now we have to be fiscally responsible and plan as though the referendum will not pass we have to we have to be fiscally responsible so if the referendum were to pass we know that our payments will continue the the December payment is the last payment of the old referendum if the new one should pass then that would continue with our June payment as usual so that is the reason why we would be able to make it an adjustment so quickly because we do have until December with our very last payment if the referendum doesn't pass payments go away so I want to make sure that people are aware why we'd be able to do such a quick turnaround and that's because we have that payment in December
047and then it will continue on and not then leave if the referendum were to fail so I wanted to clarify that thank you m people thank you have anything else you like to say before we wrap this up the only thing i' would like to add to that is I have had the pleasure of working with Mrs Gade as a supervisor of students going into teaching at calan College of St Joseph I really understand her concerns over the predicaments that we are going into at this time not wanting to place students going into teaching here in Lake Station schools that saddens me we've had very very very good students going into education becoming teachers come from CET College I'm sure that will continue and I'm hoping in the very near future we can get back
048what we are used to the programs the teachers the support staff that we need for our students in Lake Station schools and renew our working professionalism and working relationship with kadan College of St Joseph as well as the other higher institutions of Education in the area uh our students benefit from working with those students going to be teachers we get the opportunity to get to know them determine if they would be good teachers and right for our school district and we've had the opportunity to hire some in the past from their student teaching and uh field experiences that they've done in our school district so though it saddens me I understand that we also have to protect those students in high red as they study to get into their chosen professions and education but I'm
049looking forward to the day when we're able to have student teachers work with cman college at St Joseph and restore that very positive and very good relationship that we've had for many many years and with that said I'll turn it back over to the president is there anybody else who like any comments before we wrap this up anybody anybody have any comments say board open anybody have any comments okay that we'll join the meeting thank you